Book Image

Python: Penetration Testing for Developers

By : Christopher Duffy, Mohit , Cameron Buchanan, Andrew Mabbitt, Terry Ip, Dave Mound, Benjamin May
Book Image

Python: Penetration Testing for Developers

By: Christopher Duffy, Mohit , Cameron Buchanan, Andrew Mabbitt, Terry Ip, Dave Mound, Benjamin May

Overview of this book

Cybercriminals are always one step ahead, when it comes to tools and techniques. This means you need to use the same tools and adopt the same mindset to properly secure your software. This course shows you how to do just that, demonstrating how effective Python can be for powerful pentesting that keeps your software safe. Comprising of three key modules, follow each one to push your Python and security skills to the next level. In the first module, we’ll show you how to get to grips with the fundamentals. This means you’ll quickly find out how to tackle some of the common challenges facing pentesters using custom Python tools designed specifically for your needs. You’ll also learn what tools to use and when, giving you complete confidence when deploying your pentester tools to combat any potential threat. In the next module you’ll begin hacking into the application layer. Covering everything from parameter tampering, DDoS, XXS and SQL injection, it will build on the knowledge and skills you learned in the first module to make you an even more fluent security expert. Finally in the third module, you’ll find more than 60 Python pentesting recipes. We think this will soon become your trusted resource for any pentesting situation. This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: ? Learning Penetration Testing with Python by Christopher Duffy ? Python Penetration Testing Essentials by Mohit ? Python Web Penetration Testing Cookbook by Cameron Buchanan,Terry Ip, Andrew Mabbitt, Benjamin May and Dave Mound
Table of Contents (32 chapters)
Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
Credits
Preface
Bibliography
Index

Testing HTTP methods


A good place to start with testing web servers is at the beginning of the HTTP request, by enumerating the HTTP methods. The HTTP method is sent by the client and indicates to the web server the type of action that the client is expecting.

As specified in RFC 7231, all web servers must support GET and HEAD methods, and all other methods are optional. As there are a lot of common methods beyond the initial GET and HEAD methods, this makes it a good place to focus testing on, as each server will be written to handle requests and send responses in a different way.

An interesting HTTP method to look out for is TRACE, as its availability leads to Cross Site Tracing (XST). TRACE is a loop-back test and basically echoes the request it receives back to the user. This means it can be used for Cross-site scripting attacks (called in this case Cross Site Tracing). To do this, the attacker gets a victim to send a TRACE request, with a JavaScript payload in the body, which would then...