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Penetration Testing with the Bash shell
This book teaches you to take your problem solving capabilities to the next level with the Bash shell, to assess network and application level security by leveraging the power of the command-line tools available with Kali Linux.
The book begins by introducing some of the fundamental bash scripting and information processing tools. Building on this, the next few chapters focus on detailing ways to customize your Bash shell using functionalities such as tab completion and rich text formatting. After the fundamental customization techniques and general purpose tools have been discussed, the book breaks into topics such as the command-line-based security tools in the Kali Linux operating system. The general approach in discussing these tools is to involve general purpose tools discussed in previous chapters to integrate security assessment tools. This is a one stop solution to learn Bash and solve information security problems.
The book begins by introducing some of the fundamental bash scripting and information processing tools. Building on this, the next few chapters focus on detailing ways to customize your Bash shell using functionalities such as tab completion and rich text formatting. After the fundamental customization techniques and general purpose tools have been discussed, the book breaks into topics such as the command-line-based security tools in the Kali Linux operating system. The general approach in discussing these tools is to involve general purpose tools discussed in previous chapters to integrate security assessment tools. This is a one stop solution to learn Bash and solve information security problems.
150 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2014
3 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 29, 2016
Good book for all beginners in penetration Testing. If you know the basics of Shell scripting, just skip the first two chapters. Also, you would have to read help for some commands because their syntax has changed. Apply all examples and read the resources for maximum benefit.
June 23, 2014
I have recentlygrabbed a copy of Penetration Testing with the Bash Shellhttps://www.packtpub.com/penetration-... (Kindle format).
My observation is,there are security incidents all over, but there are very few booksavailable, yet it seems there are even fewer mature specialists tolearn from. Keith Makan surely is one of the top ones.
My intent wasnarrow: to widen my knowledge on the penetration testing tactics, andI hoped to apply at least a few at work. This book helped.
So more on the book,it is structured so in part one it teaches about the intricacies ofthe very common in Linux Bash shell commands and the shell itself.And I admit a learnt a few nifty tricks about the commands I alreadyknew!
I must state soonerthat later that the book is based on the getting increasingly popularKali Linux http://www.kali.org;But I was able to work out my practice on a Ubuntu 14 without anyissues. One nuance, if a Bash shell in Kali works under the superuserby default you need to remember to sudo on Ubuntu.
The book is not tooterribly long at 150 pages, but it did not feel short. The book isproviding with a lot of useful reference, too. I am going to get afew of the suggested books there actually.
After part one isover the real fun begins. I was able to interrogate remote hosts andwrite a small pen-script for an application at work. And it worked,however not what I wanted to perform was covered in the book, what Iliked, I did not find any vulnerabilities in my app. So it is purefun, but a serious thing at the same time in the wake of the myriadof security breaches around the world.
I am hesitant togive this book a full 5 out of 5 due to the reduced topics coverage,but I cannot give it 4.5 either. So I gave it a 4 stars rating.
My observation is,there are security incidents all over, but there are very few booksavailable, yet it seems there are even fewer mature specialists tolearn from. Keith Makan surely is one of the top ones.
My intent wasnarrow: to widen my knowledge on the penetration testing tactics, andI hoped to apply at least a few at work. This book helped.
So more on the book,it is structured so in part one it teaches about the intricacies ofthe very common in Linux Bash shell commands and the shell itself.And I admit a learnt a few nifty tricks about the commands I alreadyknew!
I must state soonerthat later that the book is based on the getting increasingly popularKali Linux http://www.kali.org;But I was able to work out my practice on a Ubuntu 14 without anyissues. One nuance, if a Bash shell in Kali works under the superuserby default you need to remember to sudo on Ubuntu.
The book is not tooterribly long at 150 pages, but it did not feel short. The book isproviding with a lot of useful reference, too. I am going to get afew of the suggested books there actually.
After part one isover the real fun begins. I was able to interrogate remote hosts andwrite a small pen-script for an application at work. And it worked,however not what I wanted to perform was covered in the book, what Iliked, I did not find any vulnerabilities in my app. So it is purefun, but a serious thing at the same time in the wake of the myriadof security breaches around the world.
I am hesitant togive this book a full 5 out of 5 due to the reduced topics coverage,but I cannot give it 4.5 either. So I gave it a 4 stars rating.
June 15, 2014
Penetration Testing with the Bash shell
I gave this book a 5 star rating because I felt it covered all of the basic concepts rather well, and it was easy to follow along. The crash course on using the console (Bash) system was very well paced and planned out. I administer various linux systems and found this book rather helpful for testing the different virtual machines, dedicated machines, and workstations around the home office. Hackers won't just target businesses, they will target home users as well, and small home businesses are major targets now.
I liked the introduction to each tool that will be used, I didn't find which version the author used for Kali Linux which isn't a huge negative but it would have been nice to have a chapter on setting up the environment. I decided to download the official 64bit version and dual boot my main system to follow the examples in the book, I like to type out the code as well but the code download was very helpful through the publishers website.
Overall this book is well worth the cost, if you want to take your security serious this book is a great stepping stone. You will learn tons of useful information from this book, most interesting was the Man in the middle attacks and the network discovery tools. I've used a few of the tools in the past and found this to be an excellent refresher, and the portion on Regular Expressions was really good.
