Book Image

Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners - Second Edition

By : Sagar Rahalkar
Book Image

Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners - Second Edition

By: Sagar Rahalkar

Overview of this book

Securing an IT environment can be challenging, however, effective penetration testing and threat identification can make all the difference. This book will help you learn how to use the Metasploit Framework optimally for comprehensive penetration testing. Complete with hands-on tutorials and case studies, this updated second edition will teach you the basics of the Metasploit Framework along with its functionalities. You’ll learn how to set up and configure Metasploit on various platforms to create a virtual test environment. Next, you’ll get hands-on with the essential tools. As you progress, you’ll learn how to find weaknesses in the target system and hunt for vulnerabilities using Metasploit and its supporting tools and components. Later, you'll get to grips with web app security scanning, bypassing anti-virus, and post-compromise methods for clearing traces on the target system. The concluding chapters will take you through real-world case studies and scenarios that will help you apply the knowledge you’ve gained to ethically hack into target systems. You’ll also discover the latest security techniques that can be directly applied to scan, test, ethically hack, and secure networks and systems with Metasploit. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to use the Metasploit 5.0 Framework to exploit real-world vulnerabilities.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction and Environment Setup
5
Section 2: Practical Metasploit

When to use Metasploit

There are literally tons of tools available for performing various tasks related to penetration testing. However, most of the tools serve only one unique purpose. Unlike these tools, Metasploit can perform multiple tasks throughout the penetration testing life cycle. Before we check the exact use of Metasploit in penetration testing, let's have a brief overview of the various phases of penetration testing.

The following diagram shows the typical phases of the penetration testing life cycle:

Figure 1.1 – Phases of the Penetration testing life cycle

Figure 1.1 – Phases of the penetration testing life cycle

Now let's move on to understanding the phases in detail:

  • Information gathering: Though the information gathering phase may look very trivial, it is one of the most important phases for the success of a penetration testing project. The more you know about your target, the higher the chances are that you will find the right vulnerabilities and exploits to work...