Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By : Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari
Book Image

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition

By: Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez, Juned Ahmed Ansari

Overview of this book

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - Third Edition shows you how to set up a lab, helps you understand the nature and mechanics of attacking websites, and explains classical attacks in great depth. This edition is heavily updated for the latest Kali Linux changes and the most recent attacks. Kali Linux shines when it comes to client-side attacks and fuzzing in particular. From the start of the book, you'll be given a thorough grounding in the concepts of hacking and penetration testing, and you'll see the tools used in Kali Linux that relate to web application hacking. You'll gain a deep understanding of classicalSQL, command-injection flaws, and the many ways to exploit these flaws. Web penetration testing also needs a general overview of client-side attacks, which is rounded out by a long discussion of scripting and input validation flaws. There is also an important chapter on cryptographic implementation flaws, where we discuss the most recent problems with cryptographic layers in the networking stack. The importance of these attacks cannot be overstated, and defending against them is relevant to most internet users and, of course, penetration testers. At the end of the book, you'll use an automated technique called fuzzing to identify flaws in a web application. Finally, you'll gain an understanding of web application vulnerabilities and the ways they can be exploited using the tools in Kali Linux.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Exploiting Cross-Site Scripting


Hackers have been very creative when exploiting the XSS flaw, and with the capabilities of JavaScript in current browsers, the attack possibilities have increased. XSS combined with JavaScript can be used for the following types of attacks:

  • Account hijacking
  • Altering contents
  • Defacing websites
  • Running a port scan from the victim's machine
  • Logging key strokes and monitoring a user's activity
  • Stealing browser information
  • Exploiting browser vulnerabilities

Note

There are many different ways of triggering an XSS vulnerability, not only the <script></script> tag. Refer to OWASP's cheat sheet at the following link:https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet

In the following sections, we will look at some practical examples.

Cookie stealing

One of the immediate implications of an XSS vulnerability is the possibility of an attacker using script code to steal a valid session cookie and use it to hijack a user's session if the cookie's parameters...