Whether you miss the good old days of Telnet or you want to know what hacking was like when security was nothing but an afterthought, Telehack is the game for you. The text-based hacking game is a simulation of a stylized combination of ARPANET and Usenet, circa 1985 to 1990, with a full multi-user universe and player interactions, including 26,600 hosts.
Every summer for the last 26 years, hoards of hackers have descended on the Las Vegas Strip for DEFCON, the biggest hacker conference in the US. There's a wealth of talks every season (DEFCON 27 has at least 95 scheduled), and there have been some essential topics to learn from in past discussions. We've dug through the last ten years and found the 15 most popular talks you should watch.
In the first guide, we laid the groundwork for our ultimate goal of uploading and running the unix-privesc-check script on our target. We identified an input field vulnerable to SQL injection and utilized Sqlmap to set up a file stager on the server. Now, we're ready to upload files and execute the script, so we can identify any misconfigurations that could lead to privilege escalation.
If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a tiny Arduino Wi-Fi sniffer that saves Wireshark-compatible PCAP files and fits anywhere.
A relay is an electrical component that works like a light switch, where it's turned on or off with an electrical signal. By connecting a relay to a Wi-Fi connected microcontroller like an ESP8266, you can build a connected switch that can be controlled from the web browser of any device connected to the same Wi-Fi network — all for just a couple of dollars.
If you're using a mobile device, it's a pretty safe bet that your apps are sending lots of information back and forth from their servers. To make sure there is no inappropriate data collection going on, it's worth setting up a web proxy to spy on this traffic, so you know exactly which apps are "phoning home" and when.
Hackers are always seeking zero-day exploits that can successfully bypass Windows 10's security features. There has been extensive research into creating undetectable malware and entire GitHub projects dedicated to automating the creation of undetectable payloads such as WinPayloads, Veil v3, and TheFatRat.
Analysis of photographs and social connections can be a huge component of social engineering. Understanding who a person is, as well as who they know, can establish links within a company. This information could be used by hackers to execute elaborate social engineering attacks.
Ports allow network and internet-connected devices to interact using specified channels. While servers with dedicated IP addresses can connect directly to the internet and make ports publicly available, a system behind a router on a local network may not be open to the rest of the web. To overcome the issue, port forwarding can be used to make these devices publicly accessible.
Millions of travelers pass through airports each day without understanding how powerful and insecure a boarding pass can be. Anyone can scan the boarding pass barcode with a mobile app, allowing access to frequent-flyer accounts and even a passenger's temporary airline account. In this guide, we will explore how hackers scan and decode the information contained in a boarding pass barcode and why.
Facebook really wants your phone number, nagging you for one as soon as you join. This isn't all bad since it can help secure your account with two-factor authentication. On the flipside, this makes it easy to reveal the private phone numbers of virtually anyone on Facebook, including celebrities and politicians. We're going to look at how a hacker would do this and how to protect yourself.
When hacking into a network during a penetration test, it can sometimes be useful to create your own wireless AP simply by plugging a Pi into an available Ethernet port. With this setup, you have your own backdoor wireless connection to the network in a matter of seconds. Creating an AP is also helpful while traveling, or needing to share a connection with a group of people.
Flight disruptions can cost billions of dollars, but most modern commercial flights rely on air traffic control systems that harbor serious vulnerabilities. The Federal Aviation Administration uses an infrastructure called NextGen, which relies on Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast, or ADS-B for short.
PowerShell Empire is a post-exploitation framework for computers and servers running Microsoft Windows, Windows Server operating systems, or both. In these tutorials, we will be exploring everything from how to install Powershell Empire to how to snoop around a target's computer without the antivirus software knowing about it. If we are lucky, we might even be able to obtain domain administrator credentials and own the whole network.
Cryptography is the science of keeping secrets, or more specifically, the science of disguising them. As a point of fact, cryptography has progressed quite a bit farther and now encompasses file and message integrity, sender authentication, and pseudo-random number generators.
There are tons of tools out there that do all kinds of recon, but it can be hard to narrow down what to use. A great way to be more efficient is by taking advantage of scripting. This doesn't have to mean writing everything from scratch — it can simply mean integrating existing tools into a single, comprehensive script. Luckily, it's easy to create your own subdomain enumeration script for better recon.
Python is commonly touted as one of the best programming languages for beginners to learn, and its straightforward syntax and functionality makes that hard to argue with. But a lot of tutorials still use Python 2, which is outdated now. Python 3 introduces many new features, and it's important to be aware of them going forward, as well as the key differences between Python 3 and its predecessor.
Network enumeration is one of the essential phases of an attack, but it can take a lot of time and effort depending on the size. We've all been spoiled by Nmap and similar tools, and while there is a learning curve involved, they are extremely useful. But there's also GoScan, a tool that builds upon Nmap, offering an automated way to enumerate networks and services quickly.
