Gaining Access
Once the target has been scanned and any vulnerabilities and potential access points have been identified, the gaining access phase begins. If the reconnaissance and scanning aspects have been thoroughly carried out, you should have a good understanding of the targeted environment, such as the network ranges, operating systems, and services running in the network. With this knowledge, you can begin attacking the network and attempting to gain access to the target environment. Generally, if the previous steps have been undertaken correctly, the attack to gain initial access should go smoothly.
In this chapter, we will cover the following main topics:
- Social engineering
- Phishing
- IP address sniffing and spoofing
- Code-based attacks
- Exploiting services
- Exploiting cloud services
- Gaining access exercise and best practices
Social engineering
Social engineering is the process by which an unknown entity or person gains access to or trust within an organization or another person. This trust is used to gain access to information or data that can help the entity infiltrate the environment or the other person’s information. For example, they pretend to be upper management, a recruiter, an old friend, a help desk, a customer, a services provider, or any other regular entity to initiate this communication. Once convinced, the victims are asked to provide sensitive information, reset their passwords, open email attachments, accept remote access, or any other activity that will result in the entity gaining access to the environment.
Social engineering is based on human intuition to trust and work with others. Nowadays, it is more popular, as people tend to publish personal information on the internet and social media. This information can be used to target individuals or organizations. Furthermore, it...