Advanced Infrastructure Penetration Testing

Payloads

Payloads are exploit modules. There are two payload categories: inline and staged. Inline payloads (or single payloads) are all inclusive and self-contained. Staged payloads contain multiple pieces of the payload, referred to as stagers. In other words, the full payload is composed by stagers: 

Metasploit is loaded with various types of payloads:

• Bind shells: These just listen for hackers to connect to or send instructions. They are a good choice if the victim is directly connected with the machine:
  • Reverse shells
  • Listeners
  • Stages
• Meterpreters: They are a specialized command environment. They work entirely within the memory used ...