You can use SkipFish for web application security scanning, which helps identify vulnerabilities and security issues in web applications. This open-source tool was developed by Google and is designed to evaluate the security status of web applications by performing various tests and scans. We will focus on SkipFish and will try to help you figure out how to install SkipFish on Kali Linux. So read this article carefully to get the best scanner for scanning web applications.

A full Introduction to SkipFish

SkipFish is a type of penetration testing tool that works automatically. It is open-source and was created on GitHub for security researchers. You can use this tool to collect information and test the security of websites, VPS, Admin RDP, and dedicated servers.

SkipFish has a simple structure and is one of the best penetration testing tools. This tool can target many integrated tools for testing in the target system. SkipFish can also be used to detect the security of active web applications. It can be used by security professionals, developers, and system administrators to identify potential weaknesses in web applications before they are exploited by attackers.

In the next section, you will find out some significant and practical features of SkipFish:

What Are the Significant Features of SkipFish?

• SkipFish is a perfect tool for tracking enumeration.
• You can use SkipFish for scanning all websites and webpages.
• It is an open-source intelligence tool.
• It contains a wide range of modules such as wananga, metagoofil, etc.
• SkipFish is able to detect vulnerabilities in CMS such as WordPress, Joomla, and others.
• SkipFish contains more than 15 modules that can be used in penetration testing.
• This scanning tool is capable of detecting a wide range of subtle detects, and different security checks that involve blind injection vectors. In other words, it has Cutting-edge security logic.
• SkipFish supports a wide range of odd web frameworks and mixed-technology sites like on-the-fly wordlist creation.
• Another SkipFish feature is high-speed this feature contains highly optimized HTTP handling, minimal CPU footprint, and pure C code.

How to Install SkipFish on Kali Linux

Let’s start the installation process using the step-by-step instructions here:

The first step to installing the SkipFish tool is moving to the desktop and then typing the command below:

 git clone https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/skipfish.git

Now SkipFish will be installed in your Kalli Linux system.

As the second step, you should move SkipFish into the tool directory with the following command:

cd skipfish
ls
skipfish -h

At last, you will be able to see the tool’s help menu that is now active. You can use all of the flags with the tool. As soon as you download the tool, you can learn how to utilize it.

Tip: Most of the time you don’t need to install SkipFish because it comes pre-installed in Kali Linux.

What Is the Usage of SkipFish?

After the installation part, You can type the command below in the terminal to check its option:

sudo skipfish -h  

We will show the usage of SkipFish with some examples.

Example 1: Use the SkipFish tool for scanning a WordPress website with the help of an IP address:

skipfish -o 202 http://192.168.1.***/wordpress

You can see the tool’s report here:

Example 2: You can scan bodegeit with the following command:

sudo skipfish -o Skipfish http://192.168.***.37/bodegeit

As a result, you can view all relevant data such as data, scan time, HTTP requests to hosts, HTTP errors, etc.

What Is the functionality of SkipFish?

SkipFish is a command line tool that can be run on different operating systems. To configure the scanning process, it needs to specify the target URL and various options. The generated report can be viewed in the browser to understand the security findings. The way this tool works is that it works using dictionary-based crawlers and recursive crawling and creates a map in the console of the site in question.

With the help of this tool, you can have all active security checks in the domain. Finally, SkipFish produces a report that can be further used for security assessments.

Note that security scanning tools like SkipFish are only part of a comprehensive security strategy. Regular manual security tests, code reviews, and other security measures are necessary to ensure the overall security of web applications.

Conclusion

SkipFish is now installed on your Kali Linux system and ready to be used. As we mentioned above, SkipFish is a web application security scanner, so make sure to use it responsibly and only on systems and applications you have permission to scan. Please note that software and repositories may change over time, so it’s best to refer to the official SkipFish repository or documentation for any updates or changes. Happy coding!

Kali Linux is a Debian distribution operating system that comes with many installed tools. This operating system is provided to help with security checks and penetration testing. In this post, we decided to introduce a powerful password-generation tool in Kali Linux (Crunch).

