Here is how we can perform a DNS cache snooping by nonrecursive method: 1. This would query the system and check its DNS cache for the particular record. If the response is cached, that is, if it finds the A record you asked for, the response would be valid and would return an answer, indicating that someone on that system visited that particular website.
If the response is not cached, it will return a reply about another server that can answer the query better or it will send the root. Examples All this may be a bit overwhelming to you but the examples we are about to see will make things much easier. We can primarily use dig for our example. You can also use nslookup if you are on a Windows box.
I found a name server that would accept nonrecursive DNS queries. I used it to query rafay- hackingarticles. Command: dig ns1. However, the query did not return an answer. Therefore, we would conclude that no one had visited the site on this server. This method is not very accurate and is not recommended. Anyway, here is how we can accomplish it: 1.
Next, we would set the query to be recursive instead of nonrecursive. If the TTL field in the answer section is less than the initially set TTL field, the record is most likely cached and someone on that domain name server visited that website.
Now, if the record is not present in the cache, it will be present after the first query is made. The Time to live TTL is set to Now, we would need to determine the TTL that was initially set. We will do it by querying the name servers of our domain www. Command: dig ns Now as the first query is made, the website would be present in our cache.
We will use the same query again; we can see that the TTL is much lower now since it is present in our cache. A researcher queried 22, servers. An attacker could launch more targeted phishing attacks by figuring out what sites users are accessing on a network. Based on this, you can launch more tar- geted phishing attacks.
Also, we can launch DNS poisoning attacks to redirect all the users visiting Facebook to our malicious server hosted somewhere on that network. That malicious server could then be used to compromise the targets.
We will learn more about this in Chapter 6. The problem with this protocol was that there was no authen- tication system of any kind, so anyone could access the SNMP server and gain access to the details present on it, as at that time, they did not consider securing it. Later, they developed SNMP and added some security features. In an SNMP protocol, there are two types of com- munity strings: a public community string and a private community string.
An attacker can simply set up a sniffer to intercept the traffic on the network. All you need to do is to enter the IP address followed by the path to the dictionary, and it will attempt to connect to the SNMP service by using the community strings you have defined in the dictionary.
Snmpenum Snmpenum is another cool tool written in Perl. It can also be used for enumerating SNMP services. Usage snmpenum. What I prefer is the solar winds toolset. This toolset was made for network administra- tion and monitoring purposes; however, hackers and pentesters can use it to their advantage. There are lots of tools that are found in the solarwinds toolset, which are much simpler than tools found in BackTrack.
However, it all depends on what you are more comfortable with. I would not recommend SNMP brute force, since it tries all possible com- binations, which takes a long time. Just enter the host, and it will try to brute-force the passwords with all possible combinations. The problem with the brute force tool is that it is both time- and resource consuming if the password is long.
This is faster than brute force and does not consume as much resources. Sometimes, this could be a very useful source of information. Knowing the valid usernames that exist would aid us immensely when brute-forcing them. Before enumerating the usernames, you would need to figure out a mail server on a particu- lar network. To accomplish that, you would need to run a port scan on port 25 on a network to find out mail servers on that network. Port scanning is an extensive topic, which we will see in Chapter 4.
For now, we will just focus on finding valid usernames on a mail server. For that purpose, we would use a Perl script called snmp-user-enum. All you need to do is find or create a good username list and define the path to it after the -u parameter and then provide the IP address of the mail server.
Detecting Load Balancers Load balancers is a method used by organizations to distribute load upon other servers. This way, applications work effectively and maintain the uptime, increasing their reliability. Load balancers are generally classified into two categories: 1. Layer 4 load balancers, also known as DNS load balancers 2. Layer 7 load balancers, also known as http load balancers In this section, we will learn methods to detect both layer 4 and layer 7 load balancers.
For that, we would run the following query: host www. However, dig can provide much better results. You could use the similar command for dig. It analyzes application response data for detecting load balancers. In order to use lbd. We have already learned how to detect if an organization is running a load balancer.
Our next goal would be to learn the real IP behind the load balancer. Halberd is a tool that is capable of detecting real IP behind the load balancers. Unfortunately, it does not come with BackTrack.
Step 1—Download halberd package from the website and choose to save it in the root directory. Command: tar xzvf halberd In this case, I am scanning yahoo. Halberd yahoo. This could aid us a lot during pentesting. Bypassing CloudFlare Protection CloudFlare is a cloud-based protection, developed to protect websites against denial of service attacks. It works by acting as a reverse proxy; the name servers and the real IP address are hidden under the CloudFlare IP address.
