Penetration Testing: Protecting Networks and Systems

CHAPTER 7: LAUNCHING THE ATTACK

Steps to an exploit

The objective of most attackers is to try to take over a compromised system and assume an elevated level of access. One way to accomplish this is to obtain a command line shell that can be used to execute system commands and run malicious code on the compromised system. There are several types of command shells that are used for local or remote access.

Local shellcode: Local shellcode is used to provide the attacker with access to a local machine that would otherwise restrict the access level of the attacker.

Remote shellcode: Remote shellcode is used to facilitate an attack that the attacker is executing across a network or on a remote machine.

Restricting shellcode: Many firewalls and intrusion ...