Hack Like a Pro « Null Byte

Hack Like a Pro: How to Scan for Vulnerabilities with Nessus

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Generally, you will want to perform a vulnerability scan before doing a penetration test. Vulnerability scanners contain a database of all known vulnerabilities and will scan your machine or network to see whether those vulnerabilities appear to exist. If they do, it is your job to test whether they are real and can be exploited.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Create a Smartphone Pentesting Lab

Welcome back, my novice hackers! More and more, the world is turning to and adopting the smartphone platform as the digital device of choice. People are not only using smartphones for voice communication, but also web services, email, SMS, chatting, social networking, photography, payment services, and so on.

Hack Like a Pro: How Windows Can Be a Hacking Platform, Pt. 1 (Exploit Pack)

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! As most of you know, I am strong advocate for using Linux as a hacking platform. In fact, I would say that without knowing Linux, you will never become a professional hacker/pentester.

Hack Like a Pro: Denial-of-Service (DoS) Tools & Techniques

Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Over the years, we have examined multiple ways to own, exploit, or compromise a system. On the other hand, we have not spent a lot of time on denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Hack Like a Pro: Use Your Hacking Skills to Haunt Your Boss with This Halloween Prank

Welcome back, my amateur hackers! With Halloween right around the corner, I thought you could have a little fun with your newfound hacking skills using a hack that is guaranteed to freak out your boss, teacher, coworker, friend, etc.

Hack Like a Pro: Windows CMD Remote Commands for the Aspiring Hacker, Part 1

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Many new hackers come from a Windows background, but seldom, if ever, use its built-in command-line tools. As a hacker, you will often be forced to control the target system using just Windows commands and no GUI.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Hack Windows Vista, 7, & 8 with the New Media Center Exploit

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Recently, Microsoft released a new patch (September 8, 2015) to close another vulnerability in their Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 operating systems. The vulnerability in question (MS15-100) enabled an attacker to gain remote access to any of these systems using a well-crafted Media Center link (MCL) file.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Install & Use a Secure IRC Client with OTR

Welcome back, my amateur hackers! As many of you know, Null Byte will soon be re-establishing its IRC channel. In preparation of that event, I want to show how to set up a secure IRC client with OTR, or Off the Record.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Use Hacking Team's Adobe Flash Exploit

Welcome back, my novice hackers! As most of you know by now, a notorious commercial, legal hacking group named "Hacking Team" was recently hacked. As part of the hack, thousands of emails and other material on their servers was divulged. Among the material released were three zero-day exploits. In this tutorial, we will walk through the steps to load one of them, which has become known as the CVE-2015-5119 exploit.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Find the Exact Location of Any IP Address

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Have you ever wondered where the physical location of an IP address is? Maybe you want to know if that proxy server you are using is actually out of your local legal jurisdiction. Or, maybe you have the IP address of someone you are corresponding with and want to make certain they are where they say they are. Or, maybe you are a forensic investigator tracking down a suspect who wrote a threatening email or hacked someone's company.

Hack Like a Pro: Cryptography Basics for the Aspiring Hacker

Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As hackers, we are often faced with the hurdle of cryptography and encryption. In some cases, we use it to hide our actions and messages. Many applications and protocols use encryption to maintain confidentiality and integrity of data. To be able to crack passwords and encrypted protocols such as SSL and wireless, you need to at least be familiar with the concepts and terminology of cryptography and encryption.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Extract Email Addresses from an SMTP Server

Welcome back, my budding hackers!

Hack Like a Pro: How to Anonymously Torrent Files with Tribler

Welcome back, my nascent hackers!

Hack Like a Pro: Using TFTP to Install Malicious Software on the Target

Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, we can only get a command shell on our target system. For instance, with Metasploit, it's not always possible to get the all powerful Meterpreter on our target system. In other cases, we may be able to connect to a command shell via Netcat or Cryptcat.

Hack Like a Pro: Finding Potential SUID/SGID Vulnerabilities on Linux & Unix Systems

Welcome back, my nascent hackers! We have spent a lot of time in previous tutorials focused on hacking the ubiquitous Windows systems, but the vast majority of "heavy iron" around the world are Linux or Unix systems. Linux and Unix dominate the world of Internet web servers with over 60% of the market. In addition, Linux and Unix servers are the operating system of choice for major international corporations (including almost all the major banks) throughout the world.

Hack Like a Pro: An Introduction to Regular Expressions, Part 2

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! A short while ago, I introduced you to regular expressions. Regular expressions are a language that is particularly useful for finding complex text patterns in streams of data.

Hack Like a Pro: Hacking Windows XP Through Windows 8 Using Adobe Flash Player

Welcome back, my novice hackers! New hackers often ask me the same question: "What is the easiest platform to hack?" My response is always the same—it is not a platform, but rather a particular piece of software that is easiest to hack, which is on nearly every client-side system. That software is Adobe Flash Player.

Hack Like a Pro: Using Nexpose to Scan for Network & System Vulnerabilities

Welcome back, my budding hackers!

Hack Like a Pro: How to Hack the Shellshock Vulnerability

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Every so often, a MAJOR vulnerability appears that makes millions of systems vulnerable to attack. The most recent, named Shellshock, basically leaves every Mac OS X, Linux, and UNIX system on the planet vulnerable. As nearly two-thirds of all web servers on planet Earth run one of these operating systems (primarily Linux), that's a whole lot of systems out there waiting to be harvested.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Create a Virtual Hacking Lab

Welcome back, my amateur hackers! Many of you here are new to hacking. If so, I strongly recommend that each of you set up a "laboratory" to practice your hacks. Just like any discipline, you need to practice, practice, and practice some more before you take it out to the real world.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Find Website Vulnerabilities Using Wikto

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! When we are trying to find vulnerabilities in a website to attack, we need a solid web server vulnerability scanner. Internet-facing web apps can open enormous opportunities for us as they are often riven with vulnerabilities and can often offer an entire point to the internal network and resources.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Find Exploits Using the Exploit Database in Kali

Welcome back, my budding hackers! When we are looking for ways to hack a system, we need a specific exploit to take advantage of a certain vulnerability in the operating system, service, or application. Although I have shown you multiple ways to exploit systems here in Null Byte, there are still many more exploits available that I have not yet shown you.

