Book Image

The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Second Edition

By : Glen D. Singh
5 (1)
Book Image

The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Glen D. Singh

Overview of this book

Kali Linux is the most popular and advanced penetration testing Linux distribution within the cybersecurity industry. Using Kali Linux, a cybersecurity professional will be able to discover and exploit various vulnerabilities and perform advanced penetration testing on both enterprise wired and wireless networks. This book is a comprehensive guide for those who are new to Kali Linux and penetration testing that will have you up to speed in no time. Using real-world scenarios, you’ll understand how to set up a lab and explore core penetration testing concepts. Throughout this book, you’ll focus on information gathering and even discover different vulnerability assessment tools bundled in Kali Linux. You’ll learn to discover target systems on a network, identify security flaws on devices, exploit security weaknesses and gain access to networks, set up Command and Control (C2) operations, and perform web application penetration testing. In this updated second edition, you’ll be able to compromise Active Directory and exploit enterprise networks. Finally, this book covers best practices for performing complex web penetration testing techniques in a highly secured environment. By the end of this Kali Linux book, you’ll have gained the skills to perform advanced penetration testing on enterprise networks using Kali Linux.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with Penetration Testing
5
Section 2: Reconnaissance and Network Penetration Testing
11
Section 3: Red Teaming Techniques
17
Section 4: Social Engineering and Web Application Attacks

Exploring security misconfiguration

Sometimes, web applications are deployed without using security best practices to ensure the web application and the web server are hardened to prevent a cyberattack. Without proper security configurations and practices, threat actors are able to enumerate and exploit vulnerable services running on the web server. A simple example of security misconfiguration is administrators leaving unnecessary running services and open service ports on a web server; typically, a web server should not have any open service ports except those which are required, such as port 443 for HTTPS and 22 for Secure Shell (SSH). Threat actors will perform port scanning on their targets to identify any open ports and running services, which will allow them to remotely test for security vulnerabilities on the web server and exploit the system.

Most commonly, you will discover a lot of devices such as web servers are using default accounts, which is a huge security risk....