Book Image

Hands-On Penetration Testing with Kali NetHunter

By : Glen D. Singh, Sean-Philip Oriyano
Book Image

Hands-On Penetration Testing with Kali NetHunter

By: Glen D. Singh, Sean-Philip Oriyano

Overview of this book

Kali NetHunter is a version of the popular and powerful Kali Linux pentesting platform, designed to be installed on mobile devices. Hands-On Penetration Testing with Kali NetHunter will teach you the components of NetHunter and how to install the software. You’ll also learn about the different tools included and how to optimize and use a package, obtain desired results, perform tests, and make your environment more secure. Starting with an introduction to Kali NetHunter, you will delve into different phases of the pentesting process. This book will show you how to build your penetration testing environment and set up your lab. You will gain insight into gathering intellectual data, exploiting vulnerable areas, and gaining control over target systems. As you progress through the book, you will explore the NetHunter tools available for exploiting wired and wireless devices. You will work through new ways to deploy existing tools designed to reduce the chances of detection. In the concluding chapters, you will discover tips and best practices for integrating security hardening into your Android ecosystem. By the end of this book, you will have learned to successfully use a mobile penetration testing device based on Kali NetHunter and Android to accomplish the same tasks you would traditionally, but in a smaller and more mobile form factor.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Hardening mobile devices


Sometimes, when discussing the topic of smartphones, we hear an Android user mention that they have rooted their device. What is rooting? Within the Android ecosystem, rooting is refers to the  root-level access on the mobile device. Like Linux, the root user account is considered to be a user with super/full privileges on the system; since Android is Linux-based, gaining full administration privileges is called rooting.

Having a device with full access rights is awesome, which means you can install and modify the applications and system resources to fit your needs. However, rooting comes with many security risks for Android users. First, the device's warranty becomes null or void if it's rooted and it has a higher possibility of being infected with malware. During the process of rooting, a device may cause it to become unusable, or what Android users refer to as brick (unusable). While a user is able to install and make system modifications on a rooted device, this...