Understanding Metasploitable

Understanding Metasploitable

Web Exploitation Tools

Web exploitation tools are applications used to find weaknesses in web applications and secure networks. Penetration testers can use these tools to fix security issues or attackers to exploit an organization’s weaknesses. Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is one of the most common web exploitation tools. The web exploitation tool finds several vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection, XSS injection, exposing private IP addresses, and exploiting application errors. The application was developed the OSWAP project, a security organization that creates security tools. Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) has a graphics user interface, making it easy for all users to use the application. However, the application also supports command-line use for advanced users. The application uses web spiders created in the AJAX programming language to scan web applications (Rawat, Bhatia & Chopra, 2020).

Wapiti is another web exploitation tool for finding and exploiting web application vulnerabilities. Wapiti is a command-line web application without a graphics user interface, forcing its users to learn commands to use the software. Wapiti is only used to conduct black-box testing, which does not peer into the internal functioning of the web application. The web application finds vulnerabilities by injecting codes into the web application. Wapiti is used to find database injection, SQL injection, XSS injection, and server-side request forgery, among other vulnerabilities. The application is easy to use since its manuals and tutorials are readily available online (Stasinopoulos, Ntantogian & Xenakis, 2019).

Metasploit

Metasploit is a web testing framework that allows multiple vulnerability testing. The application is the most popular web application framework globally since it has many testing capabilities. The exploitation tool was founded in 2003 using Perl programming language, and in 2007, it was rewritten in the Ruby programming language. In addition, the framework allows the user to plan an attack, from data gathering to data extraction or whatever the endpoint of the episode is. The Metasploit framework also enables users to integrate other web exploit tools like SNMP and Nmap to conduct an even more comprehensive exploit (Rawat, Bhatia & Chopra, 2020).

Metasploitable

Metasploitable is a Linux-based Ubuntu operating system that has been tweaked to become more vulnerable than the standard operating system. The operating system is used to build skills to conduct an exploit or scan an operating system for weaknesses and patch vulnerabilities on an operating system. The operating system can be downloaded for free over the internet and loaded on a virtual machine platform to start penetration testing. After downloading the operating system, the default password and user name are admin for both user name and password. When using the Metasploitable operating system, the user should ensure that it is never allowed to connect to the internet but use a host network since it is full of vulnerabilities that hackers can use to gain access to the user’s computer system and cause havoc. Also, the Metasploitable operating system will assist the user in understanding the most vulnerable security features of the Linux-based operating system. The user will also learn the default ports left open by the operating system. While conducting exploits and attacks on the Metasploitable operating system, the user will understand the most likely attacks a hacker can execute and methods to prevent them (Sharma, 2020).

Vulnerabilities of the Metasploitable Operating System

One of the main vulnerabilities of the Metasploitable operating system is that on Port 21, the system runs vsftpd, a common FTP server exposed to running a backdoor attack. On the Metasploitable operating system, port 6667 runs an IRC daemon, leaving the port open for a backdoor connection. Another major vulnerability of the Metasploitable operating system is that Mutillidae, a web application, has all the collected vulnerabilities of the operating system listed on the internet, and attackers do not have to conduct vulnerability scans but can search for them on the internet and conduct an attack. A hacker can use this port to gain remote operating system control. The operating system also has weak web services, and a user on the network can easily exploit the operating system. Finally, entering the IP address of the Metasploitable computer can give access to the computer’s web services to an attacker (Sharma, 2020).

References

Rawat, S., Bhatia, T., & Chopra, E. (2020). Web Application Vulnerability Exploitation using Penetration Testing scripts.

Sharma, H. (2020). Exploiting vulnerabilities of Metasploitable 3 (Windows) using the Metasploit framework.

Stasinopoulos, A., Ntantogian, C., & Xenakis, C. (2019). Commix: Automating evaluation and exploitation of command injection vulnerabilities in web applications. International Journal of Information Security, 18(1), 49-72.

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Understanding Metasploitable

Instructions
Web application vulnerabilities and the subsequent exploits of the vulnerable applications are a problem. Metasploitable gives you a method to practice Web application vulnerability assessment and exploitation. For this part of your Assessment, you will
1) Research on three Web exploitation tools. Write a 100-word paragraph on each tool.
2) Write a 200-word paragraph about Metasploitable and how it will assist you in practicing Web exploitation.
3) Finally, write a 150-word paragraph on other vulnerable features of Metasploitable that were not included in your previous paragraph.