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Mohana Vamsi
Mohana Vamsi

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Introduction to Metasploit: A Hacker's Toolkit

Metasploit is a powerful tool one of the widely used tools in the world for carrying out penetration testing by the ethical hackers. Therefore it makes it easier to discover, manipulate and ultimately confirm these weaknesses another tool crucial for securing networks.

Example: Let’s say you are in a position where you have to carry out vulnerability assessment of a specific company’s network security. Metasploit shows you a target that is a server which has a weak application and needs an update. When performing a faux exploit you merely illustrate how a bad guy might be able to gain unauthorized access.

Key features of Metasploit:

Exploitation: Start with canned attacks in order to determine which of the vulnerabilities works.
Payloads: Create your own payload such as reverse shell in order to mimic real attack scenarios.
Post-exploitation: Scanning the systems that have been penetrated to identify other weaknesses.
Real-world case: The hospital was targeted by the ethical hackers who were able to spot a severe flaw in the hospital system using Metasploit and also rectify the same before being exploited and used to cause a data breach in 2021.

Any novice to the Metasploit Framework can begin their journey with the Metasploit Community Edition. It is often used in cooperation with tools that scan networks like Nmap, or those which analyze traffic like Wireshark for example.

Tip: However, Metasploit is a tool that should be used with precautions and strict permission from around it. It is quite a relevant note, as knowledge of the enemy’s ways is the best defense strategy.

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