Hack I.T.: Security Through Penetration Testing

Chapter 9. UNIX Methods

In this chapter, we discuss some of the holes and vulnerabilities we look for when performing penetration testing against the UNIX operating system, including applications and configuration issues through which we have been able to gain unauthorized access. We further discuss the tools we use when analyzing and attacking UNIX hosts and networks.

The general method of hacking UNIX machines is to identify vulnerabilities in listening services, such as telnet, FTP, HTTP, and so on, that can be exploited remotely to gain some level of access (root is preferable, but these strategies generally result in normal user-level access). Then, we investigate the host system, looking for means of escalating our privilege level—usually ...