In this chapter we are going to demonstrate the complete lab setup needed for the practical, hands-on working experience with this book. To set up the lab we need three things: Oracle VM VirtualBox, Microsoft Windows XP SP2, and BackTrack 5 R2.
Oracle VM VirtualBox is a product of Sun Microsystems. It is a software virtualization application and is used for running multiple operating systems on a single computer. It supports many operating systems including Linux, Macintosh, Sun Solaris, BSD, and OS/2. Each virtual machine can execute its own operating system in parallel with the host operating system. It also supports Network adapters, USB devices, and Physical disk drives within a virtual machine.
Microsoft Windows XP is an operating system produced by the Microsoft Corporation. It is primarily used for personal computers and laptops.
BackTrack is a Linux-based freeware operating system. It is widely used by security professionals and penetration testers. It consists of a lot of open source tools for penetration testing and digital forensics.
Now we will install both operating systems in Oracle VM VirtualBox, and use BackTrack as an attacker machine and Windows XP as the victim machine.