Hack Like a Pro: The Basics of XORing

Welcome back, my novice hackers! In a recent tutorial, I showed you how to use shikata_ga_nai to change the signature of a payload to evade detection by security devices (firewalls, IDS, etc.) and AV software.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Create a Nearly Undetectable Covert Channel with Tunnelshell

Welcome back, my rookie hackers! Most often, the professional hacker is seeking protected information from the target system or network. This might be credit card numbers, personally identifiable information, or intellectual property (formulas, plans, blueprints, designs, etc.). Most of my Null Byte guides have been focused on getting into the system, but this only begs the question—"what do I do when I get there?"

Hack Like a Pro: The Basics of the Hexadecimal System

Welcome back, my novice hackers! It has become clear from some of your questions that quite a few of you are unfamiliar with the hexadecimal system, or simply, hex. The hexadecimal system is used throughout computing and if you have never studied this Base16 numering system, it may appear relatively opaque.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Compile a New Hacking Tool in Kali

Welcome back, my newbie hackers! Recently, I "upgraded" to Kali as my hacking platform, despite my preference for BackTrack. I did this reluctantly, primarily because new readers here could no longer download BackTrack from their site. I want to point out here that we all must keep in mind that with any software—or for that matter, any product—that is newer is not necessarily better.

Hack Like a Pro: The Hacker Methodology

Welcome back, my neophyte hackers! Many newbie hackers seem to be confused regarding the process or methodology to employ a successful hack. Most want to simply go straight to the exploit without doing the due diligence to make certain that the hack will work and you won't get caught.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Scan the Internet for Heartbleed Vulnerabilities

Welcome back, my budding hackers! Recently, I showed you how you could exploit the widely disseminated OpenSSL vulnerability that has to become known as "Heartbleed". Although the world has known about this vulnerability for over a month now, it will likely take many more months—or even years—for everyone to close this vulnerability.

Hack Like a Pro: Hacking the Heartbleed Vulnerability

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers!

Hack Like a Pro: How to Evade Detection Using Proxychains

Welcome back, my novice hackers! The worst thing that can happen to any hacker is being detected by a security admin, the security technologies (IDS, firewall, etc.), or a forensic investigator.

Hack Like a Pro: Creating a Virtually Undetectable Covert Channel with RECUB

Welcome back, my budding hackers! We've spent a lot of time learning to compromise Windows systems, and we've successfully compromised them with Metasploit, cracked their passwords, and hacked their Wi-Fi. However, very little time was spent developing ways to extract the information from the system once inside.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Use Driftnet to See What Kind of Images Your Neighbor Looks at Online

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! We have looked at a number of ways that we sniff traffic on the network with such tools as Wireshark, tcpdump, dnsiff, and others, but each of these tools is only capable of pulling packets off the wire.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Set Up a Honeypot & How to Avoid Them

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! Those of you who've been reading my tutorials for some time now know that I am adamant regarding the necessity of learning and using Linux to hack. There is no substitute, period.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Clone Any Website Using HTTrack

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Recently, I demonstrated a hack where you could redirect traffic intended for one site, such as bankofamerica.com, to your fake website. Of course, to really make this work, you would need to make a replica of the site you were spoofing, or better yet, you could simply simply make a copy of the original site and host it on your own server!

How To: Get Started with Kali Linux (2014 Version)

Welcome back, my apprentice hackers! As many of you know, I have been hesitant to adopt the new Kali hacking system from Offensive Security. This hesitancy has been based upon a number of bugs in the original release back in March of 2013 and my belief that BackTrack was easier for the novice to work with.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Exploit Adobe Flash with a Corrupted Movie File to Hack Windows 7

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! In my continuing effort to demonstrate to you how to hack the ubiquitous Windows 7, we will going after that notoriously vulnerable Adobe Flash that is on nearly every client Windows system (you are not likely to find it on servers).

Hack Like a Pro: How to Hack Windows 7 to See Whether Your Girlfriend Is Cheating or Not

Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! Several of you have written asking me how you can check on whether your boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse is cheating on you, so I dedicate this tutorial to all of you with doubts about the fidelity of your spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend.

Hack Like a Pro: An Introduction to Regular Expressions (Regex)

Welcome back, my novice hackers! This next subject might seem a bit obscure, but I promise you, this lesson will benefit you significantly either as a hacker or system admin. This tutorial will cover what is usually referred to as a regular expression, or regex for short.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Hack into Your Suspicious, Creepy Neighbor's Computer & Spy on Him

Welcome back, my neophyte hackers! Have you ever had a neighbor that you're certain is up to no good? Maybe you've seen him moving packages in and out at all hours of the night? Maybe you've seen people go into his home and never come out? He seems like a creep and sometimes you hear strange sounds coming from his home? You know he's up to no good, but you aren't sure what it is exactly.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Pivot from the Victim System to Own Every Computer on the Network

Welcome back, my hackers apprentices! To own a network and retrieve the key data, we only need to find ONE weak link in the network. It makes little sense to beat our heads against heavily fortified systems like the file and database server when we can take advantage of the biggest weak link of all—humans.