Book Image

Python Penetration Testing Cookbook

By : Rejah Rehim
Book Image

Python Penetration Testing Cookbook

By: Rejah Rehim

Overview of this book

Penetration testing is the use of tools and code to attack a system in order to assess its vulnerabilities to external threats. Python allows pen testers to create their own tools. Since Python is a highly valued pen-testing language, there are many native libraries and Python bindings available specifically for pen-testing tasks. Python Penetration Testing Cookbook begins by teaching you how to extract information from web pages. You will learn how to build an intrusion detection system using network sniffing techniques. Next, you will find out how to scan your networks to ensure performance and quality, and how to carry out wireless pen testing on your network to avoid cyber attacks. After that, we’ll discuss the different kinds of network attack. Next, you’ll get to grips with designing your own torrent detection program. We’ll take you through common vulnerability scenarios and then cover buffer overflow exploitation so you can detect insecure coding. Finally, you’ll master PE code injection methods to safeguard your network.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Format string exploitation

A format string is an ASCIIZ string that contains text and format parameters. The format string vulnerability occurs when the submitted data of an input string is evaluated as a command by the application. With the help of this method, the attacker could execute code, read the stack, and may cause a segmentation fault. Format string vulnerability exist in most of the printf family functions, such as printf, sprintf, and fprintf. These are the common parameters that can be used in format string vulnerabilities:

  • "%x": It reads data from the stack
  • "%s": It reads character strings from the process memory
  • "%n": It writes an integer to locations in the process memory
  • "%p": It's external representation of a pointer to void
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