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

Common flaws in sensitive data storage and transmission


As a penetration tester, one of the important things to look for in web applications is how they store and transmit sensitive information. The application's owner could face a major security problem if data is transmitted in plaintext or stored that way.

If sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card data, is stored in a database in plaintext, an attacker who exploits a SQL injection vulnerability or gains access to the server by any other means will be able to read such information and profit from it directly.

Sometimes, developers implement their own obfuscation or encryption mechanisms thinking that only they know the algorithm, and that nobody else will be able to obtain the original information without a valid key. Even though this may prevent the occasional random attacker from picking that application as a target, a more dedicated attacker, or one that can profit enough from the information, will take the time to understand...