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

To get the most out of this book

The intent of this book is to emphasize Kali’s off-the-shelf capabilities as much as possible. Many commercial products are not mentioned, or if they are mentioned, free alternatives are reviewed in the labs (e.g., the free version of Shellter versus Shellter Pro). Today’s professional penetration tester has a wealth of excellent commercial tools in their toolset, but you can be an effective pen tester with what’s already freely available. Per The Hacker Manifesto, this was our intention with these discussions.

The version of Kali Linux used in this book is 2021.1; however, closer to the publishing date, I reviewed the labs with 2022.1 and found no issues. The processor and stack discussions assume a 32-bit operating system.

Kali Linux is free to download. However, Windows is a paid operating system. Thankfully, Microsoft provides evaluation copies of Windows Server and Edge developer copies of Windows 7 and 10; these were used as Windows targets in the labs.

The virtualization used was VMware Workstation, which is paid software. You can build comparable environments with the freeware Oracle VirtualBox.

The evaluation copy of Windows Server can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2016.

The developer copies of Windows 7 or 10 can be downloaded from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/.