Book Image

Python Ethical Hacking from Scratch

By : Fahad Ali Sarwar
Book Image

Python Ethical Hacking from Scratch

By: Fahad Ali Sarwar

Overview of this book

Penetration testing enables you to evaluate the security or strength of a computer system, network, or web application that an attacker can exploit. With this book, you'll understand why Python is one of the fastest-growing programming languages for penetration testing. You'll find out how to harness the power of Python and pentesting to enhance your system security. Developers working with Python will be able to put their knowledge and experience to work with this practical guide. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts and practical examples, this book takes a hands-on approach to help you build your own pentesting tools for testing the security level of systems and networks. You'll learn how to develop your own ethical hacking tools using Python and explore hacking techniques to exploit vulnerabilities in networks and systems. Finally, you'll be able to get remote access to target systems and networks using the tools you develop and modify as per your own requirements. By the end of this ethical hacking book, you'll have developed the skills needed for building cybersecurity tools and learned how to secure your systems by thinking like a hacker.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Nuts and Bolts of Ethical Hacking – The Basics
4
Section 2: Thinking Like a Hacker – Network Information Gathering and Attacks
8
Section 3: Malware Development

What is a computer network?

In the Information Technology (IT) domain, networking means the ability of two or more devices to be able to communicate and exchange data with each other. In the early days of computing, computers were unable to talk to each other and were standalone systems. Their functionalities were very limited. As the technology advanced, the need for communication between devices grew. In its simplest form, two computers that connect with each over a medium form a network. This medium is the link through which these devices talk with each other. As we proceed, you will see that things become very complicated very quickly in computer networks:

Figure 3.1 – The simplest form of a network – two interconnected computers

As you will see in the following chapters, most modern-day computer networks are not built like this. For your computer to talk to other computers, it will need as many links as it has computers, and this can quickly...