Book Image

The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Third Edition

By : Glen D. Singh
5 (2)
Book Image

The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Third Edition

5 (2)
By: Glen D. Singh

Overview of this book

Embark on an exciting journey into the world of Kali Linux – the central hub for advanced penetration testing. Honing your pentesting skills and exploiting vulnerabilities or conducting advanced penetration tests on wired and wireless enterprise networks, Kali Linux empowers cybersecurity professionals. In its latest third edition, this book goes further to guide you on how to setup your labs and explains breaches using enterprise networks. This book is designed for newcomers and those curious about penetration testing, this guide is your fast track to learning pentesting with Kali Linux 2024.x. Think of this book as your stepping stone into real-world situations that guides you through lab setups and core penetration testing concepts. As you progress in the book you’ll explore the toolkit of vulnerability assessment tools in Kali Linux, where gathering information takes the spotlight. You'll learn how to find target systems, uncover device security issues, exploit network weaknesses, control operations, and even test web applications. The journey ends with understanding complex web application testing techniques, along with industry best practices. As you finish this captivating exploration of the Kali Linux book, you'll be ready to tackle advanced enterprise network testing – with newfound skills and confidence.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
19
Index

Pass-the-hash techniques

As you learned in Chapter 9, Performing Network Penetration Testing, the Microsoft Windows operating system does not store the passwords of local users in plaintext. Rather, it converts the passwords into a New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) hash on newer versions of Windows and stores that within the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) file. Penetration testers usually experience time constraints while conducting a penetration test on an organization. For instance, while cyber-criminals have a lot of time to perform reconnaissance, identify security vulnerabilities, and exploit their targets, penetration testers do not typically have unlimited time. In many cases just a few weeks is allocated to complete a security assessment on specific company assets. This means they must work quickly and efficiently to ensure the goals of the pentesting engagement are met.

Performing password cracking can be a very time-consuming task. While some penetration testers may...