Complete Beginner Intro

Types of Careers

• Offensive Security
• Defensive Security

Vulnerability Scanning Websites

• ExploitDB
• NVD
• CVE Mitre

💡 "If you're inclined towards the CLI on Linux, Kali comes pre-installed with a tool called "searchsploit" which allows you to search ExploitDB from your own machine. This is offline, and works using a downloaded version of the database, meaning that you already have all of the exploits already on your Kali Linux!"

Format: CVE-YEAR-NUMBER

❗Note: CVEs numbers are assigned when the vulnerability are discovered, not when they are publicised. Bear in mind that if a vulnerability is discovered at the end of a year, or if the process of confirming and rectifying the vulnerability takes a long time, then the release date might be the year after the year in the CVE date... bear this in mind when answering the following questions.

Manual Pages

Command: man

💡Consider using grep to find what you are looking for.

Extra Content: Google Dorking

What are Crawlers and how do They Work?

• Crawlers attempt to traverse, termed as crawling, every URL and file that they can find.

Search Engine Optimization

• SEO checkup tool

At an abstract view, search engines will “prioritize” those domains that are easier to index. There are many factors in how “optimal” a domain is - resulting in something similar to a point-scoring system.

• How responsive your website is to the different browser types I.e. Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer - this includes Mobile phones!

• How easy it is to crawl your website (or if crawling is even allowed ...but we'll come to this later) through the use of "Sitemaps"

• What kind of keywords your website has (i.e. In our examples if the user was to search for a query like “Colours” no domain will be returned - as the search engine has not (yet) crawled a domain that has any keywords to do with “Colours”

Robots.txt

Keyword	Function
User-agent	Specify the type of "Crawler" that can index your site (the asterisk being a wildcard, allowing all "User-agents"
Allow	Specify the directories or file(s) that the "Crawler" can index
Disallow	Specify the directories or file(s) that the "Crawler" cannot index
Sitemap	Provide a reference to where the sitemap is located (improves SEO as previously discussed, we'll come to sitemaps in the next task)

Sitemaps

A websites map in xml format.

What is Google Dorking?

Common Terms

Term	Action
filetype:	Search for a file by its extension (e.g. PDF)
cache:	View Google's Cached version of a specified URL
intitle:	The specified phrase MUST appear in the title of the page

Linux Fundamentals

💡 List of Common Commands

Command	Description
echo	Output any text that we provide
whoami	Find out what user we're currently logged in as!
ls	listing
cd	change directory
cat	concatenate
pwd	print working directory
find	search for files in a directory hierarchy
grep	search for patterns in a file
touch	Create file
mkdir	Create a folder
cp	Copy a file or folder
mv	Move a file or folder
rm	Remove a file or folder
file	Determine the type of a file
su	Switch user
wget	Used to download files from the web via HTTP
scp	Secure copy a file from host to remote or vice versa
ps	Provide list of current running process'
kill	Kill a process
systemctl	Systemd Control and Service Manager

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💡 List of Common Operators

Symbol / Operator	Description
&	This operator allows you to run commands in the background of your terminal.
&&	This operator allows you to combine multiple commands together in one line of your terminal.
>	This operator is a redirector - meaning that we can take the output from a command (such as using cat to output a file) and direct it elsewhere.
>>	This operator does the same function of the > operator but appends the output rather than replacing (meaning nothing is overwritten).

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💡 Common Directories

Directory	Description
/etc	The etc folder (short for etcetera) is a commonplace location to store system files that are used by your operating system.
/var	The "/var" directory, with "var" being short for variable data, is one of the main root folders found on a Linux install. This folder stores data that is frequently accessed or written by services or applications running on the system.
/root	The /root folder is actually the home for the "root" system user. There isn't anything more to this folder other than just understanding that this is the home directory for the "root" user.
/tmp	This is a unique root directory found on a Linux install. Short for "temporary", the /tmp directory is volatile and is used to store data that is only needed to be accessed once or twice. Similar to the memory on your computer, once the computer is restarted, the contents of this folder are cleared out.

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Terminal Text Editors

• VIM
• NANO

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Maintaining Your System

Automation

• CRON Generator or Cron Guru
  • cron -e

Value	Description
MIN	What minute to execute at
HOUR	What hour to execute at
DOM	What day of the month to execute at
MON	What month of the year to execute at
DOW	What day of the week to execute at
CMD	The actual command that will be executed.

Package Management

Normally we use the apt command to install software onto our Ubuntu system. The apt command is a part of the package management software also named apt. Apt contains a whole suite of tools that allows us to manage the packages and sources of our software, and to install or remove software at the same time.

One method of adding repositories is to use the add-apt-repository command we illustrated above, but we're going to walk through adding and removing a repository manually. Whilst you can install software through the use of package installers such as dpkg, the benefits of apt means that whenever we update our system -- the repository that contains the pieces of software that we add also gets checked for updates.