An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or a sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic. Such behavior frequently includes gaining control of a computer system, allowing privilege escalation, or a denial-of-service attack. In lay terms, some exploit is akin to a 'hack'.
A vulnerability scanner is a computer program designed to assess computers, networks or applications for known weaknesses. These scanners are used to discover the weaknesses of a given system. They are utilized in the identification and detection of vulnerabilities arising from mis-configurations or flawed programming within a network-based asset such as a firewall, router, web server, application server, etc. Modern vulnerability scanners allow for both authenticated and unauthenticated scans. Modern scanners are typically available as SaaS ; provided over the internet and delivered as a web application. The modern vulnerability scanner often has the ability to customize vulnerability reports as well as the installed software, open ports, certificates and other host information that can be queried as part of its workflow.
A white hat is an ethical security hacker. Ethical hacking is a term meant to imply a broader category than just penetration testing. Under the owner's consent, white-hat hackers aim to identify any vulnerabilities or security issues the current system has. The white hat is contrasted with the black hat, a malicious hacker; this definitional dichotomy comes from Western films, where heroic and antagonistic cowboys might traditionally wear a white and a black hat, respectively. There is a third kind of hacker known as a grey hat who hacks with good intentions but at times without permission.
A penetration test, colloquially known as a pentest, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. The test is performed to identify weaknesses, including the potential for unauthorized parties to gain access to the system's features and data, as well as strengths, enabling a full risk assessment to be completed.
The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) is an online community that produces freely available articles, methodologies, documentation, tools, and technologies in the fields of IoT, system software and web application security. The OWASP provides free and open resources. It is led by a non-profit called The OWASP Foundation. The OWASP Top 10 - 2021 is the published result of recent research based on comprehensive data compiled from over 40 partner organizations.
Application security includes all tasks that introduce a secure software development life cycle to development teams. Its final goal is to improve security practices and, through that, to find, fix and preferably prevent security issues within applications. It encompasses the whole application life cycle from requirements analysis, design, implementation, verification as well as maintenance.
The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. It is owned by Boston, Massachusetts-based security company Rapid7.
Security testing is a process intended to detect flaws in the security mechanisms of an information system and as such help enable it to protect data and maintain functionality as intended. Due to the logical limitations of security testing, passing the security testing process is not an indication that no flaws exist or that the system adequately satisfies the security requirements.
BackTrack was a Linux distribution that focused on security, based on the Knoppix Linux distribution aimed at digital forensics and penetration testing use. In March 2013, Khaled Baoween (Kali) & the Offensive Security team rebuilt BackTrack around the Debian distribution and released it under the name Kali Linux.
Google hacking, also named Google dorking, is a hacker technique that uses Google Search and other Google applications to find security holes in the configuration and computer code that websites are using.
Chris Sullo is a security expert known as the author of Nikto Web Scanner. He is specialized in web-security and pen-testing. He was the co-founder, CFO and Treasurer of Open Security Foundation, and creator of the RVAsec security conference. He currently works as a penetration testing specialist for the IT risk firm Focal Point Data Risk.
A dynamic application security testing (DAST) is a non functional testing process where one can assess an application using certain techniques and the end result of such testing process covers security weaknesses and vulnerabilities present in an application. This testing process can be carried out either in manual way or by using automated tools. Manual assessment of an application involves a more human intervention to identify the security flaws which might slip from an automated tool. Usually business logic errors, race condition checks, and certain zero day vulnerabilities can only be identified using manual assessments.
SAINT is computer software used for scanning computer networks for security vulnerabilities, and exploiting found vulnerabilities.
Network enumeration is a computing activity in which usernames and info on groups, shares, and services of networked computers are retrieved. It should not be confused with network mapping, which only retrieves information about which servers are connected to a specific network and what operating system runs on them. Network enumeration is the discovery of hosts or devices on a network. Network enumeration tends to use overt discovery protocols such as ICMP and SNMP to gather information. It may also scan various ports on remote hosts for looking for well known services in an attempt to further identify the function of a remote host. The next stage of enumeration is to fingerprint the operating system of the remote host.
w3af is an open-source web application security scanner. The project provides a vulnerability scanner and exploitation tool for Web applications. It provides information about security vulnerabilities for use in penetration testing engagements. The scanner offers a graphical user interface and a command-line interface.
H. D. Moore is a network security expert, open source programmer, and hacker. He is the founder of the Metasploit Project and was the main developer of the Metasploit Framework, a penetration testing software suite.
Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. It is maintained and funded by Offensive Security.The software is based on the Debian Testing branch: most packages Kali uses are imported from the Debian repositories.
A web application firewall (WAF) is a specific form of application firewall that filters, monitors, and blocks HTTP traffic to and from a web service. By inspecting HTTP traffic, it can prevent attacks exploiting a web application's known vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and improper system configuration. They can introduce a performance degradation without proper configuration and tuning from Cyber Security specialist. However, most of the major financial institutions utilize WAFs to help in the mitigation of web application 'zero-day' vulnerabilities, as well as hard to patch bugs or weaknesses through custom attack signature strings.
ZAP, formerly known as OWASP ZAP, is an open-source web application security scanner. It is intended to be used by both those new to application security as well as professional penetration testers.
BlackArch is a penetration testing distribution based on Arch Linux that provides a large number of security tools. It is an open-source distro created specially for penetration testers and security researchers. The repository contains more than 2898 tools that can be installed individually or in groups. BlackArch Linux is compatible with existing Arch Linux installations.
