Kali Linux Cookbook - Second Edition

Corey P. Schultz, Bob Perciaccante

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781784394257
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Reti di computer

Over 80 recipes to effectively test your network and boost your career in securityAbout This Book• Learn how to scan networks to find vulnerable computers and servers• Hack into devices to control them, steal their data, and make them yours• Target wireless networks, databases, and web servers, and password cracking to make the most of Kali LinuxWho This Book Is ForIf you are looking to expand your career into penetration testing, you will need a good understanding of Kali Linux and the variety of tools it includes. This book will work as a perfect guide for anyone who wants to have a practical approach in leveraging penetration testing mechanisms using Kali LinuxWhat You Will Learn• Acquire the key skills of ethical hacking to perform penetration testing• Learn how to perform network reconnaissance• Discover vulnerabilities in hosts• Attack vulnerabilities to take control of workstations and servers• Understand password cracking to bypass security• Learn how to hack into wireless networks• Attack web and database servers to exfiltrate data• Obfuscate your command and control connections to avoid firewall and IPS detectionIn DetailKali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for penetration testing and security auditing. It is the successor to BackTrack, the world's most popular penetration testing distribution. Kali Linux is the most widely used platform and toolkit for penetration testing. Security is currently the hottest field in technology with a projected need for millions of security professionals.This book focuses on enhancing your knowledge in Kali Linux for security by expanding your skills with toolkits and frameworks that can increase your value as a security professional.Kali Linux Cookbook, Second Edition starts by helping you install Kali Linux on different options available. You will also be able to understand the lab architecture and install a Windows host for use in the lab. Next, you will understand the concept of vulnerability analysis and look at the different types of exploits. The book will introduce you to the concept and psychology of Social Engineering and password cracking. You will then be able to use these skills to expand the scope of any breaches you create. Finally, the book will guide you in exploiting specific technologies and gaining access to other systems in the environment. By the end of this book, you will have gained the core knowledge and concepts of the penetration testing process.Style and approachThis book teaches you everything you need to know about Kali Linux from the perspective of a penetration tester. It is filled with powerful recipes and practical examples that will help you gain in-depth knowledge of Kali Linux.

Installing Kali and the Lab Setup

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Lab architecture and considerations
• Installing VirtualBox
• Installing Kali on VirtualBox
• Using Kali Linux from bootable media
• Upgrading Kali Linux
• Understanding the advanced customization and optimization of Kali
• Installing Windows machines
• Installing Metasploitable
• Installing OWASP-BWA
• Understanding hack me and other online resources

Introduction

In order to set the stage for the rest of this book and to help you reproduce the recipes and their output, I strongly recommend that you create a test environment where you can run various tools that are included with Kali Linux. In this chapter, we will be focusing on building our testing environment based on free or low-cost applications to minimize cost.

Starting with installing the virtualization platform, VirtualBox, we will walk through a few common installation techniques for Kali Linux; you will also learn how to update and maintain your installation.

Lab architecture and considerations

In this section, we will discuss our lab design and provide some information that you can use to expand it in the future.

As we begin to set up our lab, we want to take some time to discuss the lab setup and some of the considerations that we will take when using the lab. Some of these considerations are designed to make the lab more effective, while others are used for the protection of the networks our lab is connected to. We also want you to be in a position to easily expand or grow this network with other test machines as you master the Kali recipes that follow.

How to do it...

In this section, we will be discussing general topics as opposed to specific recipes.

The hypervisor selection

Today, there are many different hypervisors that will allow you to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine. For our specific purposes, we have chosen to show you how to setup the initial lab in VirtualBox due to several compelling factors. It's free to use, has multi-platform support, and it's able to run within your main operating system. However, as we progress past the first chapter, we will be switching to VMware ESXi. This will not affect recipes in any way between using VirtualBox and VMware ESXi. Our main reason for switching is the amount of compute resources that are available to us in our dedicated lab. We have the ability to run many virtual machines at once, and we will have the ability to insert firewalls and other security devices between our Kali instance and our testing hosts, as needed. We also have the flexibility to create more complex environments.

If, for any reason, you are looking to build a larger test network or have a different hypervisor of choice that better suits your purposes, feel free to use it, as we will assume you will be able to translate our instructions between the different hypervisors.

The hypervisor networking

In our lab, we are going to be using two networks within VirtualBox: a NAT network and a host-only network. Our Kali box will be connected to both the networks, so it can communicate with devices on the internet, download updates, and get software packages as needed. Our target machines will only be connected to the host-only network. The host-only network can only talk within the host and among other devices connected to the host-only network. It cannot communicate through your Ethernet or wireless networks. This setup is extremely critical to our testing environment, as we do not ever want to expose our testing hosts to the outside world, as they are very vulnerable and will be hacked rather quickly.

To further protect the networks that your lab is connected to, we would actually suggest disconnecting the virtual adapter of the Kali virtual machine that connects to the NAT network, unless specifically required for the recipe operation. This way, your network is protected from accidental exposures to any attacks you may be sourcing f...