Preface

For more than a decade or so, the use of technology has been rising exponentially. Almost all of the businesses are partially or completely dependent on the use of technology. From bitcoins to cloud to Internet-of-Things (IoT), new technologies are popping up each day. While these technologies completely change the way we do things, they also bring along threats with them. Attackers discover new and innovative ways to manipulate these technologies for fun and profit! This is a matter of concern to thousands of organizations and businesses around the world. Organizations worldwide are deeply concerned about keeping their data safe. Protecting data is certainly important, however, testing whether adequate protection mechanisms have been put to work is also equally important. Protection mechanisms can fail, hence testing them before someone exploits them for real is a challenging task. Having said this, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing have gained high importance and is now trivially included in all compliance programs. With the vulnerability assessment and penetration testing done in a right way, organizations can ensure that they have put in the right security controls, and they are functioning as expected! For many, the process of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing may look easy just by running an automated scanner and generating a long report with false positives. However, in reality, this process is not just about running tools but a complete lifecycle. Fortunately, the Metasploit Framework can be plugged-in in almost each phase of the penetration testing lifecycle making complex tasks easier. This book will take you through some of the absolute basics of the Metasploit Framework to the advanced and sophisticated features that the framework has to offer!