Hands-On Web Penetration Testing with Metasploit

Identify, exploit, and test web application security with ease

Key Features

• Get up to speed with Metasploit and discover how to use it for pentesting
• Understand how to exploit and protect your web environment effectively
• Learn how an exploit works and what causes vulnerabilities

Book Description

Metasploit has been a crucial security tool for many years. However, there are only a few modules that Metasploit has made available to the public for pentesting web applications. In this book, you'll explore another aspect of the framework - web applications - which is not commonly used. You'll also discover how Metasploit, when used with its inbuilt GUI, simplifies web application penetration testing.

The book starts by focusing on the Metasploit setup, along with covering the life cycle of the penetration testing process. Then, you will explore Metasploit terminology and the web GUI, which is available in the Metasploit Community Edition. Next, the book will take you through pentesting popular content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla, which will also include studying the latest CVEs and understanding the root cause of vulnerability in detail. Later, you'll gain insights into the vulnerability assessment and exploitation of technological platforms such as JBoss, Jenkins, and Tomcat. Finally, you'll learn how to fuzz web applications to find logical security vulnerabilities using third-party tools.

By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of how to exploit and validate vulnerabilities by working with various tools and techniques.

What you will learn

• Get up to speed with setting up and installing the Metasploit framework
• Gain first-hand experience of the Metasploit web interface
• Use Metasploit for web-application reconnaissance
• Understand how to pentest various content management systems
• Pentest platforms such as JBoss, Tomcat, and Jenkins
• Become well-versed with fuzzing web applications
• Write and automate penetration testing reports

Who this book is for

This book is for web security analysts, bug bounty hunters, security professionals, or any stakeholder in the security sector who wants to delve into web application security testing. Professionals who are not experts with command line tools or Kali Linux and prefer Metasploit's graphical user interface (GUI) will also find this book useful. No experience with Metasploit is required, but basic knowledge of Linux and web application pentesting will be helpful.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Web Application Penetration Testing
2. Metasploit Essentials
3. The Metasploit Web Interface
4. Using Metasploit for Reconnaissance
5. Web Application Enumeration using Metasploit
6. Vulnerability scanning using WMAP
7. Vulnerability Assessment using Metasploit (Nessus)
8. Pentesting CMSes - WordPress
9. Pentesting CMSes - Joomla
10. Pentesting CMSes - Drupal
11. Penetration Testing on Technological Platforms - JBoss
12. Penetration Testing on Technological Platforms - Apache Tomcat
13. Penetration Testing on Technological Platforms - Jenkins
14. Web Application Fuzzing - Logical Bug Hunting
15. Writing Penetration Testing Reports

Harpreet Singh is the author of Hands-On Red Team Tactics published by Packt Publishing and has more than 7 years of experience in the fields of ethical hacking, penetration testing, vulnerability research, and red teaming. He is also a certified OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional) and OSWP (Offensive Security Wireless Professional). Over the years, Harpreet has acquired an offensive skill set as well as a defensive skill set. He is a professional who specializes in wireless and network exploitation, including but not limited to mobile exploitation and web application exploitation, and he has also performed red team engagements for banks and financial groups.

Himanshu Sharma has already achieved fame for finding security loopholes and vulnerabilities in Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Adobe, Uber, AT&T, Avira, and many others. He has assisted international celebrities such as Harbajan Singh in recovering their hacked accounts. He has been a speaker and trainer at international conferences such as Botconf 2013, CONFidence, RSA Singapore, LeHack, Hacktivity, Hack In the Box, and SEC-T. He also spoke at the IEEE Conference for Tedx. Currently, he is the cofounder of BugsBounty, a crowdsourced security platform.