Hot Null Byte How-Tos
How to Hack Wi-Fi: Disabling Security Cameras on Any Wireless Network with Aireplay-Ng
Electronic warfare tactics work by jamming, disrupting, or disabling the technology a target uses to perform a critical function, and IoT devices are especially vulnerable to attacks. Wireless security cameras like the Nest Cam are frequently used to secure critical locations, but a hacker can surgically disable a webcam or other Wi-Fi connected device without disturbing the rest of the network.
How To: Hack Web Browsers with BeEF to Control Webcams, Phish for Credentials & More
People use browsers for all types of things, and in general, we trust a lot of personal information to them. That's why browsers are a perfect attack surface for a hacker, because the target may not even know they are infected and feed you all of the information you could want.
How To: Create a Bump Key to Open Any Door
Lockpicking is a skill that takes years upon years to master. Locks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but have common ground in how they work. Most cylinder locks have "tumblers," which are metallic cylindrical objects that sit vertically to the actual locking mechanism. Tumblers have five or six holes with rounded key pins of various height in them, each needing to meet an exact height or the cylinder in the center (the lock itself) will not be allowed to turn. This is the reason why yo...
How To: Hack Apache Tomcat via Malicious WAR File Upload
Web applications are a prime target for hackers, but sometimes it's not just the web apps themselves that are vulnerable. Web management interfaces should be scrutinized just as hard as the apps they manage, especially when they contain some sort of upload functionality. By exploiting a vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, a hacker can upload a backdoor and get a shell.
How To: Write Your Own Bash Script to Automate Recon
Automation has been a buzz word for quite some time now, but the principles behind it are as strong as ever. For a hacker or pentester, Bash scripting is one form of automation that cannot be ignored. Virtually any command that can be run from the terminal can be scripted — and should be, in many cases — to save valuable time and effort. And a Bash script just happens to be great for recon.
How To: Detect Misconfigurations in 'Anonymous' Dark Web Sites with OnionScan
Configuring onion services for the first time can be tricky. A surprising number of system administrators make seemingly trivial mistakes that ultimately lead to catastrophic cases of de-anonymizing supposedly anonymous sites on the dark web. OnionScan is a tool designed to identify common misconfigurations in onion services and aid us in understanding how to fix them.
Video: How to Crack Weak Wi-Fi Passwords in Seconds with Airgeddon on Parrot OS
A weak password is one that is short, common, or easy to guess. Equally bad are secure but reused passwords that have been lost by negligent third-party companies like Equifax and Yahoo. Today, we will use Airgeddon, a wireless auditing framework, to show how anyone can crack bad passwords for WPA and WPA2 wireless networks in minutes or seconds with only a computer and network adapter.
How To: Security-Oriented C Tutorial 0x10 - Pointers and Addresses
In previous tutorials we have encountered these things called pointers and addresses but we still don't know what they really are. Let's learn a bit more to clear things up.
How To: Crack Any Master Combination Lock in 8 Tries or Less Using This Calculator
Master Lock combination padlocks have been known to be vulnerable to an attack that reduces their 64,000 possible combinations down to 100. I've devised a new attack for cracking any Master combo lock that simplifies the process and reduces the amount of work down to only 8 combinations.
How to Hack Wi-Fi: Cracking WPA2-PSK Passwords Using Aircrack-Ng
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers. When Wi-Fi was first developed in the late 1990s, Wired Equivalent Privacy was created to give wireless communications confidentiality. WEP, as it became known, proved terribly flawed and easily cracked. You can read more about that in my beginner's guide to hacking Wi-Fi.
How To: Scan, Fake & Attack Wi-Fi Networks with the ESP8266-Based WiFi Deauther
The price of hacking Wi-Fi has fallen dramatically, and low-cost microcontrollers are increasingly being turned into cheap yet powerful hacking tools. One of the most popular is the ESP8266, an Arduino-programmable chip on which the Wi-Fi Deauther project is based. On this inexpensive board, a hacker can create fake networks, clone real ones, or disable all Wi-Fi in an area from a slick web interface.
How To: Brute-Force Nearly Any Website Login with Hatch
The tactic of brute-forcing a login, i.e., trying many passwords very quickly until the correct one is discovered, can be easy for services like SSH or Telnet. For something like a website login page, we must identify different elements of the page first. Thanks to a Python tool for brute-forcing websites called Hatch, this process has been simplified to the point that even a beginner can try it.
