Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By : Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari
Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By: Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari

Overview of this book

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition shows you how to set up a lab, helps you understand the nature and mechanics of attacking websites, and explains classical attacks in great depth. This edition is heavily updated for the latest Kali Linux changes and the most recent attacks. Kali Linux shines when it comes to client-side attacks and fuzzing in particular. From the start of the book, you'll be given a thorough grounding in the concepts of hacking and penetration testing, and you'll see the tools used in Kali Linux that relate to web application hacking. You'll gain a deep understanding of classicalSQL, command-injection flaws, and the many ways to exploit these flaws. Web penetration testing also needs a general overview of client-side attacks, which is rounded out by a long discussion of scripting and input validation flaws. There is also an important chapter on cryptographic implementation flaws, where we discuss the most recent problems with cryptographic layers in the networking stack. The importance of these attacks cannot be overstated, and defending against them is relevant to most internet users and, of course, penetration testers. At the end of the book, you'll use an automated technique called fuzzing to identify flaws in a web application. Finally, you'll gain an understanding of web application vulnerabilities and the ways they can be exploited using the tools in Kali Linux.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Mitigation


We will now discuss how to prevent or mitigate the vulnerabilities explained in the preceding sections. In short, we'll do the following:

  • Follow the principle of least privilege
  • Validate all inputs
  • Check/harden server configuration

Insecure direct object references

Always favor the use of indirect references. Use nonconsecutive numeric identifiers to reference a table of allowed objects instead of allowing the user to use the object's name directly.

Proper input validation and sanitization of data received from the browser will prevent a path traversal attack. The developer of the application should be careful about taking user input when making filesystem calls. If possible, this should be avoided. A chroot jail involves isolating the application's root directory from the rest of the operating system, and it is a good mitigation technique, but it may be difficult to implement.

For other types of direct object references, the principle of least privilege must be followed. Users should...