Therefore, the attacker would not be able to cause any denial of service attacks, since all the traffic would be routed through the CloudFlare servers. We will now talk about some basic methods that can be used to bypass a CloudFlare protection. Method 1: Resolvers The most common approach to bypass a CloudFlare protection is to use online CloudFlare resolvers that use different methods to bypass the protection. For this demonstration, our target would be attack-secure.
We can verify this by per- forming a query to its name servers. It contains a list of around , domains that have recently shifted to CloudFlare, and they are actively testing it. Here is what they say on their homepage: CloudFlare is a venture-funded startup that routes around Internet abuse by acting as a reverse proxy. They also encourage illegality by allowing hackers, DDoSers, cyber- bullies, and copyright pirates to hide behind their servers.
If you compare this IP address with the IP address that we get while we ping the website, it will be different.
For example: attack-secure. Alternatively, you find scripts and tools online that would utilize the same trick to figure out the real IP. There are also automated scripts utilizing the same attack vector. One such script I found was coded in PHP. Since CloudFlare does not handle mx records, it is possible for us to determine the real IP address of a website, by looking at the IP headers.
The website allows a user to check if a particular certification is valid or not. We would need to register, and it will send a confirmation e-mail to the address we provided, which in this case is rafaybaloch yahoo. On viewing the e-mail header, we will get the following information: Next, we would use any e-mail tracer to check from where the e-mail originated. We will use the following website to do that.
The header will reveal the real IP address of the target. The banners would most likely disclose the default passwords. Reconnaissance is the most essential phase of penetration testing. The better you do it, the more successful you will be in the later phases. Chapter 4 Target Enumeration and Port Scanning Techniques In this chapter we will discuss various methods for enumerating and scanning a target or goal to gain as much information about the alive targets on a network as possible.
This is also part of the information gathering phase, which, as I had mentioned, is key to a successful pentest. This chap- ter is very essential and is a building block for penetration testers, because later in Chapter 7 you will realize how the information we have gathered in this chapter helps us to compromise targets. Host Discovery The first step of a network pentest most times would be to know what targets are alive.
Since it is not possible to penetrate a target that is not alive without physical access, we always look for alive targets. We can use a variety of methods and tools for discovering alive targets. One of the most common methods is to use icmp requests, that is, ping requests to check if the system is alive or not.
We can also use the —sP flag in nmap in order to check if the target is alive or not. Besides, we can specify network ranges to scan; this would make our work simpler. Here is the command to scan a host range from nmap: nmap —sP As you can see from the screenshot, the whole range was scanned for alive systems, and three live systems were found on the network.
Nowadays, due to the implementation of IDS, IPS, Firewalls, and other modern defenses on the network, identifying alive hosts can be a bit trivial. Network administrators commonly block icmp requests, which means that even if the target were alive, we would not be able to figure it out. For demonstration purposes, we will use a website named didx.
The administrator has blocked icmp requests to its webserver by using IP tables. By looking at the documentation and usage guide of nping, we can see that it also allows host discovery via tcp and udp. So, I entered the following command in order to perform a simple tcp-based host discovery.
We can also use udp to perform host discovery; what option you would like to use is up to you. Alternatively, we can also use the —sP flag query to accomplish this task, because when you specify the —sP flag query with nmap, it sends not only icmp echo requests but also TCP SYN to port 80 and Therefore, it will also show the host as up or in other words alive. Scanning for Open Ports and Services Once we have successfully scanned the number of live hosts on a network, we attempt to find open ports and the services associated with them on a network.
Open ports reveal the services that are running upon the network. We perform port scanning in order to look for potential entry points into the systems. One of the most challenging tasks with port scanning is to evade firewalls and intrusion detec- tion and prevention mechanisms.
Our goal is to make our scan less noisy. In this chapter, we will also discuss some stealth scanning techniques to make your scans less noisy.
There exist many tools such as netcat, hping2, and Unicornscan for scanning open ports, but nmap is our ultimate choice. However, we will look at some of the gui and command line tools too. Nmap supports a wide variety of scanning methods such as the TCP syn scan and the TCP con- nect scan, and we will discuss some of them here in great detail. Command: nmap Also, you can see that nmap returns the service associated with each port. It is used for a wide variety of protocols on the Internet and contributes toward reliable communication with the help of the three-way handshake.
