Hack like a white hat hacker - A practical introduction

Outline the penetration testing mission from the kickoff meeting through the engagement plan to the attack plan, including the client proposal stage and consultancy selection.

Kick off the mission to find and report security vulnerabilities on the server hosting web application and gain root access within a black-box scope, with rules, time frame, and prerequisites.

Begin with port scanning to discover services, then enumeration and fingerprinting to map applications and build the attack path, exploit weak points, escalate to root, and deliver the final report.

Discover how to perform port scanning with nmap to enumerate services on a web server, identifying open ports like http on 80, ssh, and smtp.

Learn to fingerprint services with nmap -sV, capture banners and versions, explore exploits, run service scripts, and uncover data such as ssh keys and robots.txt.

Interact with a web app to perform application mapping and enumeration. Explore url parameters, hidden paths, and source code to identify directories like admin and a db.sql file.

Learn practical SSH interaction in a white hat hacking workflow, handle errors through research, enumerate servers, accept the fingerprint, and proceed even without a password.

Identify cross-site scripting vulnerabilities by observing how injected input is returned and executes JavaScript in a penetration testing context.

Learn how to obtain a remote shell by leveraging an open SSH service and reused passwords, gaining an initial foothold and beginning system enumeration.

Perform post-exploitation enumeration by listing running processes, inspecting root-owned services like sendmail, and examining web files under var/www for config data and credentials, including internal mail access.

The lecture explains privilege escalation in a white-hat hacking context, demonstrating how misconfigured sudo privileges can yield a root shell and full server access.