What is Kali Linux?

When we use the word Linux, we mean the entire Linux operating system. All Linux operating systems have different distributions, each of which has its name and is privately distributed and supported by a company. One of the types of Linux distribution is Kali Linux.

Kali Linux is a security version of the Linux operating system that is mostly designed for security penetration testing. With the variety of plugins and security applications that come with it, this operating system makes it a suitable tool for penetration testing, reverse engineering, and security research.

Kali Linux is actually a unique operating system that is using by everyone, both good and bad. It can be used to discover and fix security vulnerabilities. One of the applications of Kali Linux is hacking with Kali Linux and penetration testing with Kali Linux, which both security experts and hackers do. In other words, Kali is like a sharp knife in the toolbox.

What is Crunch and how does it work?

The crunch tool is a tool in the field of creating a password list and is one of the most powerful in this field. In other words, the Crunch tool is a word list generator where you can use a standard or any character set to generate word lists. Word lists are creating by combining and permuting a set of characters. You can select the number of characters and the size of the list.

This program supports numbers and symbols, uppercase and lowercase letters separately, and Unicode. Among the important features of this tool, the following capabilities can be mentioned:

• The possibility of generating a password list with 2 different combinations and replacement methods
• Support letters, numbers, symbols
• Ability to combine letters, numbers, symbols
• Ability to be case-sensitive
• The ability to stop and resume the password list creation process

How to install Crunch in Kali Linux

Before starting the installation, we recommend that you use the Linux VPS server plans provided on our website and benefit from the high quality and speed of these servers. After getting familiar with Crunch and its capabilities in the previous sections, now it’s time to learn how to install it. Installing Crunch on Kali Linux is very easy, just run the following command:

sudo apt install crunch

This will download and install the crunch package from the official Kali Linux repository. You may need to enter your password and confirm the installation.

To check if Crunch is installed correctly, you can run the following command:

crunch -h

This will display the help page of Crunch, which shows the usage, syntax, and options of the tool. You can also see some examples of how to use Crunch to generate wordlists.

Generating passwords with Crunch

After installing Crunch, at this stage, we want to teach you how to generate passwords with Crunch. To do this, you must follow the steps below.

To create a word list of specific numbers, you can run the following command. Note that this command produces a list of 110 one- and two-digit number words with all combinations of the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It is interesting to know that you can use the alphabet.

crunch 1 2 0123456789

Now you can save the created word list in a file by running the following command. The command you see creates a list, and then it copies the same into a text file called wordlist.txt:

crunch 1 2 0123456789 >wordlist.txt

Now you can use the following command to save the list of words in a file with the -o option:

crunch 1 2 0123456789 -o wordlist.txt

Another way to create a password list is to use the rainbow charset file that you can see below:

crunch 2 3 -f /user/share/rainbowcrack/charset.txt

You can use the pattern to create a list of words. In the following command, you can use 4 characters, @ % and ^:

crunch 10 10 -t manav^%%%%

,: used for all capital letters.

@: Used for all lowercase letters.

%: Used for all numeric characters.

^: Used for all special characters.

Finally, to create a list of words by changing strings or characters, you can use the following command:

crunch 1 10 -p Hello Manav

Tips for creating strong and secure passwords

As you read in this article, Crunch is a password-generation tool in Kali Linux. But it is interesting to know some tips about generating strong passwords. A good and secure password is one that cannot be guessed and is not exposed by the methods used by hackers. Hackers use Kali Linux OS to find your password by combining numbers, letters, and symbols. They can easily find short passwords in seconds.

As such, strong passwords consist of a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special symbols such as punctuation. A good password should be at least 12 characters long, although we recommend using a longer password. In general, the following are the necessary parameters for a good and secure password:

1) A good password has at least 12 characters; The longer your password is, the better.

2) It has uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols; A password that is a combination of these is harder for hackers to find.

3) It’s not made of a memorable keyboard track.

4) It is not made according to your personal information.

5) It is unique and different for each account.

