Book Image

Reconnaissance for Ethical Hackers

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

Reconnaissance for Ethical Hackers

5 (1)
By: Glen D. Singh

Overview of this book

This book explores reconnaissance techniques – the first step in discovering security vulnerabilities and exposed network infrastructure. It aids ethical hackers in understanding adversaries’ methods of identifying and mapping attack surfaces, such as network entry points, which enables them to exploit the target and steal confidential information. Reconnaissance for Ethical Hackers helps you get a comprehensive understanding of how threat actors are able to successfully leverage the information collected during the reconnaissance phase to scan and enumerate the network, collect information, and pose various security threats. This book helps you stay one step ahead in knowing how adversaries use tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to successfully gain information about their targets, while you develop a solid foundation on information gathering strategies as a cybersecurity professional. The concluding chapters will assist you in developing the skills and techniques used by real adversaries to identify vulnerable points of entry into an organization and mitigate reconnaissance-based attacks. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of reconnaissance, as well as learned how to secure yourself and your organization without causing significant disruption.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Part 1: Reconnaissance and Footprinting
8
Part 2: Scanning and Enumeration

Web application vulnerability

As an ethical hacker, it’s essential to understand web application security and the OWASP Top 10 web application security risks. Web applications are special software that runs on a server to host websites and are easily accessible using a standard web browser. For instance, when you access your favorite search engine, your web browser creates a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or HTTP Secure (HTTPS) GET message to request the resource on the destination web server (the internet search engine). Once the web application receives the HTTP GET message (the request), it processes and provides a response with the requested data back to the web browser:

The following diagram shows the communication between the browser and a web application:

Figure 9.28 – Web communication

Figure 9.28 – Web communication

Web applications are created with lots of code by developers. However, many web servers on the internet run outdated and insecure web applications...