CSC 5991 Cyber Security Practice

Lab 3: Scanning and Reconnaissance

Introduction

The key to successfully exploit or intrude a remote system is about the information you
have. The first step for penetration is the scanning and reconnaissance. In this lab, you
will learn how to use tools to scan and retrieve information from a targeting system. You
will be using nmap and OpenVAS to scan a vulnerable machine and identify exploits
that can be used to attack it. We will use two Linux virtual machines: One is a Kali Linux
with nmap and OpenVAS installed; and the other one is intentionally vulnerable Linux.
We will use the nmap and OpenVAS on Kali Linux to scan the vulnerable Linux
machine.

Software Requirements

- The VMWare Software

http://apps.eng.wayne.edu/MPStudents/Dreamspark.aspx

- The Kali Linux, Penetration Testing Distribution

https://www.kali.org/downloads/

- Metasploitable2: Vulnerable Linux Platform

http://sourceforge.net/projects/metasploitable/files/Metasploitable2/

- nmap: the Network Mapper - Free Security Scanner

https://nmap.org/

- OpenVAS: Open Vulnerability Assessment System

http://www.openvas.org/index.html

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Starting the Lab 3 Virtual Machines

We need to use two VMs for this lab: the Kali Linux and the Metasploitable2-Linux.
First, select the Kali Linux and press Start up

Login the Kali Linux with username root, and password [TBA in the class]. Below is the
screen snapshot after login.

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Then, you select Metasploitble2-Linux, and press Start up. This is an intentionally
vulnerable Linux VM that you will attack against.

If you see the window below, just click OK. This is due to running two VM at the same
time.

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Log into the virtual machine with username, msfadmin, and password [TBA in Class].

After you log into the VM, you will see the screen below.

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Finding the IP Address of the Attacking Target

For the purpose of this lab, it uses Metasploitable2-Linux as the attacking target. First,
we need to find the host IP address of the target to launch a scanning. You can use the
command “ifconfig” (ipconfig is the windows equivalent). This command allows you to
find all the connected interfaces and network cards.
Go to the Metasploitable2-Linux VM, and execute the following command
$ iifconfig

From the screenshot above, we can see that the IP address of the network interface,
eth0, is 172.16.108.172. This is the IP address for the target that you will use later in
this lab. When you work on the lab in the classroom, you will get a different IP address
for your Metaploitable2-Linux VM. Note that this is not a public IP but we can access it
within the subset.

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Scanning the Target Using nmap

nmap ("Network Mapper") is an open source tool for network exploration and security
auditing. Though it was designed to rapidly scan large networks, we use it for scanning
the target host in this lab.

Go to the Kali Linux, and open up a terminal by clicking the icon .

Since nmap has been installed on the Kali Linux, we can just launch the scanning in the
terminal by typing the following command:
$ nmap –T4 172.16.108.172
nmap is the execution command; option -T4 means faster execution; and
172.16.108.172 is the IP address of the target. As mentioned, you will have a different
IP address when working on this with the VMs in the classroom.

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The screenshot above shows a quick scan of the target machine using nmap. We can
see that there are many open ports and services on the target system including FTP,
SSH, HTTP, and MySQL. These services may contain vulnerabilities that you can
exploit.
nmap provides many useful functions that we can use. You can find more information
from the man page of nmap
From this link: http://linux.die.net/man/1/nmap
Or execute the following command in a terminal:
$ man nmap

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The screenshot above shows the man page of nmap.

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Vulnerability Scanning Using OpenVAS

OpenVAS is an open-source framework of several services and tools offering a

comprehensive and powerful vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management
solution. In our Kali Linux image, OpenVAS has been installed and setup for you.
If you want to setup OpenVAS in your own machine, you can follow the steps below.
root@kali:~# apt-get update
root@kali:~# apt-get dist-upgrade
root@kali:~# apt-get install openvas
root@kali:~# openvas-setup
Since the Kali Linux image has everything setup for you, you don’t need to run the setup
commands. You can run the following command to check if the OpenVAS manager,
scanner, and GSAD services are listening:
root@kali:~# netstat –antp
Otherwise, just start the services by executing the following command
root@kali:~# openvas-start

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Connecting to the OpenVAS Web Interface

Go to the Kali Linux, and open the browser, Iceweasel, by clicking the icon

Then, go to https://127.0.0.1:9392 and accept the self-signed SSL certificate.

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Input the username as admin, and the password [TAB in the classroom].
The screenshot on next page is the homepage of OpenVAS. Type the IP address of the
target in the “Quick start” box, and press “Start Scan”. It will do the following for you:
1. Create a new Target with default Port List
2. Create a new Task using this target with default Scan Configuration
3. Start this scan task right away
4. Switch the view to reload every 30 seconds so you can lean back and watch the
scan progress

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After finishing the scanning, you can look at the reports as shown in the screenshot
below.

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Assignments for the Lab 3

1. Read the lab instructions above and finish all the tasks.
2. Use nmap to scan the target and find the software version of the OS and the
running services (list at least 3 of them).
3. Use OpenVAS to find two vulnerabilities of the target, and briefly describe them.

Happy Scanning!

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