Chapter 3. The Exploit Formulation Process

"If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in" - Edsger W. Dijkstra

Exploit formulation is all about how exploits are made in Metasploit and what they are actually made of. In this chapter, we will cover various example vulnerabilities and we will try to develop approaches and methods to exploit these vulnerabilities. In addition to that, our primary focus will be on building exploit modules for Metasploit. We will also cover a wide variety of tools that will aid writing exploits in Metasploit. An important aspect of exploit writing is the computer architecture. If we do not cover the basics of the architecture, we will not be able to understand how things actually work. Therefore, Let's first start a discussion about the system architecture and the essentials required to write exploits.

By the end of this chapter, we will know more about the following topics:

• The...