Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! So many readers in the Null Byte community have been asking me questions about evading detection and hacking undetected that I decided to start a new series on digital forensics. I applaud each of you for your concern, as the last thing I ...more
A hacker with privileged access to a Windows 10 computer can configure it to act as a web proxy, which allows the attacker to target devices and services on the network through the compromised computer. The probes and attacks appear to originate from the Windows 10 computer, m ...more
The first few minutes after gaining access to a MacBook are critical — but where do we begin? Using tools built into macOS, we can develop an in-depth understanding of running background processes, detect antivirus software, locate sensitive files, and fingerprint other device ...more
Samsung's One UI 3.0 skin is built on top of Google's Android 11 open source code base, which means you get all of the standard features, plus some cool bonus stuff from Samsung. However, it's one of those standard AOSP features that you might find most useful if you send a lo ...more
In most cases, when the free trial of software is over, that's it—you're left to either pay for it or find an alternative. But what happens if the trial wasn't long enough to sell you on the product? It'd be nice if there was a way to test it out again without having to whip o ...more
Syncing your Google and Facebook friends to your smartphone gets your contacts list up-to-date quickly, so you'll never have a problem finding someone's number. But, there's always a negative side to things. In this case, you'll not only get contacts with phone digits, you'll ...more
All kinds of people pretend to be someone they're not on the internet, including scammers, people attempting to wind others up, hackers and web predators. Almost all of these people will leave bases uncovered and they're all easy to expose when you understand how to. Here are ...more
Using Netcat to backdoor a macOS device has its short-comings. If the compromised Mac goes to sleep, the Netcat background process will occasionally fail to terminate correctly; This leaves Netcat running infinitely in the background and the attacker with no new way into the d ...more
Passwords and data stored in web browsers are extremely valuable to hackers. If not for financial gain, black hat hackers may still leak your passwords and personal information for amusement. Never undervalue what you're worth to a hacker. While I'm definitely no black hat, d ...more
There are more than 2 billion Android devices active each month, any of which can be hacked with the use of a remote administration tool, more commonly known as a RAT. AhMyth, one of these powerful tools, can help outsiders monitor a device's location, see SMS messages, take c ...more
With all of the bare-bones setup out of the way in our Mac for Hackers series, your Apple machine should be ready to run a significant amount of pentesting tools. We can pull tools from GitHub and compile them, we can pull dependencies or tools from Homebrew, we have both Pyth ...more
Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! Those of you who use Windows in a LAN environment understand that Windows machines can share directories, files, printers, etc. using "shares." This protocol dates back to the 1980s when the then dominant computer firm, IBM, developed a way ...more
As you might know, there are a multitude of tools used to discover internal IP addresses. Many of these tools use ARP, address resolution protocol, in order to find live internal hosts. If we could write a script using this protocol, we would be able to scan for hosts on a giv ...more
Apple's latest big software update includes an entirely new Apple app, a controversial change in the TV app, better Siri control, an improved Shortcuts app, interesting Safari upgrades, Apple Music Sing, and more. Keep reading to see what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone. Th ...more
It only takes a few commands to manipulate a MacBook's secure HTTPS traffic and pluck login passwords out of the encrypted data. Let's take Facebook and Gmail hacking to the next level by intercepting Safari and Google Chrome web traffic in real time. Both Facebook and Gmail ...more
After installing Ubuntu as your primary OS, you should have protected against USB Rubber Ducky payloads, defended against hard drive forensics, and reduced the overall attack surface against physical strikes. When defending against network-based attacks, you'll want to minimiz ...more
A PirateBox creates a network that allows users to communicate wirelessly, connecting smartphones and laptops even when surrounding infrastructure has been disabled on purpose or destroyed in a disaster. Using a Raspberry Pi, we will make a wireless offline server that hosts f ...more
Greetings dear null byters, today we start a new series, we will start to attack users using social networking that are popular such as Facebook, Skype, and much more, and in part 1 of the series will engage users of Skype. What we are going to do today? 1 - get the IP from h ...more
This is my first post please tell me what I can improve. (I don't claim any of the images. I tried taking screen shots but it froze my computer. ) I will be using wlan0 because thats my wireless but use yours. I'm going to tech you have to kick that annoying room mate of the ...more
