Book Image

Windows and Linux Penetration Testing from Scratch - Second Edition

By : Phil Bramwell
Book Image

Windows and Linux Penetration Testing from Scratch - Second Edition

By: Phil Bramwell

Overview of this book

Let’s be honest—security testing can get repetitive. If you’re ready to break out of the routine and embrace the art of penetration testing, this book will help you to distinguish yourself to your clients. This pen testing book is your guide to learning advanced techniques to attack Windows and Linux environments from the indispensable platform, Kali Linux. You'll work through core network hacking concepts and advanced exploitation techniques that leverage both technical and human factors to maximize success. You’ll also explore how to leverage public resources to learn more about your target, discover potential targets, analyze them, and gain a foothold using a variety of exploitation techniques while dodging defenses like antivirus and firewalls. The book focuses on leveraging target resources, such as PowerShell, to execute powerful and difficult-to-detect attacks. Along the way, you’ll enjoy reading about how these methods work so that you walk away with the necessary knowledge to explain your findings to clients from all backgrounds. Wrapping up with post-exploitation strategies, you’ll be able to go deeper and keep your access. By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in identifying vulnerabilities within your clients’ environments and providing the necessary insight for proper remediation.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Part 1: Recon and Exploitation
9
Part 2: Vulnerability Fundamentals
17
Part 3: Post-Exploitation

Injection with Backdoor Factory

In Chapter 7, Advanced Exploitation with Metasploit, we spent some time with Shellter, a tool for dynamic injection into Windows executables. Shellter did the heavy lifting by examining the machine code and execution flow of the selected executable and identifying ways to inject shellcode without creating telltale structures in the program; the result is a highly AV-resistant executable ready to run your payload. There are a few options out there and Shellter is one of the best, but there are a couple of limitations – namely, it’s a Windows application and can only patch 32-bit binaries. The first limitation isn’t a big problem considering how well we could run it with Wine, but depending on your perspective, this can be seen as a drawback. The second limitation isn’t a big problem either, as any 32-bit application will run just fine on 64-bit Windows, but in the face of strong defenses, we need more options, not fewer.

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