Best Practices for the Real World

Your journey as an aspiring ethical hacker and penetration tester is only just beginning. You have gained some amazing hands-on skills throughout the previous chapters of this book and have learned various techniques while developing the mindset of a penetration tester. Furthermore, you have learned how to use the most popular penetration testing Linux distribution, Kali Linux, to simulate various real-world cyber-attacks to discover and exploit various security vulnerabilities on systems and networks.

While you have learned a lot, there are a few guidelines and tips I would like to share with you before concluding this book. During the course of this chapter, you will learn about various guidelines that should be followed by all penetration testers, the importance of creating a checklist for penetration testing, some cool hacker gadgets, how to set up remote access to securely access your penetration tester’s machine over the internet...

Technical requirements

To follow along with the exercises in this chapter, please ensure that you have met the following software requirements:

• Kali Linux: https://www.kali.org/get-kali/

Guidelines for penetration testers

Having the skill set of an ethical hacker and penetration tester, you need to be aware of the boundaries between ethical and criminal activities. Remember, performing any intrusive actions using a computing system to cause harm to another person, system, or organization is illegal. Therefore, penetration testers must follow a code of conduct to ensure they remain on the ethical side of the law at all times.

Gaining written permission

Before performing a penetration test on a targeted organization, ensure that you have obtained legal written permission from the organization. If additional permission is required from other authorities, please ensure that you acquire all the legal permission documents. Having legal written permission is like having a get-out-of-jail-free card as a penetration tester, but this comes with a responsibility.

The activities performed by a penetration tester involve simulating real-world cyber-attacks on a targeted...

Penetration testing checklist

When performing a penetration test on a system or network, a set of approved or recommended guidelines is used to ensure the desired outcome is achieved. For instance, you can leverage the following structure in your existing framework or process as it helps with ensuring the critical aspects of penetration testing are addressed:

• Comprehensive coverage – Using a checklist helps ensure that all the necessary components of the penetration test are thoroughly covered, such as from the reconnaissance phase all the way to reporting. This will help you create a roadmap, ensuring all important steps are followed and not overlooked.
• Standardizes procedures – Standardizing a set of procedures with industry best practices helps you to develop and maintain consistency across various types of penetration testing with each organization. In addition, it helps ensure that all penetration testing is performed in uniformity with a systematic...

Creating a hacker’s toolkit

Being in the field of ethical hacking and penetration testing won’t feel complete without creating your very own hacker’s toolkit with some very cool gadgets. Having physical tools and gadgets is not always mandatory, but they help when simulating various real-world cyber-attacks.

ESP8266 microcontroller

The following is an ESP8266 microcontroller, running custom firmware created by Spacehuhn:

Figure 18.1: ESP8266 microcontroller

This tool assists penetration testers when performing simulated attacks on a targeted wireless network. The custom Deauther firmware allows you to perform wireless reconnaissance and de-authentication attacks, capture wireless probes and beacons, perform wireless confusion attacks, and even detect de-authentication attacks by threat actors.

To learn more about Spacehuhn’s Deauther firmware for the ESP8266, please see https://github.com/SpacehuhnTech/esp8266_deauther.

...

Setting up remote access

As an aspiring penetration tester, you will be given the opportunity to visit your client’s location to perform a penetration test on their network. This means you will need to have a dedicated computer – preferably a laptop or a mini computer – at the client’s location for ethical hacking and penetration testing. On this system, you can set up remote access such as Secure Shell (SSH) and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to enable you and your team to remotely work without being on-site.

The following are some of my personal recommendations for setting up your penetration-testing machine:

• A laptop running a Microsoft Windows operating system that supports Remote Desktop. Keep in mind that Microsoft Windows is a personal choice, and you are free to use any operating system of your personal preference. Ensure there is support for remote access across a network.
• Ensure the laptop supports BitLocker (available on Microsoft...

Next steps ahead

Never stop learning – there’s always something new to learn within the cybersecurity industry. If you want to further your learning and skills, take a look at the following online resources:

• TryHackMe: https://tryhackme.com/
• Hack The Box: https://www.hackthebox.com/
• RangeForce Community Edition: https://go.rangeforce.com/community-edition-registration

Both TryHackMe and Hack The Box are online platforms that help everyone, from beginners to seasoned professionals, gain new skills in various fields of cybersecurity. Both platforms allow learners to complete challenges in a gamified environment to earn rewards. Participating and growing your profile on either platform can be used as part of your portfolio when applying for jobs within the cybersecurity industry.

At the time of writing this chapter, RangeForce Community Edition is currently free for anyone to register and complete various cybersecurity blue team learning...

Summary

During the course of this chapter, you have learned about various guidelines that will help you to become a better ethical hacker and penetration tester, and you have also discovered some of the key components of creating a penetration testing checklist, some fun tools for creating a hacker’s tool bag, and how to securely access your Kali Linux machine while performing penetration testing remotely.

Lastly, I know the journey of preparing to be an ethical hacker and penetration tester isn’t an easy one and there are many challenges along the path on the road to success. I would personally like to thank you very much for your support in purchasing a copy of my book and congratulations on making it to the end while acquiring all these amazing new skills in ethical hacking and penetration testing techniques and strategies using Kali Linux. I do hope everything you have learned throughout this book has been informative for you and helpful in your journey to becoming...

Further reading

• Master Services Agreement – https://www.rapid7.com/legal/msa/
• Rules of engagement – https://hub.packtpub.com/penetration-testing-rules-of-engagement/
• Penetration testing methodologies – https://wiki.owasp.org/index.php/Penetration_testing_methodologies
• OWASP testing checklist – https://github.com/tanprathan/OWASP-Testing-Checklist
• PayloadsAllTheThings – https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings

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