Why we will not cover initial access and host-related topics

Initial access is a vital, early-stage step to compromise the target environment. However, this will not be covered in this book for the following reasons. To be honest, this theme is as wide as it is deep. It requires cross-field knowledge from different areas of IT as well as psychology, so it would require a separate book itself. Also, there is a high chance that at the moment of such a book being published, half of the attack vectors will be killed by implementing security solutions, such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and/or covered by a blue team’s comprehensive detection capabilities. The reason is that it is rapidly developing, full of private research that isn’t published. In general, to obtain stable initial access to the target environment, there are three main topics to take care of – a resilient and secure attack infrastructure, covert tooling with the required capabilities, and...