Violent Python

A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers

TJ O'Connor

• Publisher: Syngress
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781597499644
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Languages
• Index: Computer Science

Violent Python shows you how to move from a theoretical understanding of offensive computing concepts to a practical implementation. Instead of relying on another attacker's tools, this book will teach you to forge your own weapons using the Python programming language. This book demonstrates how to write Python scripts to automate large-scale network attacks, extract metadata, and investigate forensic artifacts. It also shows how to write code to intercept and analyze network traffic using Python, craft and spoof wireless frames to attack wireless and Bluetooth devices, and how to data-mine popular social media websites and evade modern anti-virus.

• Demonstrates how to write Python scripts to automate large-scale network attacks, extract metadata, and investigate forensic artifacts
• Write code to intercept and analyze network traffic using Python. Craft and spoof wireless frames to attack wireless and Bluetooth devices
• Data-mine popular social media websites and evade modern anti-virus

Chapter 1

Introduction

Information in this chapter:

Setting up a Development Environment for Python

Introduction to the Python Programming Language

An Explanation of Variables, Data types, Strings, Lists, Dictionaries, Functions

Work with Networking, Iteration, Selection, Exception Handling and Modules

Write Your First Python Program, a Dictionary Password Cracker

Write Your Second Python Program, a Zipfile Brute-Force Cracker

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

– Master Bruce Lee, Founder, Jeet Kune Do

Introduction: A Penetration Test with Python

Recently, a friend of mine penetration tested a Fortune 500 company’s computer security system. While the company had established and maintained an excellent security scheme, he eventually found a vulnerability in an unpatched server. Within a few minutes, he used open source tools to compromise the system and gained administrative access to it. He then scanned the remaining servers as well as the clients and did not discover any additional vulnerabilities. At this point his assessment ended and the true penetration test began.

Opening the text editor of his choice, my friend wrote a Python script to test the credentials found on the vulnerable server against the remainder of the machines on the network. Literally, minutes later, he gained administrative access to over one thousand machines on the network. However, in doing so, he was subsequently presented with an unmanageable problem. He knew the system administrators would notice his attack and deny him access so he quickly used some triage with the exploited machines in order to find out where to install a persistent backdoor.

After examining his pentest engagement document, my friend realized that his client placed a high level of importance on securing the domain controller. Knowing the administrator logged onto the domain controller with a completely separate administrator account, my friend wrote a small script to check a thousand machines for logged on users. A little while later, my friend was notified when the domain administrator logged onto one of the machines. His triage essentially complete, my friend now knew where to continue his assault.

My friend’s ability to quickly react and think creatively under pressure made him a penetration tester. He forged his own tools out of short scripts in order to successfully compromise the Fortune 500 Company. A small Python script granted him access to over one thousand workstations. Another small script allowed him to triage the one thousand workstations before an adept administrator disconnected his access. Forging your own weapons to solve your own problems makes you a true penetration tester.

Let us begin our journey of learning how to build our own tools, by installing our development environment.

Setting Up Your Development Environment

The Python download site (http://www.python.org/download/) provides a repository of Python installers for Windo...