Every year, breaches of users’ information and privacy cause huge financial and credit losses to organizations, half of which are caused by cyber-attacks. By conducting a penetration test, companies can prevent data breaches caused by cyber-attacks. Because penetration testing projects include attack simulation along with other techniques. Penetration testing allows businesses to identify vulnerabilities in their IT infrastructure. In the rest of this article, we will tell you how to become a Metasploit Expert on Kali Linux.

Understanding the basics of penetration testing

Penetration testing, also known as Pen Test, is one of the most common and standard methods of security and penetration testing of web applications. Pen Test runs simulated attacks on the website from inside and outside to find out which parts of our website have security weaknesses. It is recommended that all websites in the world use Pen Test so that they can find out the security weakness of their site before hackers and correct it quickly.

The main issue here is that many web applications request sensitive user data and store it in their database. This makes web applications a mine of valuable information. Therefore, hackers have shown great interest in databases. The situation becomes dire when we consider the generality of web applications!

By performing pen test, we pursue the following goals:

• Detecting system vulnerabilities that were previously unknown
• Checking the effectiveness of the current website security rules
• Testing active security components on a site such as a firewall and DNS
• Identifying the weakest parts of the program
• Identifying the appropriate parts of the site for data leakage

Getting started with Kali Linux

Kali Linux is a security distribution of Linux derived from Debian and used specifically for computer crime prevention and advanced penetration testing. This version was developed through the BackTrack rewrite by Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns of Offensive Security.

Kali Linux includes several hundred tools that have been assembled to perform various tasks in the field of information security, such as penetration testing, security research, computer crimes, and reverse engineering.

Kali Linux has more than 600 penetration testing applications installed on it, each of which you need to discover. Each program has its own flexibilities and uses. Kali Linux has done a great job of separating these useful tools into the following categories:

• Information gathering
• Vulnerability analysis
• Wireless attacks
• Web applications
• Exploit tools
• stress test
• Criminological tools
• wiretapping and forgery
• Password attacks
• Maintenance accesses
• Reverse Engineering
• Reporting tools
• Hardware hacking

In the rest of this article, we will teach how to install and set up Metasploit on Kali Linux.

Installing and setting up Metasploit on Kali Linux

Before starting the installation and configuration process, we recommend you use the Linux VPS server plans provided on our website. In this section, we want to teach you how to install and run Metasploit. To do this, simply run the following command in the Kali terminal:

sudo apt install metasploit-framework

One thing to note is that the Metasploit Service Framework requires the PostgreSQL database service to run. Therefore, you can activate the PostgreSQL service using the following command:

sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql

Now you can start PostgreSQL by running the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql start

Confirm PostgreSQL using the following command:

systemctl status postgresql@*-main.service

or

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql status

Considering that PostgreSQL’s default port is 5432, it is necessary to confirm that the service is active:

sudo ss -ant | grep 5432

In the next step, it is necessary to enter the Rapid7 signature key with the following command:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rapid7/metasploit-omnibus/master/config/templates/metasploit-framework-wrappers/msfupdate.erb> msfinstall && chmod 755 && msfinstall && ./msfinstall

Start the Metasploit PostgreSQL database by running the following command:

sudo msfdb init

or

sudo msfdb run
sudo msfdb init && msfconsole

You can now configure the Metasploit Framework Service and launch the Metasploit Service Framework (msf) console on your system. Therefore, in the first step, you need to check the database connection:

sudo msfconsole -q

msf5 > db_status

Metasploit modules and functionalities

Metasploit modules are the main components of the Metasploit framework. A module is a piece of software that can perform a specific action such as scanning or exploiting. Every task you can do with Metasploit is defined in a module.

There are four main types of Metasploit modules:

1) Exploit modules: These modules execute code on a target using a vulnerability. Exploit modules can be used to gain access, elevate privileges, or execute commands on a target system.

2) Auxiliary modules: These modules perform various support tasks such as scanning, fingerprinting, sniffing, or brute-forcing. Auxiliary modules can be used to gather information, test for vulnerabilities, or launch denial-of-service attacks.

