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12 min

Dangerous Things #1: Interview with Dan Guido, co-founder of Trail of Bits

Having been involved in information security for the last 15 years, I've had the opportunity to meet some really amazing people and to view the industry through their eyes. I've been toying with the idea of a blog series where I interview some of the people I've had the privilege to meet, and hopefully to introduce some of my readers to the awesome research that's being done. I've decided to call the blog series "Dangerous Things", which is a reference to the fact that so many of us in this indu

2 min Metasploit

Metasploit 4.2 Released: IPv6, VMware, and Tons of Modules!

Since our last release in October, we've added 54 new exploits, 66 new auxiliary modules, 43 new post-exploitation modules, and 18 new payloads -- that clocks in at just about 1.5 new modules per day since version 4.1. Clearly, this kind of volume is way too much to detail in a single update blog post. IPv6 Coverage Metasploit 4.2 now ships with thirteen brand new payloads, all added to support opening command sessions and shells on IPv6 networks. In addition, Metasploit's existing arsenal of p

4 min

Cyber attack ranked within the top 5 risks in terms of probability

“The more complex the system, the greater the risk of systemic breakdown, but also the greater the potential for opportunity” - Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum released their Global risks 2012 report, outlining the perceived impact, likelihood and interconnectedness of 50 prevalent global risks ranged in five risk categories:  economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. In this post I'

3 min Metasploit

The Art of Keylogging with Metasploit & Javascript

Rarely does a week go by without a friend or family member getting their login credentials compromised, then reused for malicious purposes. My wife is always on the lookout on Facebook, warning relatives and friends to change their passwords. Many people don't understand how their credentials get compromised. Password reuse on several websites is usually the culprit. Password reuse is a problem even if the website encrypts the passwords in their databases. An attacker only needs to insert some

2 min Metasploit

Weekly Metasploit Update: All Your Auth Are Belong To Us

This week, with RSA 2012 fast approaching and the final touches on Metasploit version 4.2 getting nailed down, we've been in a code freeze for core Metasploit functionality. However, that doesn't apply to the parade of modules, so here's what's in store for the next -- and quite likely last -- update for Metasploit 4.1. Authentication Credential Gathering and Testing Jon Hart has been on fire with new Metasploit contributions -- this week, he's come up with a trio of credential snarfing post mo

7 min IT Ops

Digging into Engine Yard Logs

I’ve recently been playing with a number of PAAS platforms, and its bringing me back somewhat to my days toying with J2EE application servers, JDBC drivers, Relational DBs etc. Oh how I remember deploying servers and databases and then checking out my shiny new application, remember the J2EE petstore anyone?? 🙂 However the big difference with PAAS, over old school application servers is that you do not need to spend a few days configuring them

3 min Product Updates

What is this whole updating thing anyways?

Nexpose by default is programmed to reach out on startup and every six hours afterward to the Rapid 7 update servers. At this time Nexpose checks for any new product and vulnerability content updates. If any updates are available Nexpose attempts to download and apply the data to the Security Console and local Scan Engine. The Security Console also sends updates to any distributed Scan Engines to which it is connected. How do I disable automatic product updates? The Security Console offers a fe

2 min Metasploit

Getting The Most Out of Metasploit: Pentesting, Password Auditing, and Vulnerability Validation

When we talk to Metasploit users, they usually use it for either penetration testing, password auditing or vulnerability validation, but few use it for more than one of these purposes. By leveraging your investment in Metasploit, you can triple-dip at the same price - no extra licenses needed. Penetration Testing With penetration testing, you can identify issues in your security infrastructure that could lead to a data breach. Weaknesses you can identify include exploitable vulnerabilities, we

2 min Metasploit

Weekly Metasploit Update: New Payloads, New Modules, and PCAnywhere, Anywhere

PCAnywhere, Anywhere The big news this week centered around Symantec's pcAnywhere. For starters, there's a new ZDI advisory for a buffer overflow in the username field. More notably, though, was the advice in a Symantec white paper which advises customers to "disable or remove Access Server and use remote sessions via secure VPN tunnels." So, while the Metasploit elves bang away at a proper buffer overflow module, HD Moore busted out a pa

2 min Nexpose

How to Exploit A Single Vulnerability with Metasploit Pro

Metasploit Pro's smart exploitation function is great if you want to get a session quickly and don't care about being "noisy" on the network, but there are certain situations where you may want to use just one exploit: * You're conducting a penetration test and want to exploit just one vulnerability so you don't draw too much attention (i.e. you want to use a sniper rifle, not a machine gun) * You're a vulnerability manager and want to validate just one vulnerability to know whether

3 min Release Notes

Nexpose Reaches OWASP Top10 Coverage

Rapid7 is proud to announce that Nexpose's 5.1 web application scanning capabilities can now detect all types of vulnerabilities in OWASP's Top10 ! We've completed this task with the addition of two new vulnerability checks, A5: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) and A8: Failure to Restrict URL Access . The next paragraphs will describe

1 min

How to Import Vulnerability Scanner Reports Into Metasploit

It's easy to import third-party vulnerability scanning results into Metasploit. These formats are supported: * Acunetix XML * Amap Log * Appscan XML * Burp Session XML * Core Impact Pro XML * Foundstone Network Inventory XML * IP Address List * Libpcap * Microsoft MBSA SecScan XML * nCircle IP360 (XMLv3 & ASPL) * Metasploit PWDump Export * Metasploit Zip Export * Metasploit XML * NetSparker XML * Nessus XML (v1 & v2) * Nexpose Simple XML * Nexpose XML Export * Nmap XML * Qu

2 min Nexpose

Find Vulnerable pcAnywhere Installations with DAGs

On Monday, Symantec made the rare decision to tell their customer base to either uninstall or disable their remote control software suite pcAnywhere . Symantec made this decision because their users were at risk to be exploited by publicly known vulnerabilities that they had not been able to create a patch for yet. This recommendation to disable software due to act

4 min Nexpose

"Pass the hash" with Nexpose and Metasploit

I am proud to announce that Nexpose 5.1.0 now supports "pass the hash" , a technique to remotely authenticate against a Windows machine (or any SMB/CIFS server) with the mere possession of LM/NTLM password hashes, without needing to crack or brute force them. Nexpose is able to use the hashes to perform credentialed scans to produce very detailed scan results of all sorts of local and remote vulnerabilities that may otherwise not be detectable. And pe

2 min Metasploit

Remote-Controlling Metasploit Through APIs

Metasploit offers some great ways to automate its functionality through a programming interface. Metasploit users have built custom tools and processes based on this functionality, saving them time to conduct repetitive tasks, or enabling them to schedule automated tasks. Our most advanced customers have even intgrated Metasploit Pro into their enterprise security infrastructure to automatically verify the exploitability of vulnerabilities to make their vulnerability management program more ef