The document outlines the importance of penetration testing in identifying security vulnerabilities and emphasizes the need for a dedicated hacking lab environment for skill development. It provides a comprehensive guide on setting up a practice ground, including tools, techniques, and resources for learning. Additionally, it discusses opportunities in the field, such as bug bounty programs and the importance of responsible disclosure in the security community.

1. Hacker’s Practice Ground
Lokesh Pidawekar

2. The road ahead
● Why learn this?
● Creating the lab environment
● How to learn
● Caveats
● What next, opportunity?
● Conclusion

3. ● Information Security Engineer
● Mastered Science of Information
Assurance from Northeastern University,
Boston (MA)
● Occasionally blog at
infosecforever.blogspot.com
● @MaverickRocky02
● lokesh [dot] pidawekar [at] gmail [dot] com

4. Disclaimer
The tools and techniques covered in the presentation can be dangerous and
are being shown only for educational purposes.
It is a violation of Federal and some states’ laws to attempt to gain
unauthorized access to information assets or systems belonging to others, or to
exceed authorized on systems for which access have not been granted.
Only use these tools with/on systems you own or with written permission from
the owner. Speaker does not assume any responsibility and shall not be held
liable for any illegal use of these tools.
These are my views, not associated with my employer.

5. Why learn this
http://www.wordstream.com/images/attention-economy-zoidberg-why.png

6. Penetration Testing
“Penetration testing is security testing in which assessors
mimic real world attacks to identify methods for
circumventing the security features of an application,
system or network1”
http://kcdigitalarts.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/simulation-network-security-consultation.jpg

7. Why Pentest?
● Its always better (cost and effort) to find holes before
attackers exploit them
● Vulnerability assessment is not enough
● Requirement from compliance standards such as PCI
DSS2
● Increases the security of the computing resources being
tested

8. Why building practice ground
● One can not attack a target in wild
● They don’t teach how to break systems in
schools but employers expect to defend all
attacks as if we know how to do it
● There is need to develop penetration testing
skill for students to understand attacker’s
mindset. But we cannot just start penetration
testing on random target

9. Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand
battles, a thousand victories
- Sun Tzu

10. Let the show begins
Recipe for making a hacking lab
● Some virtualization platform
● installing required software for attack
● installing vulnerable software
● learning key concepts

11. The infrastructure
● Raspberry Pi, old laptop
● Virtualization Software -
o VMware fusion/workstation (if the
school is giving free license),
otherwise vmware player, Oracle
Virtualbox, Qemu
http://catstechnology.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/0FVNM9EASJX.jpg

12. Attacking OS
Dedicated OS
● Kali Linux (Formerly known as Backtrack)
● Samurai WTF
● Santoku Linux
● Backbox Linux
● Pentoo
● Android Tamer (because it’s the age of mobile)
Recent developments to build frameworks for pentesting is exciting for e.g.
Pentestbox, Appie, Pentester’s framework etc.

13. Vulnerable Platforms for practice
Operating System Metasploitable 2
Vulnerability Specific Images Pentesterlab, vulnhub, CTFs images
Web Application WebGoat, BwaPP, DVWA, OWASP
Bricks
Mobile Applications GoatDroid, InsecureBankv2, DVIA
Custom Cloud based Hack.me

14. Learning, how to:
● Hacking is not point and shoot
● Fundamental from OWASP
● Security Researchers blogs e.g. Project Zero3, etc.
● Conference talks, videos (anyone heard of @irongeek or
@securitytube)
● Online courses on Coursera, udemy etc.

15. Practice and Dedication
SQLi,
XSS,
Password
Cracking
etc.

16. Demo
1. Port scanning - Metasploitable
2. SQL Injection - WebGoat
3. Cross-site Scripting – DVWA
4. FTP exploitation - Metasploitable
5. PostgreSQL Exploitation - Metasploitable

17. Wargames and Capture the Flag
● There are plenty of CTF games happening throughout the year (Check any
Con)
● Some CTF are live round the year
o http://overthewire.org/wargames/ - Challenges ranging from web app
to Linux command and overflows
o http://io.smashthestack.org/

18. Online challenges
The researchers, companies put online challenges for various attacks
● https://xss-game.appspot.com/
● https://github.com/yahoo/webseclab
● https://google-gruyere.appspot.com/
● https://github.com/cure53/xss-challenge-wiki/wiki/Older-Challenges-and-
Write-Ups

19. Responsible Disclosure
● Because we are white hats :)
● Builds trust between vendors
and security community
● Name and fame or even some
money
http://web.securityinnovation.com/Portals/49125/images/Disclo
sure.jpg

20. Opportunities

21. Huge Opportunity
http://money.cnn.com/pf/best-jobs/2015/list/

23. Bug Bounty
Most of the companies have started to reward
researchers as part of bug bounty program
Example - Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.
Responsible disclosed vulnerabilities to Sony,
Prezi.com, Eventbrite etc.
There are platforms such as BugCrowd,
HackerOne, Synack, CrowdCurity etc. to
mediate for crowdsourcing bug bounty

24. Some guidelines to follow
● Write a concise report with proper steps to reproduce
the vulnerability
● Test security for the targets that are where you have
permissions explicitly
● Respect the vendor, do not indulge in malpractice
against them
● Do not copy paste other researcher’s report (there are
hell lot of bugs yet to be found)

25. ● Rapid skill development is key to success in security
● They can’t teach everything in class
● It’s not easy to gain experience of exploiting all
vulnerabilities in real world
● Defense can be designed well if we will know attacking
techniques
Conclusion

26. References
1. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-115/SP800-115.pdf
2. https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/infosupp_11_3_penetration_test
ing.pdf
3. http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/
4. http://www.zdnet.com/article/pwn2own-2015-the-year-every-browser-went-
down/
5. http://www.google.com/about/appsecurity/reward-program/
6. https://www.facebook.com/whitehat?_rdr
7. https://community.rapid7.com/docs/DOC-1875
8. https://pentesterlab.com/

27. Questions
Email - lokesh[dot]pidawekar[at]gmail[dot]com

28. Thanks
Big thanks to Wall of Sheep!