Before understanding how port scanning works, we need to understand how the TCP three- way handshake works. ACK—Acknowledges that the packet was received. RST—Resets the connections between two hosts. FIN—Finishes the connection. Port Status Types With nmap you would see one of four port status types: Open—It means that the port is accessible and an application is listening on it. Closed—It means that the port is inaccessible and no application is listening on it.
Filtered—It means that nmap is not able to figure out if the port is open or closed, as the pack- ets are being filtered, which probably means that the machine is behind a firewall.
Unfiltered—It means that the ports are accessible by nmap but it is not possible to figure out if they are open or closed. It is the fastest scan. You can tweak it to make it even faster by using the —n option, which would tell the nmap to skip the DNS resolution. The —n parameter tells the nmap not to perform the name resolution; this is commonly used to increase the speed of the scan.
The —p parameter is used to specify the ports to scan, which in this case is port I also ran Wireshark a network analysis tool while performing this scan to record the behavior of the packets. The output was what we expected. As you can see from the first line the source The source The positive side of this scan is that it is pretty fast; its downside is that it is often detected by IDS, IPS, and firewalls.
We will talk about some techniques to perform noiseless scans later in this chapter. A common reason for that could be that the machine is not privileged to create its own RAW packet. The TCP connect scan can be accomplished by specifying an additional —sC parameter with nmap. The major advantage of using these scans for pentest is that many times they get past firewalls and IDS and can be really beneficial against Unix-based OS as all three of these scans do not work against Windows-based operating systems, because they send a reset packet regardless of whether the port is open or closed.
The second dis- advantage is that it cannot be exactly determined if the port is open or filtered. This leaves us to manually verify it with other scan types.
If no response comes, it means that the port is open; if a RST packet is received, it means that the port is closed or filtered. In a FIN scan the sender sends a FIN flag to the target machine: if no response comes from the target machine, it means that the port is open; if the target machine responds with a RST, it means that the port is closed.
It works just like the FIN and null scans. If there is no response, the port is open; if the target machine responds with a RST packet, the port is closed. It is commonly used to determine the firewall and ACL rules access list and whether the firewall is able to keep track of the con- nections that are being made. If the firewall is stateful, it would know that the there was no SYN packet being sent and will not allow the packet to reach the destination.
No response would mean that either the port is open or it is filtered. Any other ICMP response means that the port is filtered. We also discussed some of the scans that can be used for anonymous scanning; in other words, your host iP would not be revealed at the destination when you are performing port scanning. These types of scans are very useful if you wish to remain anonymous while scanning your target.
The idea behind the IDLE scan is to introduce a zombie to scan another host. This technique is stealthy because the victim host would receive packets from the zombie host and not the attacker host. In this way, the victim would not be able to figure out where the scan originated. However, there are some prerequisites for launching the idle scan, which are as follows: 1.
The host should be IDLE on the network. Hping2 is mainly used for firewall testing purposes; the creator of this tool is also the one who introduced the concept of IDLE scanning. Alternatively, we can use the metasploit auxiliary module for figuring out a good candidate for a zombie. In order to use the auxiliary module, we would need to start up the metasploit frame- work. We will talk about metasploit in more detail in Chapter 7. The idle scan can be simply performed by specifying the —sI parameter with nmap, followed by the iP of our zombie host and the target that we want to scan against.
This will prevent nmap from sending an initial packet from your real IP to the target host. Here is another example from the nmap book, which shows the idle scan being performed on riaa.
This vulnerability takes advantage of a feature that existed inside old ftp servers, which allowed the users to connect to the FTP server and send files to a third-party server. This way the attacker could remain anonymous, while the FTP server actually performs the dirty work. In this section, we will learn to use nmap to find the exact version of the service running on a port; this could help us look for the potential exploits for that particular version of the service.
Nmap has a database named nmap-services that contain more than well-known services. The service version detection can be performed by specifying the —sv parameter to the nmap. If the fingerprint matches, it displays the results. This would save a lot of time. The second one is — osscan-guess, which detects in a better and more aggressive manner.
As the name suggests, it does not directly engage with the target while performing OS fingerprinting; it monitors and tries to identify the TCP stack, and based on the TCP stack type, it figures out the type of OS. The following paragraph from official documentation describe the capabilities of POF: Common uses for pof include reconnaissance during penetration tests; routine network monitoring; detection of unauthorized network interconnects in corpo- rate environments; providing signals for abuse-prevention tools; and miscellaneous forensics.
