November 2007
Intermediate to advanced
504 pages
13h 21m
English
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Chapter 6. Assessing Web Servers
This chapter covers web server assessment. Web servers are very common, requiring a high level of security assurance due to their public nature. Here I discuss the techniques and tools used to test accessible HTTP and HTTPS services, along with their enabled components and subsystems. Testing of custom web applications and scripts that run on top of accessible web servers is covered in the next chapter.
Web Servers
Assessment of various web servers and subsystems can fill its own book. Web services are presented over HTTP, and SSL-wrapped HTTPS, found running by default on TCP ports 80 and 443, respectively.
Comprehensive testing of web services involves the following steps:
Fingerprinting the web server
Identifying and assessing reverse proxy mechanisms
Enumerating virtual hosts and web sites running on the web server
Identifying subsystems and enabled components
Investigating known vulnerabilities in the web server and enabled components
Crawling accessible web sites to identify files and directories of interest
Brute-force password grinding against accessible authentication mechanisms
Nowadays, many corporate web sites and applications are presented
through reverse proxy layers, and so steps 2 and 3 are very important,
as sometimes you will find that different virtual hosts use different
server-side features and subsystems. It is often the case that you must
provide a valid HTTP Host: field when connecting to a web server to even fingerprint or query the ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.