Offensive tooling and strategic enablers
Just as there are defensive tools and strategic enabling technologies, there are also offensive solutions and tools that are available. As with any good offensive strategy in warfare, the need for intelligence collection and selective targeting is ever present. In cyberspace, and in cyber warfare specifically, the need to gather and collate effective data that can be used to plot the exploitation actions is even more present than in traditional warfare. With so many possible targets and such a vast possible target area, it is critical for an attacker to vector in carefully on potential avenues of compromise.
Why kill the password?
As detailed in past chapters, one of the most readily available avenues of exploitation is via the password. There have been literally billions of compromised usernames and passwords that have been stolen in past exploits. Thanks to that, the reality is that any good threat actor should first seek out those...