It supports different types of output formats. The output formats may allow us to filter out results from nmap such as open ports, closed ports, and hosts. The three popular formats used are discussed in brief next. Here is an example of a simple SYN scan.
The results would be outputted to a file named rafay. With the grepable format, the results are presented with one host per line. Example nmap —sS The following command will highlight all the ports that are open, which in this case is only port The reason is that the XML output generated from nmap can be easily ported over to dradis framework and armitage.
In this section, we will discuss some of the techniques that can be used to evade firewall detec- tion. It all depends upon how strong the rule sets are.
The Nmap book discusses a wide variety of techniques that could be used to get past firewalls. In nmap we can launch a timing scan by specifying the T command followed by a number rang- ing from 0 to 5.
Increasing the values from T0 to T5 would increase the speed of the scan. Therefore they will not find anything suspicious. However, many modern IDS can rebuild the fragments into a single packet, making them detectable. Example nmap —f Source Port Scan It is very common for a network administrator to allow traffic from a certain source port. We can use this to our advantage to bypass badly configured firewalls. Common ports that we can specify as source are 53, 80, and The values that can be defined as MTU are mul- tiples of 8 e.
Nmap allows us to specify our own MTU. Based on your input, nmap will generate packets. For example, if you specify 32, nmap will generate a 32 byte packet. The change of this MTU can help us evade some of the firewalls. However, we can use incorrect checksums to our advantage. It is very effective when you want to use stealth. The idea behind this scan is to send spoofed packets from other hosts, which would make it very difficult for network administrators to detect from which host the scan originated.
Since the decoy has the potential to generate a very large number of packets, it could cause a possible DOS denial of service. Personally I am not a big fan of this tool, but I thought it would be worth mentioning for all the GUI lovers. So just take some time to understand the scanning profiles, their function, and most importantly what they are doing in background by inspecting the packets through wireshark.
The topology option inside zenmap will draw a picture of the network topology. In this way you can visualize where exactly the host is located. This book describes every method inside nmap in great detail. The knowledge of what type of scan to use in a certain situation would make you a better pentester.
The book is freely available for download at nmap. You can also buy the print version from amazon. Nessus vulnerability scanner would be the prime focus of this chapter as it is one of the oldest and best vulnerability scanners in the market. We will also see its integration with Metasploit and how Nessus could be used within Metasploit to perform vulnerability assessment more effectively. It is not as powerful as nessus as it includes very few plug-ins, but it can still be used to detect vulnerable hosts on a target network.
Vulnerability scanners scan computers, networks, or applications looking for potential weaknesses that could be used by attackers to compromise the target. This can make your work faster and more effective than doing everything manually. On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of using a vulnerability scanner. One of the main disadvantages is that the vulnerability scanners are very loud by nature and can be easily detected since we are sending lots of traffic over the network.
The other problem with a vulnerability scanner is that it can produce lots of false positives, meaning that it will report vulnerabilities in the target that may not exist in reality. However, it will also report a lot of false negatives, meaning that the scanner would miss or not report the vulnerabilities that actually exist. Vulnerability Assessment with Nmap One of the most powerful features in nmap is the nmap scripting engine, which can be used for automating many tasks. They can also be used for vulner- ability scanning purposes.
The scripts are written in Lua language, which is very well documented. Learning it will help you write your own scripts or modify existing ones. Just navigate to the directory and you will see tons of useful scripts that can be used for target enumeration as well as scanning vulnerabilities. We will look more into exploiting this vulnerability in the next chapter. At the same time, we need to keep in mind that this type of scan could be very loud and be easily detected.
As these systems are very sensitive, they need to be handled with great care. Installation A vulnscan. Usage Now that we have installed vulscan.
From the ban- ner, we can see that it is running Pure-FTPd. However, it is not showing the exact version of the Pure-FTPd. This may cause nessus to generate a false positive. Nessus comes in two flavors: 1. Home feed 2. Professional Feed Professional feed is for commercial usages mostly related to compliance checks and auditing pur- poses. This scanner is not available for free. However, in order for nessus to work, we need the activa- tion code, which can be obtained by signing up on the Nessus website, which will help us fetch the latest plug-ins from the Nessus website.
