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

Chapter 4: Information Gathering with Metasploit

Information gathering and enumeration are the initial stages of the penetration testing life cycle. These stages are often overlooked, and people end up directly using automated tools in an attempt to quickly compromise the target. However, such attempts are not likely to succeed.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

– Abraham Lincoln

This is a very famous quote by Abraham Lincoln that is applicable to penetration testing as well! The more effort you take to gather information about your targets and enumerate them, the more likely you are to succeed with compromising. By performing comprehensive information gathering and enumeration, you will be presented with a wealth of information about your target, and then you can use that information in order to identify the best attack vector for compromising the target.

The Metasploit Framework provides various...