The Ultimate Kali Linux Book - Second Edition

Chapter 9: Advanced Network Penetration Testing — Post Exploitation

The exploitation phase of penetration testing focuses on gaining access to your target, such as a vulnerable host on a network. However, while the exploitation phase will seem like a victory, remember that as a penetration tester, your objective is to discover known and hidden security vulnerabilities within an organization's network and their assets. After exploiting a system or network, performing post-exploitation techniques will allow you to gather sensitive data such as users' login credentials and password hashes, impersonate high-privilege users on the network to gain access to other systems and servers, perform lateral movement to go deeper into restricted areas of the ...