While hackers know and love the Raspberry Pi, many don't know of its cheaper cousin, the microcontroller. Unlike a Pi, which can be used more or less like a regular computer, microcontrollers like the Wi-Fi connected ESP8266 require some necessary programming skill to master. In this guide, we'll build an Arduino program from scratch and explain the code structure in a way anyone can understand.
When setting up a Raspberry Pi, it's easy to overlook changing the default password. Like many IoT devices, the Raspberry Pi's default Raspbian operating system installs with a widely-known default password, leaving the device vulnerable to remote access. Using a tool called rpi-hunter, hackers can discover, access, and drop custom payloads on any weak Pi connected to the same network.
You've protected your Ubuntu system from physical attacks, annoyed network hackers, and sandboxed potentially malicious applications. Great! Now, the next logical steps to locking down your OS include thoroughly auditing Ubuntu for weak points, using antivirus software that respects your privacy, and monitoring system logs like a boss.
Once you've installed Ubuntu with security in mind and reduced the possibility of network attacks on your system, you can start thinking about security on an application level. If a malicious file is opened on your system, will an attacker be able to access every file on the computer? The chances are much slimmer if you put the proper defenses in place.
Defcon is the largest hacker conference with something for everyone, whether it be the talks, parties, villages, or any of the hundreds of events. In this guide, we'll take a holistic view at everything that goes into attending the con for the first time, from securing your electronics and making the most of your time to the logistics of getting there and finding the right place to stay.
Step 1: What Exploit Development Is and Why Should I Be Interested on About This Topic
It always looks different when it's not about you. The Internet is our world's Alterego. Those many bits don't really make sense unless we want them to be valuable, to mean something.
If you're getting into automation, Bash scripting is usually the way to go. However, there are a couple of limitations, and one of them is logging into another device like a Raspberry Pi and running a script automatically. To help in those situations, we're going to automate delivering an SSH payload with an "expect" script.
With just two microcontrollers soldered together, you can inject keystrokes into a computer from a smartphone. After building and programming the device, you plug it into a desktop or laptop, access it over a smartphone, and inject keystrokes as you would with a USB Rubber Ducky.
Withstanding an attack from a motivated hacker is one of the most important responsibilities a system administrator must undertake. This is especially true for websites that may contain sensitive customer information and a high volume of users. So it's important for a sysadmin to take proactive measures to find and fix vulnerabilities in their websites.
As we've seen with other tools and utilities, administrators typically use certain things to do their job more efficiently, and those things are often abused by attackers for exploitation. After all, hacking is just the process of getting a computer to do things in unexpected ways. Today, we will be covering various methods to perform banner grabbing to learn more about the target system.
GTFOBins and LOLBAS are projects with the goal of documenting native binaries that can be abused and exploited by attackers on Unix and Windows systems, respectfully. These binaries are often used for "living off the land" techniques during post-exploitation. In this tutorial, we will be exploring gtfo, a tool used to search these projects for abusable binaries right from the command line.
Microsoft's built-in antimalware solution does its best to prevent common attacks. Unfortunately for Windows 10 users, evading detection requires almost no effort at all. An attacker armed with this knowledge will easily bypass security software using any number of tools.
The art of fuzzing is a vital skill for any penetration tester or hacker to possess. The faster you fuzz, and the more efficiently you are at doing it, the closer you come to achieving your goal, whether that means finding a valid bug or discovering an initial attack vector. A tool called ffuf comes in handy to help speed things along and fuzz for parameters, directors, and more.
If you've spotted an unintended Ethernet connection and wondered what you could do with all of the information coursing through those wires, there's an easy way to hack into it and find out.
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.
The internet has undoubtedly changed the way we work and communicate. With technological advances, more and more people can collaborate on the web from anywhere in the world. But this remote-friendly environment inherently brings security risks, and hackers are always finding ways to exploit systems for other uses.
Sudo is a necessity on most Linux systems, most of which are probably being used as web servers. While the principle of least privilege is typically applied, sudo misconfigurations can easily lead to privilege escalation if not properly mediated. Which brings us to SUDO_KILLER, a tool used to identify sudo misconfigurations that can aid in privilege escalation.
OpenBSD implements security in its development in a way that no other operating system on the planet does. Learning to use the Unix-like operating system can help a hacker understand secure development, create better servers, and improve their understanding of the BSD operating system. Using VirtualBox, the OS can be installed within a host to create a full-featured test environment.
As a hacker, the final stage of exploitation is covering their tracks, which involves wiping all activity and logs so that they can avoid being detected. It's especially crucial for persistence if the target will be accessed again in the future by the attacker.
Kali Linux has come a long way since its BackTrack days, and it's still widely considered the ultimate Linux distribution for penetration testing. The system has undergone quite the transformation since its old days and includes an updated look, improved performance, and some significant changes to how it's used.
Individually addressable LEDs, also commonly called "NeoPixels" after the popular Adafruit product, are a bright and colorful way to get started with basic Python programming. With an inexpensive ESP8266 or ESP32 microcontroller, it's easy to get started programming your own holiday lighting animations on a string of NeoPixels with beginner-friendly MicroPython!
