Table of Contents for
Python: Penetration Testing for Developers

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Python: Penetration Testing for Developers by Dave Mound Published by Packt Publishing, 2016
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
  4. Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
  5. Python: Penetration Testing for Developers
  6. Credits
  7. Preface
  8. What you need for this learning path
  9. Who this learning path is for
  10. Reader feedback
  11. Customer support
  12. 1. Module 1
  13. 1. Understanding the Penetration Testing Methodology
  14. Understanding what penetration testing is not
  15. Assessment methodologies
  16. The penetration testing execution standard
  17. Penetration testing tools
  18. Summary
  19. 2. The Basics of Python Scripting
  20. Python – the good and the bad
  21. A Python interactive interpreter versus a script
  22. Environmental variables and PATH
  23. Understanding dynamically typed languages
  24. The first Python script
  25. Developing scripts and identifying errors
  26. Python formatting
  27. Python variables
  28. Operators
  29. Compound statements
  30. Functions
  31. The Python style guide
  32. Arguments and options
  33. Your first assessor script
  34. Summary
  35. 3. Identifying Targets with Nmap, Scapy, and Python
  36. Understanding Nmap
  37. Nmap libraries for Python
  38. The Scapy library for Python
  39. Summary
  40. 4. Executing Credential Attacks with Python
  41. Identifying the target
  42. Creating targeted usernames
  43. Testing for users using SMTP VRFY
  44. Summary
  45. 5. Exploiting Services with Python
  46. Understanding the chaining of exploits
  47. Automating the exploit train with Python
  48. Summary
  49. 6. Assessing Web Applications with Python
  50. Identifying hidden files and directories with Python
  51. Credential attacks with Burp Suite
  52. Using twill to walk through the source
  53. Understanding when to use Python for web assessments
  54. Summary
  55. 7. Cracking the Perimeter with Python
  56. Understanding the link between accounts and services
  57. Cracking inboxes with Burp Suite
  58. Identifying the attack path
  59. Gaining access through websites
  60. Summary
  61. 8. Exploit Development with Python, Metasploit, and Immunity
  62. Understanding the Windows memory structure
  63. Understanding memory addresses and endianness
  64. Understanding the manipulation of the stack
  65. Understanding immunity
  66. Understanding basic buffer overflow
  67. Writing a basic buffer overflow exploit
  68. Understanding stack adjustments
  69. Understanding the purpose of local exploits
  70. Understanding other exploit scripts
  71. Reversing Metasploit modules
  72. Understanding protection mechanisms
  73. Summary
  74. 9. Automating Reports and Tasks with Python
  75. Understanding how to create a Python class
  76. Summary
  77. 10. Adding Permanency to Python Tools
  78. Understanding the difference between multithreading and multiprocessing
  79. Building industry-standard tools
  80. Summary
  81. 2. Module 2
  82. 1. Python with Penetration Testing and Networking
  83. Approaches to pentesting
  84. Introducing Python scripting
  85. Understanding the tests and tools you'll need
  86. Learning the common testing platforms with Python
  87. Network sockets
  88. Server socket methods
  89. Client socket methods
  90. General socket methods
  91. Moving on to the practical
  92. Summary
  93. 2. Scanning Pentesting
  94. What are the services running on the target machine?
  95. Summary
  96. 3. Sniffing and Penetration Testing
  97. Implementing a network sniffer using Python
  98. Learning about packet crafting
  99. Introducing ARP spoofing and implementing it using Python
  100. Testing the security system using custom packet crafting and injection
  101. Summary
  102. 4. Wireless Pentesting
  103. Wireless attacks
  104. Summary
  105. 5. Foot Printing of a Web Server and a Web Application
  106. Introducing information gathering
  107. Information gathering of a website from SmartWhois by the parser BeautifulSoup
  108. Banner grabbing of a website
  109. Hardening of a web server
  110. Summary
  111. 6. Client-side and DDoS Attacks
  112. Tampering with the client-side parameter with Python
  113. Effects of parameter tampering on business
  114. Introducing DoS and DDoS
  115. Summary
  116. 7. Pentesting of SQLI and XSS
  117. Types of SQL injections
  118. Understanding the SQL injection attack by a Python script
  119. Learning about Cross-Site scripting
  120. Summary
  121. 3. Module 3
  122. 1. Gathering Open Source Intelligence
  123. Gathering information using the Shodan API
  124. Scripting a Google+ API search
  125. Downloading profile pictures using the Google+ API
  126. Harvesting additional results from the Google+ API using pagination
  127. Getting screenshots of websites with QtWebKit
  128. Screenshots based on a port list
  129. Spidering websites
  130. 2. Enumeration
  131. Performing a ping sweep with Scapy
  132. Scanning with Scapy
  133. Checking username validity
  134. Brute forcing usernames
  135. Enumerating files
  136. Brute forcing passwords
  137. Generating e-mail addresses from names
  138. Finding e-mail addresses from web pages
  139. Finding comments in source code
  140. 3. Vulnerability Identification
  141. Automated URL-based Directory Traversal
  142. Automated URL-based Cross-site scripting
  143. Automated parameter-based Cross-site scripting
  144. Automated fuzzing
  145. jQuery checking
  146. Header-based Cross-site scripting
  147. Shellshock checking
  148. 4. SQL Injection
  149. Checking jitter
  150. Identifying URL-based SQLi
  151. Exploiting Boolean SQLi
  152. Exploiting Blind SQL Injection
  153. Encoding payloads
  154. 5. Web Header Manipulation
  155. Testing HTTP methods
  156. Fingerprinting servers through HTTP headers
  157. Testing for insecure headers
  158. Brute forcing login through the Authorization header
  159. Testing for clickjacking vulnerabilities
  160. Identifying alternative sites by spoofing user agents
  161. Testing for insecure cookie flags
  162. Session fixation through a cookie injection
  163. 6. Image Analysis and Manipulation
  164. Hiding a message using LSB steganography
  165. Extracting messages hidden in LSB
  166. Hiding text in images
  167. Extracting text from images
  168. Enabling command and control using steganography
  169. 7. Encryption and Encoding
  170. Generating an MD5 hash
  171. Generating an SHA 1/128/256 hash
  172. Implementing SHA and MD5 hashes together
  173. Implementing SHA in a real-world scenario
  174. Generating a Bcrypt hash
  175. Cracking an MD5 hash
  176. Encoding with Base64
  177. Encoding with ROT13
  178. Cracking a substitution cipher
  179. Cracking the Atbash cipher
  180. Attacking one-time pad reuse
  181. Predicting a linear congruential generator
  182. Identifying hashes
  183. 8. Payloads and Shells
  184. Extracting data through HTTP requests
  185. Creating an HTTP C2
  186. Creating an FTP C2
  187. Creating an Twitter C2
  188. Creating a simple Netcat shell
  189. 9. Reporting
  190. Converting Nmap XML to CSV
  191. Extracting links from a URL to Maltego
  192. Extracting e-mails to Maltego
  193. Parsing Sslscan into CSV
  194. Generating graphs using plot.ly
  195. A. Bibliography
  196. Index

