Welcome to Section eight and this section, we're going to go over launching attacks now, this is going
to be one of the longest sections in this entire course.
We're going to cover a myriad of different ways to launch attacks, how attacks are actually launched
by black hats, what we can do to overcome those attacks and really to be more on the offense, because
this is where we've already gathered the data.
We've already done the active and passive reconnaissance.
We've been able to gather the intelligence so that we can actually execute and launch attacks based
on the information that we've already accumulated.
Right.
And so what we're going to go over here in this section is the different methods, the different strategies,
tools and everything that comes into play, into launching attacks.
Like I mentioned, this is probably going to be one of the longest sections, but it's going to be completely
value packed.
And I'm excited for you to get started.
So let's go ahead and go over the Section eight overview.
So, like I mentioned, this is where you're going to learn how to launch attacks and compromise your
targets when hacking.
And what we're going to go over specifically are the phases of an attack and then analyzing gathered
information.
Right.
Because after we collect the information, we want to make sure that we're able to analyze it appropriately.
We're able to look at where the weak points were, the areas of opportunities for us to actually exploit,
and then searching and understanding, exploit and launching exploits and then creating custom malware,
how we can actually create this and be able to use it to infect machines and then avoiding antivirus
detection.
This is extremely powerful here.
When you can bypass like a McAfee or a Norten or any one of these very sophisticated virus protections.
Right.
This is very powerful for you to be able to go in and actually take advantage of a system.
Right.
And then we have brute force attacks.
This is where you're essentially overloading a system, essentially throwing everything in the kitchen
sink to be able to get access to the actual target.
And then the AARP spoofing and the social engineering.
So social engineering is going to be also a topic that we go quite in-depth in as well, as you can
perhaps recall from the previous lectures in sections, social engineering is really the manipulation
of individuals to gather intel information about them without them actually doing it willingly.
Right.
Because they are essentially giving you information, but they're doing it not knowing that you're looking
to use that information in a negative manner.
Right.
Maliciously, right.
So we're going to cover all these different topics here in depth.
So let's go ahead and jump into this real quick here.
Let's go into a quick disclaimer.
Like I mentioned on any other section here, anything from this course that you learn here is purely
for educational purposes and is meant to be used for ethical hacking only on this given permission to
do so prior.
So there are five phases that make up an attack.
The first one is reconnaissance, the information gathering, the scanning, the actually looking at
the network and looking at what is available for us to exploit and then gaining access.
This is actually tied up the actual network.
We are in there through whatever kind of loophole that we found and then maintaining access once we're
there installing back doors or utilizing a myriad of different methods to maintain that access and then
covering our tracks.
Right.
Making sure that we cover up any type of evidence or information that lets anybody else know that we've
actually been there so that when they go look at their network, they are not able to find any tracks
from us.
Right.
And so let's go into these one by one.
So reconnaissance.
Right.
We have already gone through this.
But I want to kind of give you a brief overview of what reconnaissance is here.
So phase one reconnaissance, right?
We talked about passive here where an attacker does not interact with the system directly.
And then we have the active where the attacker is actually interacting with the system by using tools
to detect open ports.
Different availabilities that are there to be able to connect to the passive is where somebody can be
across the world and just not really connected to anything.
And then active is actually where there's some sort of connection made to the network through some kind
of port or whatever kind of loophole available.
And then phase two, we have the scanning.
So this is where we are using the information that we gathered and we're looking to find different vulnerabilities
so an attacker can gather critical information on a network such as mapping the system, the router
and the firewall.
So, for example, when the attacker is looking at a particular system, they're looking to map it out.
They want to look.
OK, how does everything connect, does one particular department have their system or their network
set up a certain way, let's say the marketing department, you know, how are they set up versus like
the sales department versus the H.R. department?
Right.
And then how do they all connect to the main network of the entire system?
Right.
And so they're looking at how everything is set up, all the different firewalls, essentially looking
at any roadblocks that may come into play.
Right.
With their actual attacks that they're planning.
And then the port scanners, this is how they used to essentially scan the system.
Look at the information, look at the actual machines, vulnerability scanners.
These are the most commonly used tools.
This is what we're going into, gaining access.
This is where the most damage happens here, because once access is gained, they can do quite a bit
of damage here to the actual network.
They can do quite a bit of damage here to the network based on the different techniques that are actually
presented in this program.
So access can be gained locally, offline, over land, over the Internet.
And then a hacker's chance of gaining access into a target system are influenced by factors such as
architecture and configuration of that particular target system, how it's mapped out, how everything's
connected, if one is connected to the other and what's proximity.
Right.
What's the, you know, area of coverage and then the skill level of the hacker, how advanced are they?
What kind of skill level do they have?
What kind of tools and techniques do they have?
And then the initial level of access obtained.
So now let's go into phase four, maintaining access.
So maintaining access.
This is where we want to remain undetected.
Right.
And we want to remove any evidence of the intrusion.
And so what happens here is more often than not, a back door is installed or a Trojan is there to be
able to allow them to get repeated access without leaving any kind of footprint and then also installing
rude kids to gain full administrative access to the target system.
Hackers can use Trojan horses to transfer usernames, passwords and any other information stored on
the system.
These are very, very powerful tools to be able to transfer that information and essentially to maintain
access to the system.
And then organizations can use intrusion detection systems or deploy traps known as honeypots and honeynet
to detect intruders.
So oftentimes organizations that have an actual cybersecurity strategy or plan already in place, they'll
have these essentially as bait to trap those actual intruders.
And then phase five here covering tracks.
And a good hacker will always erase all evidence of their actions.
And with the Trojans, such as a piece or net cat, these tools are used often to erase the attackers
activity from the systems log files.
So let's look at steganography.
This is a process here of hiding data and other data, for instance, an image or sound files where
there can be encrypted data or information in there, and then we have tunneling.
This is where you can take advantage of the transmission protocol by carrying in one protocol over another.
So now let's look at what exactly is social engineering.
I want to give you more of an in-depth understanding of what this is, what this is about.
Anthony's going to go quite in-depth into this section as well.
I want to give you a bird's eye overview of what this entails here.
So social engineering is the art of manipulating users into revealing confidential information that
can be used to gain unauthorized access to information.
So let's look at some of the common social engineering attacks.
So let's look at phishing attacks.
And these are the most common types of attacks that are leveraging social engineering techniques.
So this is where attackers are using emails, social media and instant messaging, and also SMS through
text message to trick victims into providing sensitive information or visiting malicious you or else
websites to attempt to compromise their systems.
And then water holding attacks consist of injecting malicious code into the public web pages of a site
that the target used to visit.
So just think about like a simple Web site such as like Yahoo!
Dot com, where it gets a ton of traffic.
They could put in some type of malicious code in there where that anybody that visits that website can
get automatically infected.
Right.
So that's how they're able to use a water hole attack.
And then we have pretexting.
This is where this is where the hackers presenting themselves as someone else in order to obtain private
information.
And usually this is where an attacker creates like a fake identity or a persona to use it to manipulate
the RECEPT of information.
And so this is a quick overview of social engineering and.
The launch, an attack section, we're going to go a lot more in depth and not only on the theoretical
side, but also on the practical side.
We're going to go over a bunch of different ways to launch attacks.
Anthony is going to go into those and a lot more detail.
I'm excited for you to get started on the section and we'll see you on the next one.