Learn Ethical Hacking Beginner to Advanced

2. Gaining Access: Server Side Attacks

In this subsection of the course, you’ll learn how to gain unauthorized access to computer systems without the need for user interaction. This process involves several steps:

• Gathering Information: You’ll start by collecting as much information as possible about the target system. This includes identifying the operating system, open ports, and services running on those ports. Tools like Nmap can be used for port scanning and service detection.
• Vulnerability Discovery: Once you have a clear picture of what’s running on the target system, you’ll look for vulnerabilities that can be exploited. This involves understanding common security misconfigurations or software weaknesses.
• Exploitation: With the knowledge of a specific vulnerability, you’ll use specialized tools like Metasploit to exploit the weakness and gain access to the system. The goal is to obtain a shell or any level of control over the target system.
• Automated Scanning: You’ll learn how to automate the process of scanning servers for vulnerabilities. Tools like Nexpose can generate reports detailing the security posture of a network, including potential vulnerabilities and risks.

Client Side Attacks:

This subsection covers methods to compromise a system through the user who legitimately operates it. Techniques include:

• Social Engineering: You’ll learn how to gather information about users, such as their online behavior, to craft convincing phishing emails or messages that encourage them to install a backdoor on their system without suspicion.
• Backdooring Updates and Downloads: By intercepting and modifying software updates or files downloaded by the user, you can introduce malicious code into the target system.
• Trojan Creation: You’ll learn how to create trojans by backdooring seemingly innocuous files, such as images or PDFs, which users might be inclined to open.

3. Post Exploitation:

After gaining access, you need to interact with the compromised system effectively. This phase includes:

• File System Access: Navigating and manipulating the file system of the target machine for data exfiltration or deployment of additional tools.
• Maintaining Access: Ensuring that your backdoor remains operational, even if the system is rebooted or patched.
• Spying: Utilizing various methods to monitor user activities, such as keystroke logging, capturing screenshots, or activating webcams.
• Pivoting: Using the compromised system as a gateway to further penetrate into other systems within the network.

4. Website / Web Application Hacking:

This section focuses on how to hack websites and web applications by exploiting vulnerabilities. You’ll learn about:

• Information Gathering: Identifying information about the website, such as the domain owner, hosting provider, technologies used (e.g., frameworks, databases), and more.
• Common Vulnerabilities: Understanding and exploiting vulnerabilities like Information Disclosure, File Upload, Code Execution, Local File Inclusion (LFI), Remote File Inclusion (RFI), SQL Injection, and Cross Site Scripting (XSS).

Tools used in this course include:

• VMware: For setting up virtual machines to practice without risk.
• Kali Linux: A widely-used penetration testing distro containing numerous tools for hacking.
• Nmap: For network scanning and vulnerability detection.
• Bettercap: A powerful multi-platform network attack detection tool written in Go.
• Wireshark: A network protocol analyzer.
• OWASP Zap: An open-source web application security scanner.
• Metasploit: The most widely used penetration testing framework.
• Aircrack-ng suite: For wireless network security testing and cracking Wi-Fi protected networks.

Finally, the course will cover how to detect, prevent, and secure systems against the attacks you’ve learned about. This is crucial for ethical hackers who aim to improve cybersecurity postures and for those who wish to protect themselves from malicious activities. Always ensure that your penetration testing activities are performed legally and ethically with proper authorization.