By using almost any packet-crafting tool, a hacker can perform denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. With the power to create just about any packet with any characteristics, a hacker can easily find one that will take down a host or network. Nmap and Hping are effective packet mani ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! More and more, the world is turning to and adopting the smartphone platform as the digital device of choice. People are not only using smartphones for voice communication, but also web services, email, SMS, chatting, social networking, photogr ...more
I recently had my iPhone stolen at public park and did everything I could to locate it, but with Find My iPhone disabled (I know, what an idiot) and no exact address to give to the police, I had about a .00000001 percent chance of getting it back. Maybe if it was an Android p ...more
It's not uncommon for hackers to attempt to move laterally between devices in proximity of a compromised device to maintain a prolonged presence in the network. Malware utilizing USB flash sticks to self-replicate and compromise air-gapped machines isn't a new concept. In bot ...more
In the previous article, we learned how to set up our VPS, configure our PHP server, and developed an in-depth understanding of how the payload works. With all that taken care of, we can get into disguising our payload to appear as an image and crafting the note in the greetin ...more
Open-source data scraping is an essential reconnaissance tool for government agencies and hackers alike, with big data turning our digital fingerprints into giant neon signs. The problem is no longer whether the right data exists, it's filtering it down to the exact answer you ...more
Welcome back my, tenderfoot hackers! Many people come to Null Byte looking to hack Facebook without the requisite skills to do so. Facebook is far from unhackable, but to do so, you will need some skills, and skill development is what Null Byte is all about. Sometimes, if yo ...more
Back for the second part, Just to recap in part one, we installed and configured the dhcp server. This will allow us to pass our clients requests out to the internet. This is a very important step in the evil twin attack because if your targets (clients) can't make it out to ...more
We are most certainly not machines. We all need some downtime every once in a while to set our sanity scales back in balance, which in turn, makes us more productive workers. This is a premise that several forward-thinking employers fully understand, but these types of compani ...more
Welcome back, my hackers apprentices! To own a network and retrieve the key data, we only need to find ONE weak link in the network. It makes little sense to beat our heads against heavily fortified systems like the file and database server when we can take advantage of the b ...more
When joining a new network, computers use the Address Resolution Protocol to discover the MAC address of other devices on the same network. A hacker can take advantage of ARP messages to silently discover the MAC and IP address of network devices or actively scan the network w ...more
If you're using a mobile device, it's a pretty safe bet that your apps are sending lots of information back and forth from their servers. To make sure there is no inappropriate data collection going on, it's worth setting up a web proxy to spy on this traffic, so you know exac ...more
Apple's Contacts app just got its biggest update ever. Since the first iPhone in 2008, there have only been minor upgrades here and there to how you manage and interact with contacts. That changes with iOS 16. The last major feature Contacts received was emergency contacts th ...more
If you're worried about the security of your Mac, there are easy measures to prevent the most dangerous attacks. Named after the tactic of accessing an unattended computer in a hotel room, we can thwart "evil maid" attacks with Do Not Disturb and LuLu, free macOS tools by Obje ...more
Virtual private networks, or VPNs, are popular for helping you stay anonymous online by changing your IP address, encrypting traffic, and hiding your location. However, common IoT devices, media players, and smart TVs are hard to connect to a VPN, but we have a solution: Turn ...more
The ability to stay organized and be resourceful with data gathered from recon is one of the things that separates the true hackers from the script kiddies. Metasploit contains a built-in database that allows for efficient storage of information and the ability to utilize that ...more
Welcome back, everyone. In the previous part of this rapid-fire miniseries, we built the attacker portion of the shell. In this article, we'll just be testing it to see if everything works correctly. First, we'll need to start the victim script. Simply navigate to it and exec ...more
I have gotten comments from my last tutorial on not being able to do anything because of a lack of a monitor. In order to address this problem I'm gonna show you how to connect and control the Rasberry Pi through a SSH client on Linux, Mac, Windows, and Chromebook computers. T ...more
