Discovering live systems

When performing an internal penetration test for an organization, the company will allow you to connect your attacker machine to their network and may assign you a static IP address for your Kali Linux machine. On a network penetration testing engagement, the objective is to simulate real-world cyberattacks on target systems that are within the rules of engagement, before starting the actual penetration test. Ensure you do not perform any type of security testing on systems that are not within the scope as you will face legal issues with the organization. However, once you're within the scope, you'll need to discover the system, profile your targets, discover security vulnerabilities, and exploit those security weaknesses and gain access while looking for other methods a real hacker can compromise the systems and network with.

In this section, you will learn about the fundamentals of discovering live systems on a network, just as you would within...