Network Security Tools: Writing, Hacking, and Modifying Security Tools

by Nitesh Dhanjani, Justin Clarke

Overview

If you're an advanced security professional, then you know that the battle to protect online privacy continues to rage on. Security chat rooms, especially, are resounding with calls for vendors to take more responsibility to release products that are more secure. In fact, with all the information and code that is passed on a daily basis, it's a fight that may never end. Fortunately, there are a number of open source security tools that give you a leg up in the battle.Often a security tool does exactly what you want, right out of the box. More frequently, you need to customize the tool to fit the needs of your network structure. Network Security Tools shows experienced administrators how to modify, customize, and extend popular open source security tools such as Nikto, Ettercap, and Nessus.This concise, high-end guide discusses the common customizations and extensions for these tools, then shows you how to write even more specialized attack and penetration reviews that are suited to your unique network environment. It also explains how tools like port scanners, packet injectors, network sniffers, and web assessment tools function.Some of the topics covered include:

• Writing your own network sniffers and packet injection tools
• Writing plugins for Nessus, Ettercap, and Nikto
• Developing exploits for Metasploit
• Code analysis for web applications
• Writing kernel modules for security applications, and understanding rootkits

While many books on security are either tediously academic or overly sensational, Network Security Tools takes an even-handed and accessible approach that will let you quickly review the problem and implement new, practical solutions--without reinventing the wheel. In an age when security is critical, Network Security Tools is the resource you want at your side when locking down your network.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491947418
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/04/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Nitesh Dhanjani is a well known security researcher, author, and speaker. Dhanjani is currently Senior Manager at a large consulting firm where he advises some of the largest corporations around the world on how to establish enterprise wide information security programs and solutions. Dhanjani is also responsible for evangelizing brand new technology service lines around emerging technologies and trends such as cloud computing and virtualization.

Prior to his current job, Dhanjani was Senior Director of Application Security and Assessments at a major credit bureau where he spearheaded brand new security efforts into enhancing the enterprise SDLC, created a process for performing source code security reviews & Threat Modeling, and managed the Attack & Penetration team.

Dhanjani is the author of "Network Security Tools: Writing, Hacking, and Modifying Security Tools" (O'Reilly) and "HackNotes: Linux and Unix Security" (Osborne McGraw-Hill). He is also a contributing author to "Hacking Exposed 4" (Osborne McGraw-Hill) and "HackNotes: Network Security". Dhanjani has been invited to talk at various information security events such as the Black Hat Briefings, RSA, Hack in the Box, Microsoft Blue Hat, and OSCON.

Dhanjani graduated from Purdue University with both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science.

Dhanjani's personal blog is located at dhanjani.com.

Justin Clarke is a Director with Gotham Digital Science, based in the United Kingdom. He has many years of experience in testing the security of networks, web applications, and wireless networks for large financial, retail, and technology clients in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Justin is the co-author of Network Security Tools: Writing, Hacking, and Modifying Security Tools, a contributing author to Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network, 2nd Edition, and the lead author of SQL Injection Attacks and Defenses (Syngress) as well as having been invited to speak at a number of conferences on security topics, including Black Hat, EuSecWest, OSCON and RSA.

Justin is active in developing security tools for penetrating web applications, servers, and wireless networks and as a compulsive tinkerer he can't leave anything alone without at least trying to see how it works.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
Part I	Modifying and Hacking Security Tools
1	Writing Plug-ins for Nessus	3
	The Nessus Architecture	3
	Installing Nessus	4
	Using Nessus	4
	The NASL Interpreter	10
	Hello World	11
	Datatypes and Variables	11
	Operators	13
	if...else	15
	Loops	16
	Functions	17
	Predefined Global Variables	18
	Important NASL Functions	20
	Nessus Plug-ins	26
2	Developing Dissectors and Plug-ins for the Ettercap Network Sniffer	42
	Installing and Using Ettercap	42
	Writing an Ettercap Dissector	43
	Writing an Ettercap Plug-in	50
3	Extending Hydra and Nmap	56
	Extending Hydra	56
	Adding Service Signatures to Nmap	70
4	Writing Plug-ins for the Nikto Vulnerability Scanner	75
	Installing Nikto	75
	Using Nikto	76
	Nikto Under the Hood	78
	Existing Nikto Plug-ins	79
	Adding Custom Entries to the Plug-in Databases	81
	Using LibWhisker	84
	Writing an NTLM Plug-in for Brute-Force Testing	86
	Writing a Standalone Plug-in to Attack Lotus Domino	89
5	Writing Modules for the Metasploit Framework	92
	Introduction to MSF	92
	Overview of Stack Buffer Overflows	94
	Writing Exploits for MSF	102
	Writing a Module for the MnoGoSearch Overflow	106
	Writing an Operating System Fingerprinting Module for MSF	113
6	Extending Code Analysis to the Webroot	121
	Attacking Web Applications at the Source	121
	Toolkit 101	126
	PMD	128
	Extending PMD	131
Part II	Writing Network Security Tools
7	Fun with Linux Kernel Modules	159
	Hello World	159
	Intercepting System Calls	161
	Hiding Processes	170
	Hiding from netstat	175
8	Developing Web Assessment Tools and Scripts	178
	Web Application Environment	179
	Designing the Scanner	183
	Building the Log Parser	189
	Building the Scanner	191
	Using the Scanner	206
	Complete Source Code	207
9	Automated Exploit Tools	214
	SQL Injection Exploits	215
	The Exploit Scanner	216
	Using the Scanner	242
10	Writing Network Sniffers	244
	Introduction to libpcap	244
	Getting Started with libpcap	246
	libpcap and 802.11 Wireless Networks	261
	libpcap and Perl	271
	libpcap Library Reference	272
11	Writing Packet-Injection Tools	282
	Introduction to libnet	282
	Getting Started with libnet	283
	Advanced libnet Functions	292
	Combining libnet and libpcap	293
	Introducing AirJack	301
	Index	309