Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition

Tools of the Trade

With a realistic target in place, let's jump back over to the attacker's side of the fence. For this kind of attack, exploit scripts are an essential tool of the trade. Like a set of lock picks in the hands of a professional, exploits open many doors for a hacker. Through careful manipulation of the internal mechanisms, the security can be entirely sidestepped.

In previous chapters, we've written exploit code in C and manually exploited vulnerabilities from the command line. The fine line between an exploit program and an exploit tool is a matter of finalization and reconfigurability. Exploit programs are more like guns than tools. Like a gun, an exploit program has a singular utility and the user interface is as simple as pulling ...