Publisher Link: http://www.packtpub.com/penetration-t...
I gave this book a 5 star rating because I felt it covered all of the basic concepts rather well, and it was easy to follow along. The crash course on using the console (Bash) system was very well paced and planned out. I administer various linux systems and found this book rather helpful for testing the different virtual machines, dedicated machines, and workstations around the home office. Hackers won't just target businesses, they will target home users as well, and small home businesses are major targets now.
I liked the introduction to each tool that will be used, I didn't find which version the author used for Kali Linux which isn't a huge negative but it would have been nice to have a chapter on setting up the environment. I decided to download the official 64bit version and dual boot my main system to follow the examples in the book, I like to type out the code as well but the code download was very helpful through the publishers website.
Overall this book is well worth the cost, if you want to take your security serious this book is a great stepping stone. You will learn tons of useful information from this book, most interesting was the Man in the middle attacks and the network discovery tools. I've used a few of the tools in the past and found this to be an excellent refresher, and the portion on Regular Expressions was really good.
Publisher Link: http://www.packtpub.com/penetration-t...
June 14, 2014
A marketer from Packt Publishing has asked me to quickly review Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell. The book was released in May, has 150 pages and it’s topic is security techniques and related tools in the context of the Bash Shell.
Disclaimer: I read the book out of curiosity and can’t give you an opinion on the techniques described in “Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell”. Likewise I am not recommending any of the methods mentioned, because there may be legal repercussions involved with applying this knowledge in the real world. It’s probably wise to experiment first in a controlled environment.
The book consists of two parts – an introduction to the Bash shell and a more advanced tutorial on penetration testing. I didn’t learn much in the first part. The second part, however, was quite interesting. I haven’t tried out anything from that material, because most of the tools seem to be related to Kali Linux and I am working on a BSD-like environment. And I am not certain of what is legal, and what isn’t.
So in conclusion “Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell” provides a quite interesting read. It’s left to your own discretion to decide what to do with the knowledge you gain from the book.
Disclaimer: I read the book out of curiosity and can’t give you an opinion on the techniques described in “Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell”. Likewise I am not recommending any of the methods mentioned, because there may be legal repercussions involved with applying this knowledge in the real world. It’s probably wise to experiment first in a controlled environment.
The book consists of two parts – an introduction to the Bash shell and a more advanced tutorial on penetration testing. I didn’t learn much in the first part. The second part, however, was quite interesting. I haven’t tried out anything from that material, because most of the tools seem to be related to Kali Linux and I am working on a BSD-like environment. And I am not certain of what is legal, and what isn’t.
So in conclusion “Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell” provides a quite interesting read. It’s left to your own discretion to decide what to do with the knowledge you gain from the book.
October 23, 2016
Don't expect a miracle from a 150 page book. This book was actually doing a good job in motivating me to setup a virtualbox running Kali and to play around a bit with metasploit. But it's not doing a good job with doing what its title promises to be. It interprets its title a writing a bash while loop around the output of some specific tools and then executing other tools.
Read
February 2, 2015Slick coupling of basic *NIX/BASH skills with an introduction to common pen test tools. A quick read with lots of potential to return for review & reference. Excited to implement some of the tools & techniques from this boom when setting up a home server. Install Kali Linux (formerly BackTrack) on a VM to follow along with the book.
April 29, 2017
Penetration Testing with the Bash shell (or with Bash shell in Kali environment?!)
The book did not focus on "Bash shell" , It was more focusing on default kali linux tools which is not what I expected
I mean you can not sell a book naming it "pentesting with python" to just explain that I can use "os.system("whatever kali linux tool with it's argumnents")" ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes it's python , But no you haven't teach me how to use python in my penetration testing
In this book I expected pure bash skills , things that I can use when gaining limited access to *nx box so I can proceed with my penetration testing
However the book was talking aboyt msfcli , nmap , macchanger . . . etc
all these tools ARE NOT FOUND by default in the common Linux distros!!
It would be better if you gave more space talking about bash basics , commands like sed , awk . . etc
which are being used in every single penetration testing
Summary :
1 - The book is not about pentesting with BASH
2 - Am disappointed and was expecting a lot more from such a book
3 - Go find some "pentesting with kali" books , they will be more handy than that one regarding kali tools
The book did not focus on "Bash shell" , It was more focusing on default kali linux tools which is not what I expected
I mean you can not sell a book naming it "pentesting with python" to just explain that I can use "os.system("whatever kali linux tool with it's argumnents")" ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes it's python , But no you haven't teach me how to use python in my penetration testing
In this book I expected pure bash skills , things that I can use when gaining limited access to *nx box so I can proceed with my penetration testing
However the book was talking aboyt msfcli , nmap , macchanger . . . etc
all these tools ARE NOT FOUND by default in the common Linux distros!!
It would be better if you gave more space talking about bash basics , commands like sed , awk . . etc
which are being used in every single penetration testing
Summary :
1 - The book is not about pentesting with BASH
2 - Am disappointed and was expecting a lot more from such a book
3 - Go find some "pentesting with kali" books , they will be more handy than that one regarding kali tools
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews