Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide 1st Edition

Having used the Metasploit Unleashed project as documentation I expected this book to be a rehash of most of that material. This book is much more than that. The authors taken the steps in a typical penetration test and matched it to features and tools in the framework. At every turn of the page I found another feature of Metasploit that I didn't know about before. From scanning to post exploitation, it's all here. The authors even go into advanced topics such as fuzzing and how to write your own exploits.The book contains the best and most extensive documentation of SET and Fast-Track to date. The book also goes the extra mile in showing readers how to configure target machines for testing. While the book does have a few minor mistakes mainly typographically in nature, it is the most well written, comprehensive infosec book I have every read on any subject.Thanks Dave, Jim, Devon, and Mati. With Metasploit being a moving target because of continued development, I'm sure there will be many revisions moving forward.

This book is an absolute essential to any pentesters arsenal. Going in the book, I already have a fairly deep understanding of Metasploit. To clarify, "deep" is defined as knowing how to use it, move around in it (the framework), in meterpreter, and the a few of the modules. I had absolutely no idea how much more there was to it than that.I have been completely blown away by the depth of knowledge poured into this book. They methodically take you through just about every phase of a penetration test, from recon to post-exploitation. Along with real-world examples, they also provide you with theoretical knowledge of the different levels as well.I came into this book thinking it would teach me a couple new tricks in Metasploit and it delivered on that and so much more.

The book covers the basics of using Metasploit with other related tools (SET and Fast-Track). If the reader is expecting to become a penetration tester expert by reading this book then I will say that the expectations are wrong. The author has managed to put in a single book the methodology used for penetration testing, named as PTES (Penetration Testing Execution Standard) and described as the redefined methodology for penetration testing and a general overview of the Metasploit framework, how it works, how is composed and how you can leverage the power of using this framework to make adaptations in different situations or scenarios. Also the author has recalled the fact that every situation is different and the penetration tester should deal with obstacles that he may find in the way to exploit a system.The author begins the book by describing the PTES methodology and also referring the user to the penetration standard organization website in order to get more information (for people that are new in penetration testing). Then the author moves on with the metasploit basics, explaining the terminology and how the framework is composed. It also makes a brief explanation about Metasploit Express and Metasploit Pro. In the Chapter 2 the book deals with an important step (information gathering), if not the most important, when conducting a penetration test. People tend to overlook this step because sometimes it will not have the "expected" fun necessary but users should understand that the success of exploiting a system is the time spent on gathering information of the target. The information gathering process, in this book, covers the identification of the target and the discovery of different applications or possible attack vectors. In the very beginning of the book, in chapter 2, the author explain briefly how to import databases from other tools such as vulnerability scanners in order to conduct exploits with some kind of automation. Some people will remember the autopwn option in Metasploit, this option is not longer available anymore in the framework (the framework changes everytime). I really don't know the reason why. But, as to import hosts and related information from Nessus, Nexpose, nmap will be very helpful for the penetration tester.The complexity will be a little bit higher with every new chapter. I think that more than explaining every single module, structure and syntax of commands of the framework the author has focused on how it works and set us the basics in order to get more experience in the tool by discovering what can we do with it, how we can add our features or modules and how we can use the framework with other tools such as SET and Fast-Track. I found useful the way the user explain how to create our own auxiliary, exploit modules within the framework using Ruby as the programming language(you will need some basics in programming in order to get the most of these chapters). The use of the mixins, the structure of the coding is something you will have to pay attention if you want to develop your own modules and tools within Metasploit. In chapter 8 the author begins with the interesting part. He explains the client-side attacks and introduces us to terms such as the heap and the other chapters will deal a little bit more with the stack. The reader must have some understanding of how you can perform a buffer overflow, how you can insert your code after exploiting a given application and how to introduce some stealth in your code in order to get around of the IPS, IDS and AV solutions. The author also explains the use of encoders in order to bypass security solutions. By the way, I have to mention that the meterpreter payload is detectable in a lot of security solutions so that's why the author encourages the reader to be more creative at the moment of target exploitation.In conclusion, the book is a good one for beginners and to understand what the Metasploit framework is and how you can use it. Most of the material can be found in the project website but not at the same detail level as the book. The book will show you the basics of the framework, don't expect to become an expert after this. The basis will help you to understand how to leverage the functionality of the tool and how to create your own code, workaround some difficulties in the process and most of all encourage people to contribute to the tool. There are some things that the author assumes that the reader should know and therefore some chapters can become some confusing. But, take the references and give you the opportunity to practice with the tool and surely in the future you will manage to port exploits from other sources and develop your own code.

I had purchased this book and as I'm an engineer by trade who is very interested in security I found this book amazing. Apparently it's so amazing someone decided to take my copy from the office and not return it...So here I am buying the book a second time and not feeling bad about it. First off David Kennedy is a simply kick a.. person. I met him at Defcon, and his talk was amazing, he we personable, and when I expressed how much I liked his book he literally gave me a hug. This is a guy who's book I will buy twice and not think twice about it.I just wish he would write a book on the social engineering toolkit!

If you want to learn from the experience of well known experts in the field, this is the book to read. You may not be an expert yourself after reading it, but it will give you the tools you need to start building your own expertise. Straight from the developers of BackTrack, FastTrack, and SET, this book is a great compliment to the Metasploit Unleashed online tutorial as well as the Offensive Security Certified Professional course. If you're already an expert, working in the field, this book may not be for you. As for me, just getting started, I can't recommend it enough. Great job guys and thank you!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I bought this book. I met Dave Kennedy at a conference where he was giving a presentation. The only time he brought up the book was when he ran out of time and suggested his book as a way to cover some of the basic questions and get an idea of penetration testing. The theory and methodology outlined for pen-testing is interesting enough and the examples showing how to use Metasploit to achieve the desired result is more than I expected. I didn't realize how little I knew about Metasploit until I got half way through the book.