Preface

The face of hacking and cyber crime has dramatically transformed over the past couple of decades. At the end of the 20th century, many people had no idea what cyber crime was. Those people thought that hackers were malevolent mathematical geniuses that hid in the dimly lit basements and spoke in binary. But as of late, we have seen the rise of a whole new brand of hackers. Because of the public availability of hacking software and tools, the hacker of the new era could easily be your next-door neighbor, your local gas station attendant, or even your 12-year old child. Script kiddie tools such as the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) have been used to launch massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against large corporations and organizations. This free Windows download merely requires that you enter a target URL, and it also has a graphic interface that bears a striking resemblance to a space age video game.

In a world where hacking has become so easy that a child can do it, it is absolutely essential that organizations verify their own level of protection by having their networks tested using the same tools that cyber criminals use against them. But, the basic usage of these tools is not sufficient knowledge to be an effective information security professional. It is absolutely critical that information security professionals understand the techniques that are being employed by these tools, and why these techniques are able to exploit various vulnerabilities in a network or system. A knowledge of the basic underlying principles that explains how these common attack tools work enables one to effectively use them, but more importantly, it also contributes to one's ability to effectively identify such attacks and defend against them.

The intention of this book is to enumerate and explain the use of common attack tools that are available in the Kali Linux platform, but more importantly, this book also aims to address the underlying principles that define why these tools work. In addition to addressing the highly functional tools integrated into Kali Linux, we will also create a large number of Python and bash scripts that can be used to perform similar functions and/or to streamline existing tools. Ultimately, the intention of this book is to help forge stronger security professionals through a better understanding of their adversary.