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Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux

Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux: Set up a virtual lab and pentest major AWS services, including EC2, S3, Lambda, and CloudFormation

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Profile Icon Karl Gilbert Gupta Profile Icon Benjamin Caudill
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S$66.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.7 (15 Ratings)
Paperback Apr 2019 508 pages 1st Edition
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S$36.99 S$52.99
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Karl Gilbert Gupta Profile Icon Benjamin Caudill
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S$66.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.7 (15 Ratings)
Paperback Apr 2019 508 pages 1st Edition
eBook
S$36.99 S$52.99
Paperback
S$66.99
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eBook
S$36.99 S$52.99
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S$66.99
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Hands-On AWS Penetration Testing with Kali Linux

Setting Up a Pentesting Lab on AWS

This chapter aims to help penetration testers who don't have direct access to targets for penetration testing set up a vulnerable lab environment within AWS. This lab will allow testers to practice various exploitation techniques using Metasploit and rudimentary scanning and vulnerability assessment using multiple tools within Kali. This chapter focuses on setting up a vulnerable Linux VM and a generic Windows VM on AWS, putting them on the same network.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Setting up a personal pentesting lab for hacking on the cloud
  • Configuring and securing the virtual lab to prevent unintended access

Technical requirements

In this chapter, we are going to use the following tools:

  • Damn Vulnerable Web Application
  • Very Secure File Transfer Protocol Daemon (vsftpd) version 2.3.4

Setting up a vulnerable Ubuntu instance

As the first of the two vulnerable machines that we will be creating, the vulnerable instance of Ubuntu will contain a single vulnerable FTP service, as well as some other services.

Provisioning an Ubuntu EC2 instance

The very first step in setting up our vulnerable lab in the cloud will be to provision an instance that will be running a vulnerable operating system. For this purpose, we can use an Ubuntu LTS version. This can be accessed from the AWS Marketplace for quick deployment.

We will use Ubuntu 16.04 for this purpose:

Once we click on the Continue to Subscribe button, we are prompted to configure the instance that we are going to launch. Since this is a pretty standard image...

Setting up a vulnerable Windows instance

With a vulnerable Linux Server set up, we now set up an attack vector through a Windows server that's running a vulnerable web application. This application shall provide two environments that readers without an actual test environment can try their hand at.

Provisioning a vulnerable Windows server instance

For the purpose of this lab host, we will be using a Server 2003 instance from the AWS Marketplace:

The provisioning steps are pretty much identical to what we used to set up the Linux instance earlier. Care should be taken that the VPC settings are similar to what we used for the previous instance. This will later allow us to configure the VMs to be on the same network.

After...

Configuring security groups within the lab

Now that we have set up two vulnerable servers, the next step is to configure network so that our web application isn't accessible to outsiders and, at the same time, so that the other lab machines can communicate with each other.

Configuring security groups

We had originally set all of the EC2 instances to be on the same VPC. This implied that the EC2 instances would be on the same subnet and would be able communicate with each other through internal IP addresses. However, AWS doesn't want to allow all 4,096 addresses on the same VPC to be communicating with each other. As a result, the default security groups don't allow communication between EC2 instances.

To allow...

Summary

In this chapter, we have set up a lab that can prove useful to beginner penetration testers who do not have access to a test environment or hands-on exposure to a lab. In our lab, we have set up one Ubuntu host with a vulnerable service running on it, and we also set up a Windows server host that is running a vulnerable web application. This represents the two biggest surface areas for an attack in any environment. Additionally, we also went through the process of establishing a network connection between the various instances that we have set up so far. With these steps taken care of, the user can set up any operating system instances in the cloud, set up security groups to configure networking, and protect against unauthorized access as well.

In the next chapter, we will be looking at setting up a Kali PentestBox, using which we can perform scanning, enumeration, and...

