Book Image

Kali Linux Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Corey P. Schultz, Bob Perciaccante
Book Image

Kali Linux Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Corey P. Schultz, Bob Perciaccante

Overview of this book

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for penetration testing and security auditing. It is the successor to BackTrack, the world’s most popular penetration testing distribution. Kali Linux is the most widely used platform and toolkit for penetration testing. Security is currently the hottest field in technology with a projected need for millions of security professionals. This book focuses on enhancing your knowledge in Kali Linux for security by expanding your skills with toolkits and frameworks that can increase your value as a security professional. Kali Linux Cookbook, Second Edition starts by helping you install Kali Linux on different options available. You will also be able to understand the lab architecture and install a Windows host for use in the lab. Next, you will understand the concept of vulnerability analysis and look at the different types of exploits. The book will introduce you to the concept and psychology of Social Engineering and password cracking. You will then be able to use these skills to expand the scope of any breaches you create. Finally, the book will guide you in exploiting specific technologies and gaining access to other systems in the environment. By the end of this book, you will have gained the core knowledge and concepts of the penetration testing process.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

What you need for this book

This book assumes a medium level of expertise on Linux operating systems, strong knowledge of networking technologies, including both wired and wireless, moderate experience with OS platform configuration, and moderate experience with general information security concepts. This book will go through the process of setting up a basic testing lab, the installation of Kali Linux, and the tools needed to perform network reconnaissance, and exploitation. Because you will be running exercises against live hosts, it is important that this environment is isolated from other non-test environments.

Kali Linux can be installed into a virtual environment such as VirtualBox or VMware, or can be installed onto a dedicated hardware. This book requires that you have enough compute resources for the Kali Linux installation as well as the target systems. In addition to the minimum requirements for your hypervisor, minimum hardware or virtual requirements are listed as follows:

  • CPU: 10 cores
  • Memory: 24 GB RAM
  • Disk space: 260 GB

In this book, you will need the following software list:

  • Kali Linux 2017.x
  • VirtualBox
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 7
  • Windows 2008

Internet connectivity is required to install the necessary additional packages that must be installed onto Kali Linux, depending on the recipe requirements.