Setting up the lab
In this section, we are going to assemble all the pieces to have our fully operational penetration testing lab.
Step 1 – installing the hypervisor
First, download Oracle VM VirtualBox from its official website: www.virtualbox.org.
Once you've downloaded Oracle VM VirtualBox, complete the installation process and leave all the options as default. Once the installation is successful, you will be presented with the following window:
Note
Another very popular hypervisor is VMware Workstation. However, this product is commercial (paid) unlike Oracle VM VirtualBox (free).
Step 2 – obtaining vulnerable systems
As mentioned, there are many available vulnerable systems that can be found on the internet. We are going to deploy Metasploitable and OWASP Broken Web Applications Project – both of these are virtual machines designed to give students and professionals a real-world, hands-on experience.
Metasploitable 2 is currently available at its official repository at https://information.rapid7...