Delving into Command and Control Tactics

This chapter focuses on the Command and Control (C2) stage of the Cyber Kill Chain, which then leads to the threat actor completing the Actions on Objective phase of the cyber-attack. As an aspiring penetration tester, it is essential to understand the fundamentals of performing C2 operations from a threat actor’s perspective. This technique also helps penetration testers determine whether their clients’ security solutions are sufficient to detect a real-world cyber-attack and stop a threat actor’s C2 operation.

During the course of this chapter, you will learn the fundamentals of C2 operations during a cyber-attack and how penetration testers can utilize such techniques during their penetration test exercises during a real-world security assessment. Furthermore, you will gain the skills to set up a C2 server and perform post-exploitation techniques on a compromised host on a network.

In this chapter, we will cover...