Book Image

Hands-On Penetration Testing on Windows

By : Phil Bramwell
Book Image

Hands-On Penetration Testing on Windows

By: Phil Bramwell

Overview of this book

Windows has always been the go-to platform for users around the globe to perform administration and ad hoc tasks, in settings that range from small offices to global enterprises, and this massive footprint makes securing Windows a unique challenge. This book will enable you to distinguish yourself to your clients. In this book, you'll learn advanced techniques to attack Windows environments from the indispensable toolkit that is Kali Linux. We'll work through core network hacking concepts and advanced Windows exploitation techniques, such as stack and heap overflows, precision heap spraying, and kernel exploitation, using coding principles that allow you to leverage powerful Python scripts and shellcode. We'll wrap up with post-exploitation strategies that enable you to go deeper and keep your access. Finally, we'll introduce kernel hacking fundamentals and fuzzing testing, so you can discover vulnerabilities and write custom exploits. By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in identifying vulnerabilities within the Windows OS and developing the desired solutions for them.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 13. Going Beyond the Foothold

On this crazy ball flying through space that we call home, there are few things as exciting as seeing that meterpreter session pop up after firing off an exploit. Sometimes, your compromise has yielded you a domain administrator and you can pretty much do anything you want; you can probably just log in to other systems on the domain to gather yourself a handful of compromised computers and grab the loot you find on them. However, the more likely scenario is that you just successfully pulled off an exploit on one of only a few machines that are actually visible from your position in the network due to firewalling and segmentation—you've established a foothold. The word foothold is borrowed from rock climbing terminology: it's a spot in the rock face where you can place your feet for security as you prepare to progress further. Getting a foothold in a pen test means you've found a hole in the rock of your client's defense that you can use to launch yourself...