Chapter 8. Exploit Development with Python, Metasploit, and Immunity

During research or in a rare engagement, you may need to develop or modify exploits to meet your needs. Python is a fantastic language to quickly prototype code for testing exploits or to help with the future modification of Metasploit modules. This chapter focuses on the methodology to write an exploit, not how to create specific exploits for these software products, so that more testing may be necessary to improve reliability. To begin, we need to understand how the Central Processing Unit (CPU) registers and how Windows memory is structured for executables when they run. Before that, on Windows XP Run Mode Virtual Machine (VM), you will need a few tools to test this out.

Note

Download and install the following components on Windows XP Run: Mode VM, Python 2.7, Notepad++, Immunity Debugger, MinGW (with all the basic packages), and Free MP3 CD Ripper version 1.0. Also use your current Kali build to help generate the relevant details we are going to highlight as we go through this chapter.

Getting started with registers

This explanation is based on x86 systems and the relevant registers that process instruction sets for executables. We are not going to discuss in detail all registers for brevity, but we will describe the most important ones for the scope of this chapter. The registers that are specifically highlighted are 32-bits in size and are known as the extended registers.

They are extended because they have 16-bits added to the previous 16-bit registers. For example, the older 16-bit general purpose registers could be identified by simply removing the E from the front of the register name, so EBX also contains the 16-bit BX register. The BX register is actually the combination of two smaller 8-bit registers, the BH and the BL. The H and the L signify the High Byte and the Low Byte register. There are extensive books written on this subject alone and replicating that information would not be directly useful to our purpose. Overall, registers are broken down into two forms for ease of understanding, the general purpose registers and the special purpose registers.

Understanding general purpose registers

The four general purpose registers are the EAX, EBX, ECX, and EDX. The reason they are called general purposes registers is because mathematical operations and storage occur here. Keep in mind that anything can be manipulated, even the basic concepts of what the registers would normally be doing. For this description, though, the overall purpose is accurate.

The EAX

The accumulator register is used for basic mathematical operations and the return value of a function.

The EBX

The base register is another general purpose register, but unlike the EAX it is not intended for a specific purpose. As such, this register can be used for nominal storage as needed.

The ECX

The counter register is used primarily for looping through functions and iterations. The ECX register can also be used for general storage.

The EDX

The data register is used for higher mathematical operations, such as multiplication and division. This register also stores function variables throughout the processing of the program.

Understanding special purpose registers

These registers are the ones where the indexing and pointing is handled throughout the processing of the program. What this means to you is that this is where the magic happens for basic exploit writing - we are, in the end, trying to manipulate the overwrite of data here. This is done by orders of operations that happen in other registers.

The EBP

The base pointer tells you where the bottom of the stack is at. When a function is first called, this points to the top of the stack, or it is set to the old stack pointer value. This is because the stack has shifted or grown.

The EDI

The destination index register is for pointers to function.

The EIP

The instruction pointer is considered the goal of basic exploit writing. You are trying to overwrite the value of this stored point on the stack, because if you control this value, you control the next instruction to be executed by the CPU. So, when you see the developers or exploit writers talk about overwriting the data on the EIP register, understand that this is not a good thing. It means that some design of the program itself has failed.

The ESP

The stack pointer shows the current top of the stack, and this is modified as the program is run. So, as items are removed from the top of the stack as they are run, the ESP changes where it is pointing to. When new functions are loaded onto the stack, the EBP takes the old position of the ESP.