Book Image

Kali Linux 2: Windows Penetration Testing

Book Image

Kali Linux 2: Windows Penetration Testing

Overview of this book

Microsoft Windows is one of the two most common OS and managing its security has spawned the discipline of IT security. Kali Linux is the premier platform for testing and maintaining Windows security. Kali is built on the Debian distribution of Linux and shares the legendary stability of that OS. This lets you focus on using the network penetration, password cracking, forensics tools and not the OS. This book has the most advanced tools and techniques to reproduce the methods used by sophisticated hackers to make you an expert in Kali Linux penetration testing. First, you are introduced to Kali's top ten tools and other useful reporting tools. Then, you will find your way around your target network and determine known vulnerabilities to be able to exploit a system remotely. Next, you will prove that the vulnerabilities you have found are real and exploitable. You will learn to use tools in seven categories of exploitation tools. Further, you perform web access exploits using tools like websploit and more. Security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Passwords are often that weak link. Thus, you learn about password attacks that can be used in concert with other approaches to break into and own a network. Moreover, you come to terms with network sniffing, which helps you understand which users are using services you can exploit, and IP spoofing, which can be used to poison a system's DNS cache. Once you gain access to a machine or network, maintaining access is important. Thus, you not only learn penetrating in the machine you also learn Windows privilege’s escalations. With easy to follow step-by-step instructions and support images, you will be able to quickly pen test your system and network.

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Kali Linux 2: Windows Penetration Testing
Jun, 2016 | 422 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Kali Linux 2: Windows Penetration Testing
Kali Linux 2: Windows Penetration Testing
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Sharpening the Saw
Sharpening the Saw
Installing Kali Linux to an encrypted USB drive
Running Kali from the live CD
Installing and configuring applications
Setting up and configuring OpenVAS
Reporting the tests
Running services on Kali Linux
Exploring the Kali Linux Top 10 and more
Summary
2
Information Gathering and Vulnerability Assessment
Information Gathering and Vulnerability Assessment
Footprinting the network
Where can you find instructions on this thing?
A return to OpenVAS
Using Maltego
Using Unicorn-Scan
Monitoring resource use with Htop
Monkeying around the network
Summary
3
Exploitation Tools (Pwnage)
Exploitation Tools (Pwnage)
Choosing the appropriate time and tool
Choosing the right version of Metasploit
Starting Metasploit
Creating workspaces to organize your attack
Using the hosts and services commands
Using advanced footprinting
Using the pivot
Creating the attack path
Summary
4
Web Application Exploitation
Web Application Exploitation
Surveying the webscape
Arm yourself with Armitage
Zinging Windows servers with OWASP ZAP
Search and destroy with Burp Suite
Summary
5
Sniffing and Spoofing
Sniffing and Spoofing
Sniffing and spoofing network traffic
Sniffing network traffic
Spoofing network traffic
Summary
6
Password Attacks
Password Attacks
Password attack planning
My friend Johnny
John the Ripper (command line)
xHydra
Adding a tool to the main menu in Kali 2.x
Summary
7
Windows Privilege Escalation
Windows Privilege Escalation
Gaining access with Metasploit
Replacing the executable
Local privilege escalation with a standalone tool
Escalating privileges with physical access
Weaseling in with Weevely
Summary
8
Maintaining Remote Access
Maintaining Remote Access
Maintaining access
Maintaining access with Ncat
The Dropbox
Cracking the NAC (Network Access Controller)
Creating a Spear-Phishing Attack with the Social Engineering Toolkit
Using Backdoor-Factory to Evade Antivirus
Summary
9
Reverse Engineering and Stress Testing
Reverse Engineering and Stress Testing
Setting up a test environment
Reverse engineering theory
Working with Boolean logic
Practicing reverse engineering
Stresstesting Windows
Summary
10
Forensics
Forensics
Getting into Digital Forensics
Exploring Guymager
Diving into Autopsy
Mounting image files
Summary
Index
Index

Setting up and configuring OpenVAS

Recon is everything, so a good vulnerability scanner is necessary. Kali come with OpenVAS installed. It must be configured and updated before use. Fortunately, Kali comes with a helpful script to set this up. This can be found under Applications | openvas initial setup. Clicking on this will open a terminal window and run the script for you. This will set up the self-signed certificates for SSL and download the latest vulnerability files and related data. It will also generate a password for the admin account on the system.

Tip

Be sure to save this password as you will need it to login. You can change it after your first login.

Kali also comes with a check setup script which will check the services and configuration. If an issue does come up it will give you helpful information on the issue. This script can be found at Applications | Kali Linux | System Services | OpenVas | openvas check setup. Click here and a terminal window will open and run the script.

The script results are as shown in the following screenshot:

Note this check shows the running ports of the services. The check shows a warning that these services are only running on the local interface. This is fine for your work. It may at some point be useful for you to run the OpenVAS server on some other machine to improve the speed of your scans.

Next, we will log into the Greenbone web interface to check OpenVAS. Open the browser and go to https://localhost:9392. You will be shown the security warning for a self-signed certificate. Accept this and you will get the following login screen.

You will log in with the user name admin and the very long and complex password generated during the set up. Don't worry, we're going to change that once we get logged in. Once logged in you will see the following page.

Now go to the Administration | Users tab:

This will take you to the user administration page. Click the wrench link to the right of the name admin and this will open the edit page for the admin user.

This will take you to the edit page. Change the radio button for Use existing value to the blank field and add your new password and click the Save button.

We've now finished the setup of OpenVAS and we're ready to do some real work.

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