A bonus second post for the week this time around, mainly because I had some extra time to study and this is only going to be a short post briefly covering a couple of traffic capture tools. This is because I have tried to keep my study as specific to the OSCP exam as possible … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 6: Sniffing Traffic →

This post is a direct follow up to the previous one, and is also considered part of the Enumeration phase of penetration testing. After gathering general information, the next step is to start searching for vulnerabilities that might exist on a system. Any potential vulnerabilities are then noted down to provide a starting point for the … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 5: Searching for Vulnerabilities →

Backtracking a little bit from the Metasploit framework I covered last week, I decided to spend a significant amount of time on information gathering, otherwise known as Enumeration. There are plenty of methods you can use to find out information, with some pieces of information more valuable than others. Nevertheless, it is important to take due … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 4: Searching for Information →

After a few weeks of set-up and familiarizing myself with the basics, this week I began to do what felt like some actual penetration testing. Although I do not feel as though these previous weeks were in vain, I'll admit that it at times it has been a grind to get through. I was therefore … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 3: Baby’s First Pen Test →

After setting up my virtual labs, I decided to go back and read Chapter 0 of Gerogia's book titled Penetration Testing Primer. Although I already had a fairly good understanding of the penetration testing basics, I figured extra revision wouldn't hurt. The primer chapter covered the different types of penetration tests, as well as the stages … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 2: The Basics →

One of the first steps in getting started with penetration testing is naturally to install virtual machines of various operating systems. Although I was aware of how virtual machines work, I never had any real experience installing and running them before. Expecting this to be a simple and straightforward process, I ran into a fair … Continue reading OSCP Prep – Episode 1: Virtualization →