Since you are accessing it the first time, you will be prompted to accept a generic certificate, which you need not do on subsequent visits. Next, you just need to log in to nessus with the credentials you defined earlier. This is how your log-in screen would look like: Nessus Control Panel Nessus control panel is divided into the following six main components: Reports This would be our actual findings compiled in the form of a report.
To be able to take the qualification test, you need to have not less than hours of experience in practical computing. This book should be your start into the world of ethical hacking. More by Adidas Wilson. La alquimia de las hierbas: hierbas curativas para conocer, cultivar y usar Adidas Wilson. Domina Las Apps Adidas Wilson. Angry employees — These are people who have inside knowledge about an organization and use their access to gather information for themselves or others.
They are considered extremely dangerous even though the public rarely gets to hear about them. Such hackers are normally quiet and shy but have narcissistic personalities.
They turn on their employers whenever they believe that they have not been recognized for their work. Virus Writers — These are people who take advantage of any weaknesses that a hacker has exposed, and go on to write code to exploit those vulnerabilities. Skills Required for Hacking As a beginner, there are some basic skills that you will need to develop if you are to progress in the world of hacking.
These include: 1. Computer skills — You have to be knowledgeable in computer use and be able to understand written instructions. Can you use the Windows command module? These basic skills are critical for every hacker worth their salt. Working knowledge of Linux OS — Linux allows you to customize your programs, which is why hackers prefer it over Mac and Windows. Database skills — Learning how to use database management systems like Oracle and MySQL will help you understand how to penetrate databases.
Networking skills — As a hacker who will be engaging in a lot of online activity, you should know about concepts like subnetting, DNS, ports, WPS passwords, and so on.
Scripting skills — You may not know how to code right now, but sooner or later you will have to learn. Every hacker needs to have their own hacking tools rather than depend on what others have created.
Relying on tools made by other hackers leaves your system vulnerable to exploitation. Take time to learn some scripting languages such as Ruby on Rails or Python. Reverse engineering skills — One of the most effective ways to develop a great hacking tool is to take an existing one, take it apart, and find a way to make it better.
Such skills are invaluable for a hacker. Use of virtualization software — This type of software allows you to safely test your hack on your own computer before you unleash it on somebody else.
A good example is VMWare Workstation. What Motivates a Hacker? Nowadays, cyber attacks are more sophisticated and widespread. So what drives a cyber criminal to hack a network or system? There are four fundamental motives: 1.
You have heard of hackers exploiting system vulnerabilities of financial institutions and making off with credit card numbers, email accounts, passwords, usernames, and etc. A malicious hacker will sell anything they can find for a price. Some Black Hats even blackmail organizations using ransomware. They attack the networks of government institutions, organizations, and prominent personalities to further their ideological, political, social, or scientific agendas.
One group known for having such motivations is Anonymous. Entertainment — The majority of Gray Hats tend to exploit networks for fun or pride. They are seeking a challenge and will violate ethical laws to satisfy their curiosity. However, they are not malicious and will even inform the network administrator about the vulnerabilities they find.
Cyber Security — White Hats generally exploit a system to find weaknesses so that they can make them more secure. Organizations often employ hackers to work for them, patch vulnerabilities, and create codes of practice for employees to follow to avoid cyber breaches. Chapter 2: Penetration Testing Penetration testing refers to the testing of a cyber system, network, or application to detect weaknesses that may be exploited by a malicious hacker. You are essentially trying to gain access to a system without having any usernames or passwords.
The aim is to see how easy it is to acquire confidential information about an organization, and then increase the security of the system being tested. So what exactly is the difference between a penetration test and an attack?
A hacker who conducts a penetration test will be given the authorization by the owner of the system, who will then expect a detailed report at the end of it all.
As the tester, you may be given user-level access to allow you to gain entry into the system. The other option is to go in blind. In a blind or covert assessment, you are not given any information except the name of the client organization. The rest is up to you, which is exactly how most malicious hackers do it anyway. The only issue with a covert assessment is that it will take more time than an overt one, increasing the chances of you missing some flaw.
You may be hired to find just one weakness, but in most instances, you will be expected to keep searching to find all the potential vulnerabilities in a network. Once identified, you will have to find ways of fixing these holes. This is why you will have to write down detailed notes regarding your test procedure and results. Keeping notes enables the client to determine the effectiveness of your work and check to see if the issues you discovered are indeed fixed.
