-: It is time we slowly start getting
into penetration testing process.
For now, we didn't yet perform any hacking,
but we are getting there.
It is important we get the basics first
and that we know why we do everything.
And trust me, later in the course,
we'll be doing some serious stuff
and everything will make sense
because we covered all the basics first
and we didn't just jump into something
without any preparation.
So in this video we will be briefly talking about
stages of penetration test.
How does it go, in which order do we perform the steps,
and which steps are crucial. For now on,
we got our virtual lab set up.
We installed Kali Linux
and all the tools that hackers use are now available
for us in our machine.
We also performed some configuration
to it to get it full screen, as well
as performed setup for internet connection.
From now, the basic steps that we are going to do
is we use our Kali Linux machine to scan and
attack different machines, networks, websites and accounts.
But how are we going to do that?
Do we just magically attack it,
and do we just install virus on their machines somehow?
And if so, how do we do that?
What about Trojans, password cracking, or phishing?
Is that what we do?
Well, that is just a small portion of a penetration test.
First thing, and most important thing
before we even start a penetration test
on a target, is to figure out
do we have permission to attack this target?
This is very important since you don't want to
be attacking machines or target networks
that you do not have permission to attack.
It could be that client told me to only test one machine
on the network and not the entire network.
Therefore, I'm only allowed to test that one machine.
Or it could be that our client has multiple networks
and they only allowed us to test one of them.
That means you should not go around and try to
hack different machines on a different network.
Now, these are only some of the examples
but, what's important to get out of this, is that always
have permission to perform a penetration test.
Trying to hack or hacking something that you are not
allowed to hack could potentially get you
into some serious trouble if you get caught.
Now that we got that out of the way, let us finally talk
about different stages of penetration testing.
We already know that there are five of them
and the first one is Reconnaissance or
or Information Gathering.
Now Reconnaissance is the act of gathering information
about your target to better plan out your attack.
And this type of penetration testing is the only one
that you can perform on any website or target that you want,
since gathering information about something is not illegal.
there are two ways that we can go about doing
Information Gathering;
actively, by directly interacting with our target,
or it can be done passively,
without interacting with the target.
A simple example of this would be,
let's say you want to gather information for Facebook
and you would do it actively by visiting Facebook page
and getting all the information that you can
from the Facebook page itself.
While passively, it would be if you went
on some other website that talks
about Facebook and you get information
about Facebook from that other website.
This would mean you never interacted with Facebook,
therefore you performed a passive Information Gathering.
After this step comes Scanning.
Here is where you can start getting in trouble,
if you do it without permission.
Scanning is a deeper form of Information Gathering
using technical tools to find openings in the target
and in the systems that you're attacking.
These openings can be gateways, open ports,
operating systems that target runs, and so on and so on.
In this step, we also perform vulnerability scanning,
which is just searching for vulnerable software
in the target system or network
that could possibly be exploited.
After Information Gathering and Scanning comes third step,
which is Gaining Access or so called Exploitation.
And, this is the step where we actually hack the target.
We use information that we gathered in phase one
and phase two, take control of any number of target devices.
Gaining access of target devices allows us to steal data
from their system or to use those devices to
attack other devices on the same network.
Usually after this step you can consider penetration
tests to be successful,
since you manage to gain access to a target system.
However, this is not the last step of a penetration test.
After Exploitation comes Maintaining Access.
This step with the fifth step is sometimes optional.
You might not need to always perform last steps
since client might only care whether their system
is penetrable, therefore you prove them it is,
after the third step, if there was a vulnerability
of course. However, maintaining access is also
important step and it is commonly done by installing
back doors and planting root kits.
But a back door and root kits are are simply programs
that will allow us to gain access to that target whenever
we want without the need to exploit it again.
We just connect to the back door that we planted
in the target system and there it is.
We are again on their machine.
And last step of penetration test is Covering Tracks.
Covering Tracks is simply removing all evidence
that an attack ever took place.
This can involve deleting or hiding files, editing logs,
or basically reverting any changes that you did
to the system while the attack took place.
Okay so, these five steps are entire process
of a penetration test and we're going to cover them
in great detail throughout our course.
Keep in mind that these steps should be performed in order.
And one more important thing is in case you're a beginner,
you might think that third step
which is Exploitation or Gaining Access
is the most important step of the process.
Even though it is very important and crucial,
the most important steps are actually Information Gathering
and Scanning.
It is in these two steps that we gather information
about the target and discover vulnerabilities.
So if you're not that good in gathering information,
you might miss some things that could be used to gain access
to the machine, therefore preventing you
to find an actual vulnerability.
So just keep that in mind that Information Gathering
is 70% of work.
Okay good, so, we talked a little about these phases
but before we get to perform each one of these steps
we must first get a little familiar with our
Kali Linux machine.
So in the next few lectures we're going to get
into details about terminal and some
of the commands we can run and execute with it.
See you there.