Book Image

Python: Penetration Testing for Developers

By : Christopher Duffy, Mohit , Cameron Buchanan, Andrew Mabbitt, Terry Ip, Dave Mound, Benjamin May
Book Image

Python: Penetration Testing for Developers

By: Christopher Duffy, Mohit , Cameron Buchanan, Andrew Mabbitt, Terry Ip, Dave Mound, Benjamin May

Overview of this book

Cybercriminals are always one step ahead, when it comes to tools and techniques. This means you need to use the same tools and adopt the same mindset to properly secure your software. This course shows you how to do just that, demonstrating how effective Python can be for powerful pentesting that keeps your software safe. Comprising of three key modules, follow each one to push your Python and security skills to the next level. In the first module, we’ll show you how to get to grips with the fundamentals. This means you’ll quickly find out how to tackle some of the common challenges facing pentesters using custom Python tools designed specifically for your needs. You’ll also learn what tools to use and when, giving you complete confidence when deploying your pentester tools to combat any potential threat. In the next module you’ll begin hacking into the application layer. Covering everything from parameter tampering, DDoS, XXS and SQL injection, it will build on the knowledge and skills you learned in the first module to make you an even more fluent security expert. Finally in the third module, you’ll find more than 60 Python pentesting recipes. We think this will soon become your trusted resource for any pentesting situation. This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: ? Learning Penetration Testing with Python by Christopher Duffy ? Python Penetration Testing Essentials by Mohit ? Python Web Penetration Testing Cookbook by Cameron Buchanan,Terry Ip, Andrew Mabbitt, Benjamin May and Dave Mound
Table of Contents (32 chapters)
Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
Credits
Preface
Bibliography
Index

Brute forcing usernames


For small but regular instances, a small tool that enables you to quickly check something will suffice. What about those bigger jobs? Maybe you've got a big haul from open source intelligence gathering and you want to see which of those users use an application you are targeting. This recipe will show you how to automate the process of checking for usernames that you have stored in a file.

Getting ready

Before you use this recipe, you will need to acquire a list of usernames to test. This can either be something you have created yourself, or you can use a word list found within Kali. If you need to create your own list, a good place to start would be to use common names that are likely to be found in a web application. These could include usernames such as user, admin, administrator, and so on.

How to do it…

This script will attempt to check usernames in a list provided to determine whether or not an account exists within the application:

#brute force username enumeration...