However, it is highly unlikely that you will detect every single security flaw or hole in the system. Detecting Vulnerabilities The steps taken by a penetration tester and a malicious hacker are usually the same. In most cases, a malicious hacker will move slowly through a system in order to avoid being detected. Once this is done, these loopholes should be sealed. The first step is usually reconnaissance.
You attempt to collect as much information about your target network as you possibly can. This is normally a passive process that involves using resources available to the public. When you have gathered your information, it is then time to verify it. This can be achieved by comparing the network or system information gathered with known vulnerabilities. Once you test the vulnerabilities, you will know for sure whether the information you had gathered is accurate or not.
Reasons for Performing Penetration Testing 1. Identify weaknesses that malicious hackers may exploit Even as you read this book right now, it is possible that there are malicious hackers launching tools and network attacks to try to penetrate your system. These attacks are never-ending and you cannot predict when a system will be hit. In most cases, these exploits are well known and thus preventable. The IT department of an organization may be keen on knowing where the weaknesses are within their network and how a malicious hacker may take advantage of them.
As a penetration tester, you will be required to attack the system and fix the holes before someone with bad intentions finds their way in. A system may be secure today but tomorrow it may fall victim to a breach.
The cyber security team may be aware of vulnerabilities but management is resistant to support changes being made to the existing system. By outsourcing the testing to an external consultant, management is more likely to respect the results obtained. Confirm that the internal security team is doing its job The penetration test report will show whether the cyber security department is efficient in its work.
It may identify whether there is a gap between knowledge of system vulnerabilities and implementation of security measures. By performing a penetration test, it is possible to discover just how vigilant your security is and whether the staff needs extra training. It also highlights the effectiveness of the countermeasures that have been put in place in case of a cyber attack. Testing of new technology Before launching a new piece of technology, for example, a new wireless infrastructure, it is critical that the system is tested for vulnerabilities.
This will definitely save more money than performing the test while customers are already using it. The Penetration Testing Report Once you have completed the test, you have to compile all the data in a proper format and submit a report.
Keep in mind that the majority of the management staff may not be technically oriented, so the has to be split into appropriate sections for easy reading. You should have an Executive Summary, a Technical Summary containing all the specific IT jargon, and a Management Summary that explains what needs to be done to fix the flaws detected.
They are full of confidence and know for certain that they are going to win. However, when the fighting starts, the soldier discovers that he walked into an ambush. He may take down most of the enemy troops, but because he was never prepared for the battle, he ends up losing.
This is where a hacking methodology comes in handy. A hacking methodology is what a hacker uses to guide them from the first step to the last. To effectively exploit any vulnerability in a system, you need to identify some key things that will help you achieve your objectives.
Without a proper methodology, you are likely to end up wasting time and energy fighting a losing battle. Target Mapping Finding the perfect target for your attack is not as simple as it sounds. You have to be strategic in the way you conduct your research and search out the target with the most potential. You have to analyze their habits and then use the information collected to come up with the most appropriate strategy. The objective of mapping your target is to determine what and who you are attacking before penetrating the system.
Hackers usually go after one or several targets at once. Depending on the kind of information that you are looking for, you can decide to attack web servers storing personal information. You could also decide to go big and hack into a financial institution. Your target could be a specific website that you want to take down using DoS attacks, or you could deface its web page. You may be interested in a specific individual in an organization.
When you are searching for potential targets to attack, you have to consider the level of security that you will be trying to overcome. Most hackers only go after targets that they know are easy to beat, so the level of vulnerability is often a key factor in mapping your target. Another factor to consider is whether the information gained from the attack is worth it. This will help determine how long you are willing to take trying to access the system.
So how do you go about gathering information about your intended target? This may bring up their contact information. If your target is an organization, then you can search for job openings that the company has advertised for, specifically in the IT department. You may be surprised to learn just how much useful information is given out in a job advert, for example, the software that potential recruits need to be familiar with. As a hacker, you need to know which keywords will bring up the most information.
Whois is a great way to perform a social engineering attack or scan a network. You can find the DNS servers of the target domain as well as the names and addresses of the people who registered the target domain.
Google Groups tends to store a lot of sensitive data about its users, for example, usernames, domain names, and IP addresses. Once you have done this, every file within the site that is publicly accessible will be downloaded onto your local hard drive. This will allow you to scan the mirror copy and find names and email addresses of employees, files, directories, the source code for its web pages, and much more information.
