Chapter 11. Exploitation

"The delightful possibilities of exploitation depend on how you do it"

Traditionally, the penultimate point of a penetration test is to exploit a data system and gain credentials or direct access to the data of interest. It is exploitation that gives penetration testing its meaning and defines its relevance to penetration testing. In this chapter, we will examine various means of exploiting systems, including both public exploits and available exploit frameworks. By end of this chapter, you should be able to explore:

• The Metasploit framework
• Exploitation of targets using Metasploit and Armitage
• Using public exploits
• Developing sample Windows-specific exploits