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Building a Pentesting Lab for Wireless Networks
Building a Pentesting Lab for Wireless Networks

Building a Pentesting Lab for Wireless Networks: Build your own secure enterprise or home penetration testing lab to dig into the various hacking techniques

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$9.99 $39.99
eBook Mar 2016 264 pages 1st Edition
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$9.99 $39.99
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Arrow left icon
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$9.99 $39.99
eBook Mar 2016 264 pages 1st Edition
eBook
$9.99 $39.99
Paperback
$48.99
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eBook
$9.99 $39.99
Paperback
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Building a Pentesting Lab for Wireless Networks

Chapter 2. Planning Your Lab Environment

As with any building, software, device, or other type of technical and non-technical projects, you need to start with a proper planning before proceeding to build a lab. This order is necessary to get the most benefits from your lab environment and at the same time to stay safe from any kinds of unwanted attacks. Preliminary planning also helps to avoid an unnecessary repetition of some installation and configuration tasks that can suddenly arise during the implementation phase if you realize that something is missing or some significant changes should be done in an almost finished lab environment.

In this chapter, we will guide you through the whole planning phase from understanding what do you need a lab for to choosing the lab components and topology based on your own requirements. To reach this goal, we will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Understanding what tasks your lab should fulfill
  • Planning the network topology
  • Choosing...

Understanding what tasks your lab should fulfill

Under this topic, we are going to help you to determine your needs and what you want to achieve with your lab. After understanding your needs, you will be able to set requirements for your lab—stating what should it contain and how should its components interact. This step allows you to prepare the basis of the next step—deciding which lab components do you need to include in a lab and which roles to assign them.

Objectives of a lab

Let's start from listing the typical purposes for having a lab:

  • Learn practical penetration testing: It is essential for a beginner to have an environment where they can practice penetration testing techniques they learn and consolidate newly learned information. During this education, you most likely will want to have a model of a real-world corporate network and you can emulate it in a lab.
  • Improve and maintain penetration testing skills: Experienced professionals also need a lab to periodically...

Planning the network topology

An essential step in building a network is developing a network topology. A network topology determines how lab components can be interconnected physically and logically, significantly influences data flows inside a network and sets requirements and limitations on network protocols usage.

Network segmentation is another important mechanism to think about in the planning stage. A network segmentation allows us to implement network management protocols to practice more network layer attacks, and it allows us to use integrated security features of network devices and dedicated network-based firewalls to provide better inter-segment isolation and network access control.

Thus, if you want to implement certain network protocols operating in a lab, which make sense with practicing certain attack types and provide security to the lab at the same time, we need to plan a segmental lab's network with several subnets and virtual LANs instead of just connecting all lab...

Choosing appropriate components

Under this topic, we are going to decide which lab components can fulfill the tasks determined in the previous topic.

As it is not always easy to get enough budget and hardware to build a penetration testing lab in an enterprise environment and even harder to do it at home, we are going to use virtualization and free software as much as possible in this book. That decision influences the next topics significantly, because it sets additional requirements for a lab.

Virtualization has also another significant advantage—flexibility to quickly modify the lab environment content according to current tasks by simply turning virtual hosts on and off.

For a virtual lab, you will need a computer powerful enough to run three to four virtual machines at the same time. We would recommend having at least four cores CPU and 8 GB of RAM. Additionally, you will need at least 150 GB of free space on a hard drive. Of course, if you have a bigger hard drive and if it is...

Planning lab security

After defining the lab topology and choosing the lab components, it is time to have a closer look at the security. Obviously, we do not want to become somebody's victim due to the fact that we intentionally leave a lot of vulnerabilities in a lab environment.

At the same time, practicing security evasion techniques is definitely important for penetration testers and security specialists, especially for developing their skills to the advanced level.

According to our general security requirements and the purpose of building a lab, we are going to configure maximal security at the entry points to our lab network: at the gateway and at the trusted WLAN.

Further, we want to define the lab security requirements in detail and group them by areas.

Access control

Access control is a powerful measure that allows us to enforce security if it is designed and configured properly. At the same time, it increases network complexity making attacks more sophisticated and providing the...

Understanding what tasks your lab should fulfill


Under this topic, we are going to help you to determine your needs and what you want to achieve with your lab. After understanding your needs, you will be able to set requirements for your lab—stating what should it contain and how should its components interact. This step allows you to prepare the basis of the next step—deciding which lab components do you need to include in a lab and which roles to assign them.

Objectives of a lab

Let's start from listing the typical purposes for having a lab:

  • Learn practical penetration testing: It is essential for a beginner to have an environment where they can practice penetration testing techniques they learn and consolidate newly learned information. During this education, you most likely will want to have a model of a real-world corporate network and you can emulate it in a lab.

  • Improve and maintain penetration testing skills: Experienced professionals also need a lab to periodically try some new attack...

Planning the network topology


An essential step in building a network is developing a network topology. A network topology determines how lab components can be interconnected physically and logically, significantly influences data flows inside a network and sets requirements and limitations on network protocols usage.

Network segmentation is another important mechanism to think about in the planning stage. A network segmentation allows us to implement network management protocols to practice more network layer attacks, and it allows us to use integrated security features of network devices and dedicated network-based firewalls to provide better inter-segment isolation and network access control.

Thus, if you want to implement certain network protocols operating in a lab, which make sense with practicing certain attack types and provide security to the lab at the same time, we need to plan a segmental lab's network with several subnets and virtual LANs instead of just connecting all lab components...

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Key benefits

  • Design and build an extendable penetration testing lab with wireless access suitable for home and enterprise use
  • Fill the lab with various components and customize them according to your own needs and skill level
  • Secure your lab from unauthorized access and external attacks

Description

Starting with the basics of wireless networking and its associated risks, we will guide you through the stages of creating a penetration testing lab with wireless access and preparing your wireless penetration testing machine. This book will guide you through configuring hardware and virtual network devices, filling the lab network with applications and security solutions, and making it look and work like a real enterprise network. The resulting lab protected with WPA-Enterprise will let you practice most of the attack techniques used in penetration testing projects. Along with a review of penetration testing frameworks, this book is also a detailed manual on preparing a platform for wireless penetration testing. By the end of this book, you will be at the point when you can practice, and research without worrying about your lab environment for every task.

Who is this book for?

If you are a beginner or a security professional who wishes to learn to build a home or enterprise lab environment where you can safely practice penetration testing techniques and improve your hacking skills, then this book is for you. No prior penetration testing experience is required, as the lab environment is suitable for various skill levels and is used for a wide range of techniques from basic to advance. Whether you are brand new to online learning or you are a seasoned expert, you will be able to set up your own hacking playground depending on your tasks.

What you will learn

  • Determine your needs and choose the appropriate lab components for them
  • Build a virtual or hardware lab network
  • Imitate an enterprise network and prepare intentionally vulnerable software and services
  • Secure wired and wireless access to your lab
  • Choose a penetration testing framework according to your needs
  • Arm your own wireless hacking platform
  • Get to know the methods to create a strong defense mechanism for your system

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Mar 28, 2016
Length: 264 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785286063
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Product Details

Publication date : Mar 28, 2016
Length: 264 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785286063
Category :

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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. Understanding Wireless Network Security and Risks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Planning Your Lab Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Configuring Networking Lab Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Designing Application Lab Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Implementing Security Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Exploring Hacking Toolkits Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Preparing a Wireless Penetration Testing Platform Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. What's Next? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
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