How To: The Hacks Behind Cracking, Part 1: How to Bypass Software Registration
If you've ever wondered how software pirates can take software and crack it time and time again, even with security in place, this small series is for you. Even with today's most advanced methods of defeating piracy in place, it is still relatively easy to crack almost any program in the world. This is mainly due to computer processes' ability to be completely manipulated by an assembly debugger. Using this, you can completely bypass the registration process by making it skip the application'...
How To: Get Root with Metasploit's Local Exploit Suggester
So you've managed to get a shell on the target, but you only have measly low-level privileges. Now what? Privilege escalation is a vast field and can be one of the most rewarding yet frustrating phases of an attack. We could go the manual route, but like always, Metasploit makes it easy to perform local privilege escalation and get root with its exploit suggester module.
How To: Use Ettercap to Intercept Passwords with ARP Spoofing
ARP spoofing is an attack against an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network to get between the router and the target user. In an ARP-spoofing attack, messages meant for the target are sent to the attacker instead, allowing the attacker to spy on, deny service to, or man-in-the-middle a target. One of the most popular tools for performing this attack is Ettercap, which comes preinstalled on Kali Linux.
How To: Escape Restricted Shell Environments on Linux
The moment arrives when you finally pop a shell on the web server you've been working on, only you find yourself in a strange environment with limited functionality. Restricted shells are often used as an additional line of defense and can be frustrating for an attacker to stumble upon. But with enough patience and persistence, it is possible to escape these restricted environments.
How To: Automate Brute-Force Attacks for Nmap Scans
Using Hydra, Ncrack, and other brute-forcing tools to crack passwords for the first time can be frustrating and confusing. To ease into the process, let's discuss automating and optimizing brute-force attacks for potentially vulnerable services such as SMTP, SSH, IMAP, and FTP discovered by Nmap, a popular network scanning utility.
How To: Pick an Antenna for Wi-Fi Hacking
When learning Wi-Fi hacking, picking a compatible Wi-Fi network adapter is the first step to learning to crack Wi-Fi passwords.
Android for Hackers: How to Exfiltrate WPA2 Wi-Fi Passwords Using Android & PowerShell
It's easier than you might think to hack into Wi-Fi routers using just one unrooted Android phone. This method doesn't require brute-forcing the password, a Windows OS for converting PowerShell scripts into EXE format, a reliable VPS for intercepting hacked Wi-Fi passwords, or Metasploit for post-exploitation tricks.
The Hacks of Mr. Robot: How to Send a Spoofed SMS Text Message
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As most of you know, Mr. Robot is probably the best hacker TV show ever! This is a great show about a cyber security engineer who is being enticed to hack the very corporation he's being paid to protect. This show is so good, I began a series to demonstrate how to do the hacks he uses in the show.
How To: Hack Coin-Operated Laudromat Machines for Free Wash & Dry Cycles
Most people have had the unfortunate experience of not having a washer and dryer at some point. Apartments in my area tend to charge at least one hundred dollars extra for the units with washer and dryer hookups, and even more if you want a unit with an actual washer and dryer installed already. If you are young and just starting out, this may be hard for you to manage with your current salary. If you have no washer and dryer, the only alternative is the laundromat.
How To: Tactical Nmap for Beginner Network Reconnaissance
When it comes to attacking devices on a network, you can't hit what you can't see. Nmap gives you the ability to explore any devices connected to a network, finding information like the operating system a device is running and which applications are listening on open ports. This information lets a hacker design an attack that perfectly suits the target environment.
How To: Log into Your Raspberry Pi Using a USB-to-TTL Serial Cable
Connecting to your headless Raspberry Pi on the go typically requires a network connection or carrying around bulky peripheral hardware like a screen and keyboard. With the help of an old-school connecting standard, though, you can log into your Pi from any computer using a simple cable. If you don't have a power source, you can also power your Linux distro over the cable at the same time.
How to Hack Wi-Fi: Getting Started with the Aircrack-Ng Suite of Wi-Fi Hacking Tools
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! In the first part of my series on Wi-Fi hacking, we discussed the basic terms and technologies associated with Wi-Fi. Now that you have a firm grip on what Wi-Fi is exactly and how it works, we can start diving into more advance topics on how to hack Wi-Fi.
How To: An Introduction to Steganography & Its Uses
It has been a long while since I last came here to write an article. Graduate school keeps you busy. After I looked over what I had written previously, I decided that I should introduce another fun topic from cryptography. In this case, steganography.
How To: Get a Jump Start into Cybersecurity with This Bundle
Cybersecurity is an industry that isn't going anywhere. After the mass move to online work, the need for more cybersecurity professionals skyrocketed. That demand isn't going away because more and more industries are keeping online and cloud services going for their workers.
