Preface
Python is a high-level and general-purpose language with clear syntax and a comprehensive standard library. Often referred to as a scripting language, Python is dominant in information security with its low complexity, limitless libraries, and third-party modules. Security experts have singled out Python as a language for developing information security toolkits, such as w3af . The modular design, human-readable code, and fully developed suite of libraries make Python suitable for security researchers and experts to write scripts and build tools for security testing.
Python-based tools include all types of fuzzers, proxies, and even the occasional exploit. Python is the driving language for several current open source penetration-testing tools from Volatility for memory analysis to libPST for abstracting the process of examining e-mails. It is a great language to learn because of the large number of reverse engineering and exploitation libraries available for your use. So, learning Python may help you in difficult situations where you need to extend or tweak those tools.
In this book,we will get an idea of how a penetration tester can use these tools and libraries to aid his or her day-to-day work.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Python Scripting Essentials, breaks the ice by providing the basic concepts of Python scripting, installing third-party libraries, threading, process execution, exception handling, and penetration testing.
Chapter 2, Analyzing Network Traffic with Scapy, introduces a packet-manipulation tool, Scapy, which allows users to sniff, create, send, and slice packets for analysis. The chapter provides insight into investigating network traffic using Scapy, parsing DNS traffic, packet sniffing, packet injection, and passive OS fingerprinting. This empowers you to create and send custom packets over the network and analyze the raw output received for various protocols.
Chapter 3, Application Fingerprinting with Python, discusses the basics of fingerprinting web applications using Python. You will master the techniques of web scraping, e-mail gathering, OS fingerprinting, application fingerprinting, and information gathering using Python libraries.
Chapter 4, Attack Scripting with Python, addresses this issue of attacks with Python scripts needing to be addressed for efficient penetration testing by detailing the techniques of attacks and OWASP top vulnerabilities. You will learn to write scripts to exploit the same.
Chapter 5, Fuzzing and Brute-Forcing, tells you how fuzzing and brute-forcing still remain the top attacks tackled by testers. This chapter summarizes fuzzing and brute-forcing passwords, directories, and file locations; brute-force cracking ZIP files; HTML form authentication; and the Sulley fuzzing framework. This enables the user to extend the fuzzing tools for pentesting requirements with Python.
Chapter 6, Debugging and Reverse Engineering, describes the debugging and reverse-engineering techniques that should be mastered by a pentester. The debugging techniques are presented using Capstone and PyDBG.
Chapter 7, Crypto, Hash, and Conversion Functions, summarizes the Python Cryptography ToolKit, which helps you write scripts to find different types of password hashes.
Chapter 8, Keylogging and Screen Grabbing, discusses the basics of keylogging and screen-grabbing techniques. The techniques are presented with PyHook, which helps log keyboard events and take screenshots using Python.
Chapter 9, Attack Automation, gives a detailed description of attack automation by covering SSH brute forcing, SFTP automations with paramiko, Nmap automation, W3af automation, Metasploit integration, and antivirus and IDS evasion.
Chapter 10, Looking Forward, gives an insight into some of the tools written in Python that can be incorporated in pentesting. You can use these tools to improve your skill set in Penetration Testing
What you need for this book
You basically need a computer with Python installed on it.
Who this book is for
This book is ideal for those who are comfortable with Python or a similar language and need no help with basic programming concepts but want to understand the basics of penetration testing and the problems pentesters face.
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import socket
socket.setdefaulttimeout(3)
newSocket = socket.socket()
newSocket.connect(("localhost",22))When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
import socket
socket.setdefaulttimeout(3)
newSocket = socket.socket()
newSocket.connect(("localhost",22))Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
$ pip install packagename
Python interactive terminal commands and output is written as follows.
>>> packet=IP(dst='google.com')
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Click on the OS X link."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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