Ethical Hacking with Python

Objective: Understand ethical hacking principles and set up the Python environment.

Topics Covered:

• What is ethical hacking? White hat vs. black hat vs. grey hat
• Legal and ethical considerations in penetration testing
• The ethical hacking methodology (reconnaissance, scanning, exploitation, reporting)
• Setting up Kali Linux and Python environment
• Python basics review for security professionals
• Understanding virtual labs for safe practice

Tools: Kali Linux, Python 3, VirtualBox/VMware

Objective: Build network scanners to discover hosts and open ports.

Topics Covered:

• Socket programming fundamentals in Python
• Building a simple port scanner
• Multi-threaded scanning for performance
• Service detection and banner grabbing
• Creating an advanced network scanner with Python
• Integrating with Nmap using python-nmap

Tools: Python sockets, Nmap, python-nmap library

Objective: Perform reconnaissance by enumerating subdomains and DNS records.

Topics Covered:

• DNS fundamentals and record types (A, CNAME, MX, TXT)
• Building a subdomain discovery tool with Python
• DNS zone transfers and security implications
• Reverse DNS lookup techniques
• Using public APIs for reconnaissance
• Automating DNS enumeration

Tools: Dnspython library, requests library

Objective: Build password crackers and test authentication security.

Topics Covered:

• Password hashing algorithms (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, bcrypt)
• Dictionary attacks vs. brute force attacks
• Building a dictionary attack tool with Python
• Multi-threaded password cracking
• Using wordlists and creating custom wordlists
• Ethical considerations for password testing

Tools: hashlib library, requests library, wordlists

Objective: Identify and exploit common web vulnerabilities using Python.

Topics Covered:

• HTTP/HTTPS fundamentals and web requests with requests library
• Building a web crawler and spider
• SQL injection detection and exploitation automation
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) testing with Python
• Directory and file brute forcing
• Building a simple vulnerability scanner

Tools: requests, BeautifulSoup, Scrapy, Selenium

Objective: Capture and analyze network packets using Python.

Topics Covered:

• Understanding network packets (Ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP)
• Packet sniffing with Scapy library
• Analyzing network traffic for sensitive information
• Building a packet sniffer from scratch
• ARP spoofing detection and prevention
• Network traffic analysis for security assessments

Tools: Scapy, Wireshark, Python socket programming

Objective: Understand keylogging techniques and system monitoring for security.

Topics Covered:

• How keyloggers work and their legitimate uses
• Building a basic keylogger with pynput
• Capturing screenshots with Python
• System information gathering
• Persistent mechanisms and detection
• Defending against keyloggers

Tools: pynput, PIL/Pillow, pyautogui

Objective: Build tools to test SSH and FTP authentication security.

Topics Covered:

• Understanding SSH and FTP protocols
• Building an SSH brute forcer with paramiko
• Building an FTP brute forcer with ftplib
• Implementing delays to avoid detection
• Testing weak credentials ethically
• Securing SSH and FTP servers

Tools: paramiko, ftplib, socket

Objective: Learn basics of malware analysis and reverse engineering.

Topics Covered:

• Types of malware and their behaviors
• Static vs. dynamic analysis
• Analyzing suspicious files with Python
• Extracting indicators of compromise (IOCs)
• Using sandboxes for safe analysis
• Writing malware detection scripts

Tools: pefile library, hash libraries, sandbox environments

Objective: Apply all skills to a complete penetration testing engagement.

Topics Covered:

• Planning and scoping a penetration test
• Conducting reconnaissance and enumeration
• Scanning for vulnerabilities
• Exploiting identified weaknesses (in lab environment)
• Documenting findings and evidence
• Writing a professional penetration test report
• Presenting recommendations for remediation

Tools: All tools learned throughout the course