3) Payload modules: These modules define the code that is executed on a target after a successful exploit. Payload modules can be used to create a shell, execute commands, upload or download files, or create processes on a target system.

4) Post-exploitation modules: These modules are executed after the successful implementation of the exploit and payload. Post-exploitation modules can be used to maintain access, collect data, rotate to other targets, or cover routes to a target system.

To use Metasploit modules you must search for them using the search command and appropriate search operators such as name, platform, type, program, author, etc. You can also use the show command to view a list of all available modules of a specific type.

For example, to search for an exploit module for Windows that has the name “ms08-067”, you can use the following command:

search name:ms08-067 platform:Windows type:exploit

To view all the payload modules, you can use the following command:

show payloads

Exploitation techniques using Metasploit

Exploitation techniques using Metasploit are the methods and steps that you can use to exploit vulnerabilities in systems or applications with the help of Metasploit modules and tools.

These are some of the exploitation techniques using Metasploit that you can use to test or compromise systems or applications:

1) Automated exploitation: Metasploit Pro can build an attack plan based on the service, operating system, and vulnerability information it has for the target system and use it to execute an automated exploit. An attack plan defines the exploit modules that Metasploit Pro will use to attack target systems. To run an automated exploit, you need to specify the hosts you want to exploit and the minimum reliability settings that Metasploit Pro should use.

2) Autopwn: Autopwn is a tool that can be used to automatically execute all exploits against open ports of a target system. This is a feature of Metasploit Express and Metasploit Pro, but can also be used with the Metasploit framework using the db_autopwn command. Autopwn requires a database to store scan results and exploit options.

3) AutoSploit: AutoSploit is a Python-based tool that uses Shodan and Metasploit modules to automate mass exploitation of remote hosts. This allows you to search for targets based on keywords or filters in Shodan and then launch Metasploit exploits against them. You can also customize exploit options and load-outs or use random ones. Scan and/or exploit results appear in the Metasploit console and in the output file(s).

4) Manual Exploitation: Manual Exploitation is the process of selecting and configuring an Exploit Module according to the target system or application, setting required options such as RHOSTS, RPORT, LHOST, LPORT, etc. Manual exploitation gives you more control and flexibility over the exploitation process, but it also requires more knowledge and skill.

Post-exploitation and gaining control

Post-exploitation and gaining control are the processes of performing actions on a target system or network after successful exploitation. It can include collecting information, maintaining access, escalating privileges, pivoting to other targets, or covering tracks. Gaining control can involve creating shells, executing commands, uploading or downloading files, or spawning processes on a target system.

Some of the tools and techniques you can use to post-exploit and gain control include:

1) Meterpreter: Meterpreter is a powerful payload that runs in memory and provides an interactive shell for the target system. It supports various commands and modules that can perform post-exploitation tasks, such as collecting system information, removing passwords, taking screenshots, recording keystrokes, migrating processes, etc.

2) Post-Exploitation Modules: Metasploit has a class of modules called post-exploitation modules that are executed after the successful execution of the exploit and payload. These modules can perform various actions on the target system or network, such as collecting data, maintaining access, routing to other targets, or masking routes. For example, the post/windows/gather/hashdump module dumps password hashes from the SAM database on a Windows system.

3) C2 frameworks: C2 frameworks are tools that allow you to remotely control vulnerable machines through a command and control (C&C) infrastructure. C2 frameworks can help you manage multiple sessions, execute commands, transfer files, or perform further attacks on the target network. Some popular C2 frameworks include Cobalt Strike, Covenant, Empire, etc.

4) Privilege escalation techniques: Privilege escalation is the process of obtaining higher privileges or access rights on a target system or network. The increase in score can be vertical (from a lower score to a higher score) or horizontal (from one user account to another with the same score level). Elevation can be achieved by exploiting vulnerabilities in the system or application, misconfiguration, weak passwords, etc.

