Book Image

Mastering Kali Linux for Web Penetration Testing

By : Michael McPhee
Book Image

Mastering Kali Linux for Web Penetration Testing

By: Michael McPhee

Overview of this book

You will start by delving into some common web application architectures in use, both in private and public cloud instances. You will also learn about the most common frameworks for testing, such as OWASP OGT version 4, and how to use them to guide your efforts. In the next section, you will be introduced to web pentesting with core tools and you will also see how to make web applications more secure through rigorous penetration tests using advanced features in open source tools. The book will then show you how to better hone your web pentesting skills in safe environments that can ensure low-risk experimentation with the powerful tools and features in Kali Linux that go beyond a typical script-kiddie approach. After establishing how to test these powerful tools safely, you will understand how to better identify vulnerabilities, position and deploy exploits, compromise authentication and authorization, and test the resilience and exposure applications possess. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with the web service architecture to identify and evade various protection mechanisms that are used on the Web today. You will leave this book with a greater mastery of essential test techniques needed to verify the secure design, development, and operation of your customers' web applications.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Scanning for Vulnerabilities with Arachni

Web application vulnerability scanners are big businesses. A quick research into alternatives will show you that there are literally hundreds of open source and commercial scanners, and all of them offer varying coverage of the vuln space as well as functions that extend into the different phases of the Pen Test Kill chain. As is the case with any trend in security, this explosion in the market is a symptom of something else entirely: web applications are, by their very nature, easy to access and popular for hackers to exploit. The payoff for a successful breach or compromise is massive.

Most major companies involved in cyber security solutions publish annual reports that summarize the past year's events and make predictions of the expected trends that will shape the business in the years to come. Verizon, Dell, Cisco, FireEye, Symantec...