Host-based security solutions

The second class of security solutions that we are going to cover in the current chapter is host-based solutions. Such solutions are installed on the same hosts which they have to protect.

You need to have a host-based security solution in your lab mainly for two purposes: to practice firewall/IPS evasion techniques and to test the detectability and obfuscation of your exploits (payloads) and malware. But, as always, there could be other personal reasons for having such security measures.

Workstation security

To better imitate a real enterprise network and create a possibility for testing various evasion techniques, we are going to install free endpoint security solutions on our lab workstations.

We recommend that you create snapshots of your workstations before installing any host-based security solutions, as they will definitely make penetrating workstations a bit problematic and you don't need it before you proceed to an advanced hacking level. Using snapshots...