You're reading from The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Third Edition

Product type Book

Published in Apr 2024

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781835085806

Pages 828 pages

Edition 3rd Edition

Languages

Concepts

Cybersecurity

Author (1):

Glen D. Singh

Table of Contents (21) Chapters

Preface

1. Introduction to Ethical Hacking

2. Building a Penetration Testing Lab

3. Setting Up for Advanced Penetration Testing Techniques

4. Passive Reconnaissance

5. Exploring Open-Source Intelligence

6. Active Reconnaissance

7. Performing Vulnerability Assessments

8. Understanding Network Penetration Testing

9. Performing Network Penetration Testing

10. Post-Exploitation Techniques

11. Delving into Command and Control Tactics

12. Working with Active Directory Attacks

13. Advanced Active Directory Attacks

14. Advanced Wireless Penetration Testing

15. Social Engineering Attacks

16. Understanding Website Application Security

17. Advanced Website Penetration Testing

18. Best Practices for the Real World

19. Index

Appendix

Setting Up for Advanced Penetration Testing Techniques

Learning the methodology and techniques of performing penetration testing is always exciting. While many professionals may focus on specific types of penetration testing, such as internal or external network penetration testing, social engineering penetration testing, or even web application security testing, it’s always beneficial to understand how to perform wireless penetration testing and how to compromise a Microsoft Windows domain in an enterprise environment.

In this chapter, you will learn how to set up an Active Directory domain environment that will enable you to perform advanced penetration testing exercises such as red teaming techniques to discover security vulnerabilities and compromise the Domain Controller, taking over the domain of the organization. Red teaming focuses on a very comprehensive security assessment of an organization’s cyber defenses, physical security controls, technologies, processes...

Technical requirements

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

Oracle VM VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/
Windows 10 Enterprise: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise
Windows Server 2019: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2019
Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS: https://releases.ubuntu.com/jammy/
Wireless router that supports WPA2 and WPA3

Building an Active Directory red team lab

Active Directory is a role within the Microsoft Windows Server operating system that enables IT administrators to centrally manage all users, devices, and policies within a Windows environment. Active Directory ensures that centralized management is available for user accounts across an entire Windows domain and that policies can be created and assigned to various user groups to ensure people have the necessary access rights to perform actions that are related to their job duties.

Active Directory is commonly found within many organizations around the world. Therefore, as an aspiring ethical hacker and penetration tester, it’s important to understand how to discover various security vulnerabilities within a Microsoft Windows domain and leverage those security flaws to compromise an organization’s Domain Controller and its systems, services, and shared resources.

Active Directory provides centralized identity management...

Setting up a wireless penetration testing lab

Understanding how to perform wireless penetration testing helps organizations to determine how a real threat actor is able to discover and exploit security vulnerabilities in their company’s wireless network infrastructure. Let’s first have a quick overview of wireless networks and the associated security standards and access methods.

Brief overview of wireless network security

Within many organizations, you will commonly find wireless networks that are implemented to support wireless mobility for their employees. Employees can connect their smartphones, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, tablets, and laptops to the corporate Wi-Fi network and access the resources on the wired network, such as printers and servers. In small and large organizations, the wireless router or access point is usually configured using one of the following wireless security standards:

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
Wi-Fi Protected...

Summary

In this chapter, you have gained the hands-on skills to build a Windows environment that simulates a typical enterprise organization with domain users, various service accounts, administrators, and shared network resources. Additionally, you have learned how to create a wireless network lab that contains a RADIUS server to provide AAA services, which help replicate an enterprise wireless network within a large organization. These lab environments will be utilized later in this book when you learn about advanced penetration testing techniques such as red team exercises.

I trust that the knowledge presented in this chapter has provided you with valuable insights, supporting your path toward becoming an ethical hacker and penetration tester in the dynamic field of cybersecurity. May this newfound understanding empower you in your journey, allowing you to navigate the industry with confidence and make a significant impact. In the next chapter, Chapter 3, Setting Up for Advanced...