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Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners
Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners

Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners: Perform penetration testing to secure your IT environment against threats and vulnerabilities , Second Edition

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Metasploit 5.0 for Beginners

Chapter 1: Introduction to Metasploit and Supporting Tools

Before we take a deep dive into various aspects of the Metasploit Framework, let's first lay a solid foundation of some of the absolute basics. In this chapter, we'll conceptually understand what penetration testing is all about and where the Metasploit Framework fits in exactly. We'll also browse through some of the additional tools that enhance the Metasploit Framework's capabilities.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • The importance of penetration testing
  • Understanding the difference between vulnerability assessments and penetration testing
  • The need for a penetration testing framework
  • Introduction to Metasploit
  • Introduction to new features in Metasploit 5.0
  • When to use Metasploit
  • Making Metasploit effective and powerful using supplementary tools

Technical requirements

The following software is required:

  • Kali Linux
  • The Metasploit Framework
  • Nessus
  • NMAP
  • w3af
  • Armitage

The importance of penetration testing

For over a decade or so, the use of technology has been rising exponentially. Almost all businesses are partially or completely dependent on the use of technology. From Bitcoins to the cloud to the Internet of Things (IoT), new technologies are popping up each day. While these technologies completely change the way we do things, they also bring along threats with them. Attackers discover new and innovative ways to manipulate these technologies for fun and profit! This is a matter of concern for thousands of organizations and businesses around the world.

Organizations worldwide are deeply concerned about keeping their data safe. Protecting data is certainly important. However, testing whether adequate protection mechanisms have been put to work is also equally important. Protection mechanisms can fail, hence, testing them before someone exploits them for real is a challenging task. Having said this, vulnerability assessments and penetration...

Understanding the difference between vulnerability assessments and penetration testing

Vulnerability assessments and penetration testing are two of the most common phrases that are often used interchangeably. However, it is important to understand the difference between the two. To understand the exact difference, let's consider a real-world scenario.

A thief intends to rob a house. To proceed with his robbery plan, he decides to recon his robbery target. He visits the house (that he intends to rob) casually and tries to gauge what security measures are in place. He notices that there is a window at the back of the house that is often open and so it's easy to break in. In our terms, the thief just performed a vulnerability assessment. Now, after a few days, the thief actually goes to the house again and enters through the back window that he had discovered earlier during his recon phase. In this case, the thief performed an actual penetration into his target house with...

The need for a penetration testing framework

Penetration testing is not just about running a set of a few automated tools against your target. It's a complete process that involves multiple stages and each stage is equally important for the success of the project. Now, for performing all the tasks throughout every stage of penetration testing, we would need to use various tools and might need to perform some tasks manually. Then, at the end, we would need to combine the results from all the different tools together to produce a single meaningful report. This is certainly a daunting task. It would be really easy and timesaving if one single tool could help us perform all the required tasks for penetration testing. This exact need is satisfied by a framework such as Metasploit.

Now let's move on to learning more about the Metasploit Framework.

Introduction to Metasploit

The birth of Metasploit dates back to 16 years ago, when H. D. Moore, in 2003, wrote a portable network tool using Perl. By 2007, it was rewritten in Ruby. The Metasploit project received a major commercial boost when Rapid7 acquired the project in 2009. Metasploit is essentially a robust and versatile penetration testing framework. It can literally perform all the tasks that are involved in a penetration testing life cycle. With the use of Metasploit, you don't really need to reinvent the wheel! You just need to focus on the core objectives, the supporting actions will all be performed through various components and modules of the framework. Also, since it's a complete framework and not just an application, it can be customized and extended as per our requirements.

Metasploit is, no doubt, a very powerful tool for penetration testing. However, it's certainly not a magic wand that can help you hack into any given target system. It's...

Introduction to new features in Metasploit 5.0

Ever since the Metasploit Framework was born 16 years ago, it has been through significant changes and improvements. In early 2019, Metasploit 5.0 was released, which is considered its first major release since 2011. While the Metasploit is commercially supported and developed by Rapid7, it also has rich community support, which enables its growth.

The latest Metasploit 5.0 version brings in a lot more features and improvements:

  • Database and automation API's: The latest Metasploit 5.0 now allow users to run the database as a RESTful service. It also introduces the new JSON-RPC API, which would be of significant help to users who wish to integrate Metasploit with other tools. The API interface can be extremely handy in several automation and orchestration scenarios. It thus makes the framework even more agile and powerful.
  • Evasion modules and libraries: In 2018, a new evasion module was introduced that allowed users...

When to use Metasploit

There are literally tons of tools available for performing various tasks related to penetration testing. However, most of the tools serve only one unique purpose. Unlike these tools, Metasploit can perform multiple tasks throughout the penetration testing life cycle. Before we check the exact use of Metasploit in penetration testing, let's have a brief overview of the various phases of penetration testing.

The following diagram shows the typical phases of the penetration testing life cycle:

Figure 1.1 – Phases of the Penetration testing life cycle

Figure 1.1 – Phases of the penetration testing life cycle

Now let's move on to understanding the phases in detail:

  • Information gathering: Though the information gathering phase may look very trivial, it is one of the most important phases for the success of a penetration testing project. The more you know about your target, the higher the chances are that you will find the right vulnerabilities and exploits to work...

