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.