Websites By now you should be aware that there are certain websites that are a treasure trove of key information about individuals and organizations. Good examples include www. Scanning the Target Network So far you have been collecting information that will allow you to see the entire target network as a whole. The hostnames, open ports, IP addresses and running applications should now be visible to you.
Remember that if you are to perform an effective exploit, you must learn to think like a malicious hacker.
You can begin to use scanning software to find and record any hosts that are accessible online. Your own operating system should have its own standard ping tool. However, there are third party tools like SuperScan and NetScan Tools Pro that are able to ping the hostname of the domain or multiple IP addresses simultaneously. Analyzing Open Ports As a beginner, there are tools that you can use to check for the presence of open ports to penetrate the target network.
You can either go the manual route or use an automatic evaluation tool. The manual method will require you to link to any of the open ports you uncovered earlier. Test these ports until you find a way in. The automated method involves the use of tools such as QualysGuard, which is a cloud-based tool that is designed to scan open ports. Another tool that is available is Nexpose, which can scan a total of 32 hosts simultaneously. Chapter 4: Gaining Physical Access Picture this: A multi-million dollar corporation invests millions of dollars on technology-oriented cyber security countermeasures to protect its data.
They have totally locked down their networks and system, and have conducted multiple penetration tests using elite hackers to keep out any malicious hackers who may have been hired by their competitors. Now imagine that this company goes on to hire a security company that has lazy security guards.
They never do any physical checks around the facility and even leave some doors open. Visitors are rarely scanned or asked to sign in. Even the computer rooms are normally left open. Would you say this is a smart company that cares about protecting its data from hackers?
Yes, they have plugged the electronic holes, but they have literally left the door wide open for hackers to physically breach their security! You do not have to hack into a network remotely to gain access to data. You can gain physical access to a facility and perform your exploit from within. Over the last couple of decades, most companies have found it extremely difficult to maintain physical security.
Thanks to advancements in technology, there are now more physical vulnerabilities that a hacker can take advantage of. It is not that hard to get your hands on such devices, especially considering the fact that most employees take data with them when they leave work at the end of the day.
Once you identify your target, you may not even have to enter the building; they will bring the data to you. In this chapter, you are going to learn about how to take advantage of some of the physical security vulnerabilities in buildings that you have targeted.
Once you have breached the on-site security and gained physical access, be prepared to penetrate the system from the inside. Types of Physical Vulnerabilities Failure to establish a front desk to monitor visitors who enter and exit the building. Failure to enforce mandatory signing-in of all employees and visitors. Tossing sensitive corporate and personal documents into the trash instead of shredding them.
Failure to lock doors leading to computer rooms. Leaving digital devices lying around the offices. Creating your Plan One of the first things you will have to do is to come up with a way of breaching physical security. This will require some extensive reconnaissance work on your part. You must identify the kind of security measures that the facility has put in place, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities present, and how to take advantage of them.
This may seem simple on paper but it is not that easy once you get on the ground. The assumption here is that you are working without an inside man to feed you the vital security information. It may be a couple of weeks before you are able to collect all the information you need to launch your attack.
A physical security breach means you must have the right skills and knowledge to not only enter the building, but also to maneuver your way inside, and then exit without being detected. If you lack the patience, physical fitness, and mental agility necessary for such a task, then do not attempt a physical breach.
Stick to performing your attacks from a remote location. This information can then be used to narrow down the kinds of software known to commonly run on various hardware configurations. Hackers use tools that can test for a variety of security issues, including misconfiguration of software present on the targeted server, the presence of common or unchanged default passwords, outdated software in need of updating or patching and similar security issues.
These tools can provide a great deal of information about the targeted server — including data like the names of employees or staff members, email addresses associated with the server, computer names, network structure information and user account information.
Armed with the right kind of knowledge about the target, you can move on to the next phase: attempting to gain access. Using the gathered data, you can determine viable options for attempting to gain access to data stored on the server or control over the server itself.
This can be done in many ways, but generally will involve efforts that rely on proven intrusion techniques. OWASP maintains a top ten list of the most common and potentially dangerous weaknesses used by attackers to gain unauthorized access to web servers.
Known vulnerabilities are typically the easiest way to gain unauthorized control of a server and are most often relied upon by malicious attackers.
These are the most effective and efficient means to gain unauthorized access. The following vulnerabilities are those most commonly seen in security breaches in the past year.
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