Coding for Penetration Testers

Chapter 5

Introduction to Web scripting with PHP

Information in this chapter:

• Where Web Scripting Is Useful

• Getting Started with PHP

• Handling Forms with PHP

• File Handling and Command Execution

• Putting It All Together

Many penetration tests are moving to Web-based assessments, leading to two diverging types of penetration tests: network-based penetration tests and Web-based penetration tests. Although languages such as Python and Ruby have heavily leveraged network protocols, and even binary manipulation, this chapter will focus on the Web application side of penetration testing.

PHP is one of the first languages many Web programmers learn. A Google search for “PHP and MySQL” will yield more than 4 million results. While these tutorials ...