My Journey to Professional Pentester

Continuing on from the topic last week, I will continue to explore setting up a wireless adapter to begin wired and wireless hacking. I am still using Kali Linux ( https://www.kali.org/downloads/ ) on a virtual machine loaded on VirtualBox ( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads ). Additionally, I am using the Alfa AWUS036NHA ( http://amzn.to/2joTI0q ). This post explores three different methods for enabling monitor mode on the wireless adapter. This adapter supports two modes - managed and monitor, respectively. With a device set to managed mode, r eceived packets are only sent to a user's MAC address. T he MAC address is used to ensure that packets are sent to the correct destination. In order to capture all packets within a specific WiFi range - that is, not only the packets sent to a user's device - the wireless card can be set to monitor mode. The first method used airmon-ng. This is a tool within the Aircrack-ng utility that comes installed on Kali Linux. Accordin...

Today I am shifting gears. I decided to introduce WiFi hacking into the mix. Kali in a virtual environment cannot utilize the same wireless card in a host machine. Therefore, the use of  a wireless adapter is required. I found that the Alfa AWUS036NHA ( http://amzn.to/2joTI0q) worked best for my objective. This adapter uses the Atheros 9271 chipset and is compatible with Kali Linux. Additionally, it is compatible with any brand 802.11b, 802.11g or 802.11n router using 2.4 Ghz wave-length, includes a 4 inch 5 ddbi screw-on swivel rubber antenna that can be removed and upgrade up to 9 dbi, and supports 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2, TKIP, and AES  encryption protocols. The first step to getting the wireless adapter to work in the Kali environment is to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack ( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads ) if you are using VirtualBox like I am. Once the Extension Pack has been installed, open the settings to the Kali machine installed on Virtu...

Yesterday’s post explored gaining access to a webserver using a local file inclusion (LFI) exploit. Today, I will explore how to gain access using remote file inclusion (RFI). The main difference between LFI and RFI is the the former requires an attacker to upload a malicious payload to a target server. With RFI, an attacker can exploit a system by using a malicious file hosted on a remote system. According to Impervia, RFI “is an attack targeting vulnerabilities in web applications that dynamically reference external scripts. The perpetrator's goal is to exploit the referencing function in an application to upload malware (e.g., backdoor shells) from a remote URL located within a different domain” ( https://www.incapsula.com/web-application-security/rfi-remote-file-inclusion.html ). Generally speaking, both of these attacks are usually accompanied by a directory traversal attack which can lead to revealing sensitive data and increase the effectiveness of an attack. The tool...

This exploit is aimed at exploiting local file inclusions. The ability to exploit this occurs when a web application uses a path to a file “has to be included as an input without treating it as untrusted input. This would allow a local file to be supplied to the include statement” ( https://www.acunetix.com/blog/articles/local-file-inclusion-lfi/ ). Before running through this exploit, let’s first define what local file inclusion (LFI) is. According to Ian Muscat, LFI “refers to an inclusion attack through which an attacker can trick the web application in including files on the web server by exploiting functionality that dynamically includes local files or scripts. The consequence of a successful LFI attack includes Directory Traversal and Information Disclosure as well as Remote Code Execution” (Muscat, 2017). With this working definition, let's get started running through how I conducted this exploitation. As always, I used Kali Linux as my attacker machine ( https://www....