Further reading

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Key benefits

  • Efficiently perform penetration testing techniques on your public cloud instances
  • Learn not only to cover loopholes but also to automate security monitoring and alerting within your cloud-based deployment pipelines
  • A step-by-step guide that will help you leverage the most widely used security platform to secure your AWS Cloud environment

Description

The cloud is taking over the IT industry. Any organization housing a large amount of data or a large infrastructure has started moving cloud-ward — and AWS rules the roost when it comes to cloud service providers, with its closest competitor having less than half of its market share. This highlights the importance of security on the cloud, especially on AWS. While a lot has been said (and written) about how cloud environments can be secured, performing external security assessments in the form of pentests on AWS is still seen as a dark art. This book aims to help pentesters as well as seasoned system administrators with a hands-on approach to pentesting the various cloud services provided by Amazon through AWS using Kali Linux. To make things easier for novice pentesters, the book focuses on building a practice lab and refining penetration testing with Kali Linux on the cloud. This is helpful not only for beginners but also for pentesters who want to set up a pentesting environment in their private cloud, using Kali Linux to perform a white-box assessment of their own cloud resources. Besides this, the book covers a large variety of AWS services that are often overlooked during a pentest — from serverless infrastructure to automated deployment pipelines. By the end of this book, you will be able to identify possible vulnerable areas efficiently and secure your AWS cloud environment.

Who is this book for?

If you are a security analyst or a penetration tester and are interested in exploiting Cloud environments to reveal vulnerable areas and secure them, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of penetration testing, cloud computing, and its security concepts is mandatory.

What you will learn

  • Familiarize yourself with and pentest the most common external-facing AWS services
  • Audit your own infrastructure and identify flaws, weaknesses, and loopholes
  • Demonstrate the process of lateral and vertical movement through a partially compromised AWS account
  • Maintain stealth and persistence within a compromised AWS account
  • Master a hands-on approach to pentesting
  • Discover a number of automated tools to ease the process of continuously assessing and improving the security stance of an AWS infrastructure
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Apr 30, 2019
Length: 508 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789136722
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Publication date : Apr 30, 2019
Length: 508 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789136722
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Table of Contents

27 Chapters
Section 1: Kali Linux on AWS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Setting Up a Pentesting Lab on AWS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Setting Up a Kali PentestBox on the Cloud Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exploitation on the Cloud using Kali Linux Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Pentesting AWS Elastic Compute Cloud Configuring and Securing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Setting Up Your First EC2 Instances Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Penetration Testing of EC2 Instances using Kali Linux Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Elastic Block Stores and Snapshots - Retrieving Deleted Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 3: Pentesting AWS Simple Storage Service Configuring and Securing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Reconnaissance - Identifying Vulnerable S3 Buckets Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exploiting Permissive S3 Buckets for Fun and Profit Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 4: AWS Identity Access Management Configuring and Securing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Identity Access Management on AWS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Privilege Escalation of AWS Accounts Using Stolen Keys, Boto3, and Pacu Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Boto3 and Pacu to Maintain AWS Persistence Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 5: Penetration Testing on Other AWS Services Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Security and Pentesting of AWS Lambda Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Pentesting and Securing AWS RDS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Targeting Other Services Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 6: Attacking AWS Logging and Security Services Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Pentesting CloudTrail Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
GuardDuty Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 7: Leveraging AWS Pentesting Tools for Real-World Attacks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Scout Suite for AWS Security Auditing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Pacu for AWS Pentesting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Putting it All Together - Real - World AWS Pentesting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.7
(15 Ratings)
5 star 60%
4 star 6.7%
3 star 0%
2 star 13.3%
1 star 20%
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Alvarigno Sep 27, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is a good way to learn what you can do to hack cloud services, in this case, AWS Services. For me, it was a good book to learn about hacking some cloud services.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Nick from Chicago May 03, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is a must have for any AWS security professional. Its geared towards the advanced security admin, but contains easy to follow examples and sample code. This book covers all the tools you need to audit and help secure your AWS account. At 500 pages its very in depth, and probably the best and most valuable book I've ever bought.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
H3 Feb 07, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This is by far the best book about AWS security. It is full of practical examples of how to perform Penetration testing activities against AWS environments. The chapter on permissions and role assumption is exemplary.I have reread this book 3 times on various engagements. If you touch aws, this is the book for you.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Andy Jun 22, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I received the book earlier this week and am on the final chapter now. I've been following the Rhino team's AWS research for a while, so when I saw Ben (their CEO) was helping write an AWS book I had to check it out.The only 'negative' thing I could say is that I ended up skimming a lot of earlier sections that were fairly basic and weren't security specific. Aside from that, I enjoyed the book and how they provided specific steps on attacking different AWS services.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Beatrice Fleming Jun 21, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Extremely happy with purchase.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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