Table of contents
1. What is network penetration?
2. Types of Penetration Testing
3.2 Vulnerability scanning and assessment
3.3 Exploiting vulnerabilities
3.4 Privilege escalation and persistent access
3.6 Data acquisition and reporting
Introduction:
In this blog, we will provide readers with an introduction to network penetration. We will explain the concept of network penetration and explain why penetration testing is critical to network security. We will also introduce the classification and steps of penetration testing and provide a simple demonstration example.
1. What is network penetration?
Network penetration is a method of simulating attacks designed to assess the security of a computer system, network, or application. It is an authorized activity by a penetration tester to discover and fix security vulnerabilities in a legal manner to ensure the security of the system.
2. Types of Penetration Testing
Penetration testing can be divided into three types: black box testing, white box testing and gray box testing.
1. Black box testing
Penetration testers perform tests without obtaining any information about the target system, simulating the role of an external attacker.
2. White box testing
Penetration testers have complete information about the target system, including source code, network diagrams, etc., simulating the role of an internal attacker.
3. Gray box testing
Somewhere between black box testing and white box testing, penetration testers have partial information and simulate the role of some internal attackers.
3. Penetration testing steps
Penetration testing typically includes the following steps:
3.1 Information collection
During this phase, penetration testers collect information about the target system, including IP addresses, domain names, subdomain names, network topology, etc. This information is critical to a successful penetration test.
3.2 Vulnerability scanning and assessment
At this stage, penetration testers use various scanning tools, such as Nmap, Nessus, etc., to scan the target system to discover possible vulnerabilities.
3.3 Exploiting vulnerabilities
Once vulnerabilities are discovered, penetration testers will try to exploit them to gain unauthorized access, such as remote code execution, administrator privileges, etc.
3.4 Privilege escalation and persistent access
During this phase, the penetration tester attempts to escalate the gained access to higher privileges and attempts to maintain persistent access on the target system for long-term penetration testing.
3.5 Lateral movement
Once persistent access is gained, the penetration tester will attempt to move within the target network, exploring other systems and hosts in order to obtain additional information and targets.
3.6 Data acquisition and reporting
Throughout the entire penetration testing process, the penetration tester will record all findings and exploits and ultimately write a detailed report to provide security recommendations and remediation measures to the client.
Example:
In order to better understand the process of network penetration, we will show the basic steps of penetration testing through a simple demonstration example. We will simulate a web-based application and conduct penetration testing using Burp Suite tools.
Step 1: Information collection uses tools such as nslookup,whois etc. to obtain the IP address and registration information of the target domain name.
nslookup www.example.com
whois example.com
Step 2: Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment Use Burp Suite to conduct active and passive scans of the target application to discover potential vulnerabilities.
Step 3: Vulnerability Exploitation Use Burp Suite or other vulnerability exploitation tools to try to exploit the discovered vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection, command execution, etc.
Step 4: Privilege Escalation and Persistent Access If the vulnerability is successfully exploited, attempt to escalate privileges to gain a higher level of access and attempt to maintain access on the target system.
Step 5: Lateral Movement Once access is gained, attempt to move laterally within the target network to explore other systems and hosts.
Step 6: Data Acquisition and Reporting Throughout the entire penetration testing process, record all findings and exploits and write a detailed report providing security recommendations and remediation measures.
Summarize
In actual penetration testing, legal and ethical guidelines should always be followed, and only authorized systems should be tested. I hope this blog can help readers understand the basics of network penetration and provide guidance in further learning and practice. Network penetration is a complex task that requires continuous learning and practice to master.
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