How To: Use John the Ripper in Metasploit to Quickly Crack Windows Hashes
There are many password-cracking tools out there, but one of the mainstays has always been John the Ripper. It's a powerful piece of software that can be configured and used in many different ways. Metasploit actually contains a little-known module version of JTR that can be used to quickly crack weak passwords, so let's explore it in an attempt to save precious time and effort.
Advanced Nmap: Top 5 Intrusive Nmap Scripts Hackers & Pentesters Should Know
Nmap is more powerful than you know. With a few scripts, we can extend its functionality beyond a simple port scanner and start to identify details about target servers sysadmins don't want us to know.
Hack Like a Pro: How to Hack Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to Snatch the Sysadmin Password
Welcome back, my budding hackers! One of the keys to becoming a professional and successful hacker is to think creatively. There is always a way to get into any network or system, if you think creatively. In previous tutorials, I have demonstrated ways to crack passwords on both Linux and Windows systems, but in this case, I will show you a way to get the sysadmin password by intercepting it from a Remote Desktop session.
How To: Build a Man-in-the-Middle Tool with Scapy and Python
Man-in-the-Middle attacks can prove to be very useful, they allow us to do many things, such as monitoring, injection, and recon.
How To: Build a Stealth Port Scanner with Scapy and Python
As we're all aware, recon is vital to a successful hack. We need to know everything we can about the target in order to perform the best possible attack. Port scanning is a basic recon concept that is introduced very early in learning proper reconnoissance. The issue with port scanning is that is makes a lot of noise. Every connection to every port will be logged. This is where stealth scanning comes in. Also known as SYN or half-open scanning, stealth port scanning is a bit quieter, and is l...
Hacking Android: How to Create a Lab for Android Penetration Testing
As Android bug bounty hunters and penetration testers, we need a properly configured environment to work in when testing exploits and looking for vulnerabilities. This could mean a virtual Android operating system or a dedicated network for capturing requests and performing man-in-the-middle attacks.
How to Hack Wi-Fi: Cracking WPA2 Passwords Using the New PMKID Hashcat Attack
Cracking the password for WPA2 networks has been roughly the same for many years, but a newer attack requires less interaction and info than previous techniques and has the added advantage of being able to target access points with no one connected. The latest attack against the PMKID uses Hashcat to crack WPA passwords and allows hackers to find networks with weak passwords more easily.
How To: Target Bluetooth Devices with Bettercap
An incredible amount of devices use Bluetooth or Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate. These devices rarely have their radios switched off, and in some cases, are deliberately used as trackers for lost items. While Bluetooth devices support MAC address randomization, many manufacturers do not use it, allowing us to use tools like Bettercap to scan for and track Bluetooth devices.
How To: Set Up a Wi-Fi Spy Camera with an ESP32-CAM
The ESP32-CAM is a convenient little camera module with a lot of built-in power, and you can turn one into an inconspicuous spy camera to hide in any room. There's only one issue: it does omit a USB port. That makes it a little harder to program, but with an ESP32-based board, FTDI programmer, and some jumper wires, you'll have a programmed ESP32 Wi-Fi spy camera in no time.
How To: Exploit Shellshock on a Web Server Using Metasploit
One of the most critical bugs to come out in the last five years was Shellshock, a vulnerability which allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via the Unix Bash shell remotely. This vulnerability has been around for a while now, but due to the ubiquity of Unix machines connected to the web, Shellshock is still a very real threat, especially for unpatched systems.
How To: Use MDK3 for Advanced Wi-Fi Jamming
You may have heard of a signal jammer before, which usually refers to a device that blasts out a strong enough radio signal to drown out the reception of nearby devices like cell phones. Purpose-built jammer hardware is outright illegal in many countries. Still, Wi-Fi is vulnerable to several different jamming attacks that can be done with Kali Linux and a wireless network adapter.
How To: Bypass File Upload Restrictions on Web Apps to Get a Shell
One of the most promising avenues of attack in a web application is the file upload. With results ranging from XSS to full-blown code execution, file uploads are an attractive target for hackers. There are usually restrictions in place that can make it challenging to execute an attack, but there are various techniques a hacker could use to beat file upload restrictions to get a shell.
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.
How To: Play Wi-Fi Hacking Games Using Microcontrollers to Practice Wi-Fi Attacks Legally
ESP8266-based microcontrollers can be used to create exciting and legal Wi-Fi hacking games to test your or your friends' Wi-Fi hacking skills.