Making Metasploit effective and powerful using supplementary tools

So far, we have seen that Metasploit is a really powerful framework for penetration testing. However, it can be made even more useful if integrated with some other tools. This section covers a few tools that complement Metasploit's capability to perform more precise penetration on the target system. We'll start with the Nessus tool.

Nessus

Nessus is a product from Tenable Network Security and is one of the most popular vulnerability assessment tools. It belongs to the vulnerability scanner category. It is quite easy to use, and it quickly identifies infrastructure-level vulnerabilities in the target system. Once Nessus tells us what vulnerabilities exist on the target system, we can then feed those vulnerabilities to Metasploit to see whether they can be exploited for real.

Its official website is https://www.tenable.com/.

The following screenshot shows the Nessus homepage:

Figure 1.3 – Nessus homepage ...

Summary

We started this chapter with understanding the relevance of penetration testing and then glanced at the practical difference between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. We then tried to understand the exact need of a penetration testing framework and got introduced to the Metasploit Framework. We also covered the new features introduced as part of latest Metasploit 5.x Framework.

We also got an overview on when to use the Metasploit Framework in the penetration testing life cycle along with some other useful tools like Nessus, NMAP, and so on.

Now that we have got a high-level overview of what Metasploit is all about and the new features in the latest Metasploit 5.0 version, its applicability in penetration testing, and supporting tools, we'll browse through the installation and environment setup for Metasploit in the next chapter.

Exercise

You can try the following exercises:

  • Visit Metasploit's official website and try to learn about the differences in various editions of Metasploit.
  • Try to explore more on how Nessus and NMAP can help us during a penetration test.
  • Install Nessus and w3af on your Kali Linux system.

Further reading

More information on the Metasploit Framework along with various versions can be found at https://metasploit.help.rapid7.com/docs.

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Key benefits

  • Perform pentesting in highly secured environments with Metasploit 5.0
  • Become well-versed with the latest features and improvements in the Metasploit Framework 5.0
  • Analyze, find, exploit, and gain access to different systems by bypassing various defenses

Description

Securing an IT environment can be challenging, however, effective penetration testing and threat identification can make all the difference. This book will help you learn how to use the Metasploit Framework optimally for comprehensive penetration testing. Complete with hands-on tutorials and case studies, this updated second edition will teach you the basics of the Metasploit Framework along with its functionalities. You’ll learn how to set up and configure Metasploit on various platforms to create a virtual test environment. Next, you’ll get hands-on with the essential tools. As you progress, you’ll learn how to find weaknesses in the target system and hunt for vulnerabilities using Metasploit and its supporting tools and components. Later, you'll get to grips with web app security scanning, bypassing anti-virus, and post-compromise methods for clearing traces on the target system. The concluding chapters will take you through real-world case studies and scenarios that will help you apply the knowledge you’ve gained to ethically hack into target systems. You’ll also discover the latest security techniques that can be directly applied to scan, test, ethically hack, and secure networks and systems with Metasploit. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to use the Metasploit 5.0 Framework to exploit real-world vulnerabilities.

Who is this book for?

If you are a penetration tester, ethical hacker, or security consultant who wants to quickly get started with using the Metasploit Framework to carry out elementary penetration testing in highly secured environments, then this Metasploit book is for you. You will also find this book useful if you’re interested in computer security, particularly in the areas of vulnerability assessment and pentesting, and want to develop practical skills when using the Metasploit Framework.

What you will learn

  • Set up the environment for Metasploit
  • Understand how to gather sensitive information and exploit vulnerabilities
  • Get up to speed with client-side attacks and web application scanning using Metasploit
  • Leverage the latest features of Metasploit 5.0 to evade anti-virus
  • Delve into cyber attack management using Armitage
  • Understand exploit development and explore real-world case studies
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Table of Contents

14 Chapters
Section 1: Introduction and Environment Setup Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 1: Introduction to Metasploit and Supporting Tools Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 3: Metasploit Components and Environment Configuration Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Practical Metasploit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 4: Information Gathering with Metasploit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 5: Vulnerability Hunting with Metasploit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 6: Client-Side Attacks with Metasploit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 7: Web Application Scanning with Metasploit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 8: Antivirus Evasion and Anti-Forensics Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 9: Cyber Attack Management with Armitage Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 10: Extending Metasploit and Exploit Development Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 11: Case Studies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Adalberto Apr 11, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Consiglio il libro a tutti che vogliono iniziare nel mondo del hacking.Anche per le persone con ottima conoscenza possono sempre imparare.Ottimo libro
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RT Jul 21, 2020
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Great starter, but practice makes perfect!
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GaryR Sep 19, 2021
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Brilliant book for helping increase my knowledge base for pentesting
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Steve Johnson Apr 24, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
But also for technical users developers who have never used Metasploit
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David A. Jun 11, 2022
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Really very interesting book. Written well with lots of screen shots. Worty every penny and would highly recommend. A plus
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