Advanced Metasploit techniques and tools

Advanced Metasploit techniques and tools are methods and features that you can use to perform more complex and sophisticated penetration testing tasks with Metasploit. Some advanced Metasploit techniques and tools include:

1) Database Support: Metasploit can integrate with a database to store and manage scan results, hosts, services, vulnerabilities, credentials, loot, etc. It can help you organize and analyze data and share it with other users or tools. Metasploit supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite databases.

2) Evading anti-virus: Metasploit can help you evade antivirus detection by using various techniques such as encoding, encryption, obfuscation, or polymorphism. You can use the msfvenom tool to generate payloads with different codecs or formats or use escape modules to create executables that can bypass standard antivirus solutions.

3) Exploit ranking: Metasploit assigns a ranking to each exploit module based on its reliability, stability, and side effects. The ranking can help you choose the best exploit for your target system or application. The ranking levels are excellent, great, good, normal, average, low, and manual.

4) Hashes and password cracking: Metasploit can help you collect and crack password hashes from various sources such as Windows SAM database, Linux shadow files, or network protocols.

5) Metasploit plugins: Metasploit plugins are Ruby scripts that extend the functionality of Metasploit by adding new features or commands. You can use the load command to load a plugin or the show plugins command to view the available plugins. Some useful plugins are auto_add_route, sounds, wmap, etc.

6) Payload UUID: Payload UUID is a feature that allows you to track and identify your shipments by assigning an identifier (UUID). This can help you manage loads and multiple meetings more easily and also avoid conflicts or collisions. You can use msfvenom tool to generate payload with UUID.

Metasploit best practices and ethical considerations

Regarding Metasploit’s best practices, you should know that you need to use a VPS or VPN server or a proxy to hide your real IP address and protect your anonymity. In other words, it is recommended not to expose your identity or location to the target or third parties. The next thing is to watch out for payloads that can cause damage to the target system or network. Do not use payloads that can delete files, corrupt data, or disrupt services unless you have a specific reason and permission to do so.

Keep your Metasploit up to date with the latest exploits and patches. Do not use outdated or unreliable exploits that may fail or cause unintended consequences.

In the following, we will explain some ethical considerations that you should keep in mind when using Metasploit.

Do not harm the target system or network beyond the scope of penetration testing or exploitation. In other words, don’t use Metasploit to harm, disrupt, or steal data or resources. We recommend that you do not violate the laws or regulations of the country or region where you are conducting penetration testing or exploitation. Do not use Metasploit to attack systems or networks protected by law or owned by government, military, or critical infrastructure entities.

One of the most important ethical issues when using Metasploit tools is not to disclose vulnerabilities or exploits you discover or use to anyone who might exploit them. Do not share or sell information or tools you obtain from Metasploit to hackers, criminals, or competitors. Do not impersonate the owner or administrator of the target system or network. We also recommend that you do not use Metasploit to gain unauthorized access to accounts, credentials, or privileges that do not belong to you.

Becoming a certified Metasploit expert

If you want to become a certified Metasploit expert, you have a few options to learn. You must learn how to:

1. Perform network discovery and vulnerability scanning
2. Exploit and validate vulnerabilities
3. Conduct phishing campaigns and test web applications
4. Use post-exploitation modules and pivot techniques
5. Report production and project management
6. Master the Metasploit console and command line interface
7. Use Metasploit modules, exploits, payloads, and utilities
8. Avoid antivirus detection and bypass security controls
9. Conduct spear-phishing attacks and social engineering campaigns
10. Use Meterpreter for post-exploitation detection and manipulation

These are some of the options you can consider if you want to become a certified Metasploit expert.

Conclusion

Today, the Metasploit framework has more than 1,677 Metasploit applications organized on more than 25 platforms and operating systems, including Java, Android, Python, PHP, Cisco, and more. Static payloads that enable port forwarding and communication between networks and shell worker payloads that allow users to execute random scripts or commands against the host and target are among Metasploit payloads. In this article, we tried to explain Metasploit Zero to Hero to you to become a Metasploit Expert on Kali Linux.