Data encoding and exfiltration
As an aspiring ethical hacker and penetration tester, gaining the skills for encoding files such as malicious payloads and restricted files into less suspicious file types is vital when transferring executables as it simply reduces the risk of threat detection during the file transfer process. Furthermore, understanding how to perform data exfiltration as a penetration tester will be very useful as some penetration testing engagements may require you to extract sensitive files from a network without being detected by the organization's security team and their solutions.
Over the next couple of sections, you will learn how to encode Windows executable files in ASCII format and how to convert any file type into DNS queries for data exfiltration.
Encoding executables using exe2hex
exe2hex allows a penetration tester to encode any executable files into ASCII format to reduce the risk of detection. This tool helps ethical hackers and penetration...