The Fire TV Stick, as well as the Fire TV, may be limited by Amazon's fight on piracy, but after a quick sideloading of Kodi, the floodgates are back open with the freedom to stream just about any video or song you want. This is a great new feature to have, but with the locke ...more
With the number of web applications out there today, it comes as no surprise that there are just as many vulnerabilities waiting for hackers to discover. Finding those vulnerabilities can be a difficult task, but there are plenty of tools available to make the process easier. ...more
Armis Labs has revealed eight vulnerabilities, called "BlueBorne", which put 5.3 billion Android, iOS, Windows, and Linux devices that use Bluetooth at risk. With it, hackers can control devices, access data, and spread malware to other vulnerable devices through networks. In ...more
You need a good microphone on your computer in order to make audio recordings, voice chat, or use speech recognition. However, not every computer comes with a built-in mic, and not every built-in mic works great. You can purchase a cheap computer microphone on Amazon for as l ...more
Hello all! In this tutorial, I'd like to show you one way of getting root on OS X. Check out this GitHub page for a recent privilege escalation exploit that was recently discovered. I've tested it and it works on both OS X 10.9 Mavericks and OS X 10.10 Yosemite, but appears to ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! This new series on Bluetooth hacking was inspired by a recent episode of Mr. Robot (my favorite TV show). In episode 6, Eliot hacked the bluetooth keyboard of the police office in order to hack the prison and release his nemesis, Vera. This is ...more
Welcome back, my newbie hackers! We've already saved the world from nuclear annihilation and covered our tracks afterwards, but the world is still threatened by a malicious, megalomaniacal dictator with missiles and nuclear weapons. We need to keep a close eye on him, so in ...more
The world is full of vulnerable computers. As you learn how to interact with them, it will be both tempting and necessary to test out these newfound skills on a real target. To help you get to that goal, we have a deliberately vulnerable Raspberry Pi image designed for practic ...more
Before attacking any website, a hacker or penetration tester will first compile a list of target surfaces. After they've used some good recon and found the right places to point their scope at, they'll use a web server scanning tool such as Nikto for hunting down vulnerabiliti ...more
When it comes to attacking devices on a network, you can't hit what you can't see. Nmap gives you the ability to explore any devices connected to a network, finding information like the operating system a device is running and which applications are listening on open ports. Th ...more
This tutorial follows the same idea as my original tutorial for windows, but I've redone it to work with Mac OS X. Here's how to get a meterpreter session from your victim opening a malicious word document: Step 1: Creating the Payload For this tutorial, I'll be using a pyth ...more
Barrow's article on Pupy made me wish for a RAT that could target an OS frequently used by gatekeepers at startups, tech companies, and creative firms: macOS. Once run, a RAT can do severe damage by dumping a user's stored credentials for many accounts. The best loot lives in ...more
No more carrying around heavy laptops and thousands of Linux Live CDs and USBs to always be ready for pentesting on the fly! I hope you had a good Christmas and happy new year! Update1: Added the section "weaponizing your Android" where I talk about apps and fundamental Kali ...more
Configuring onion services for the first time can be tricky. A surprising number of system administrators make seemingly trivial mistakes that ultimately lead to catastrophic cases of de-anonymizing supposedly anonymous sites on the dark web. OnionScan is a tool designed to id ...more
Each day, we read about another security breach somewhere in our digital world. It has become so commonplace that we hardly react anymore. Target, J.P. Morgan, iCloud, Home Depot, and the list goes on and on. Those are just the big ones that get reported in the news. Millions ...more
Welcome back, my neophyte hackers! Have you ever had a neighbor that you're certain is up to no good? Maybe you've seen him moving packages in and out at all hours of the night? Maybe you've seen people go into his home and never come out? He seems like a creep and sometimes ...more
Your iPhone is full of features, many of which you might not even know about yet. Still, Apple keeps adding feature after feature with each new iOS update, and iOS 14.5 is no exception. The latest iOS version adds at least 69 features for your iPhone that you should be happy a ...more
Identifying security software installed on a MacBook or other Apple computer is important to hackers and penetration testers needing to compromise a device on the network. With man-in-the-middle attacks, packets leaving the Mac will tell us a lot about what kind of antivirus a ...more
Apple's macOS operating system is just as vulnerable to attacks as any Windows 10 computer or Android smartphone. Hacker's can embed backdoors, evade antivirus with simple commands, and utilize USB flash drives to completely compromise a MacBook. In this always-updated guide, ...more
Rooting. As an Android user, I'm sure you've heard the word once or twice. According to Kaspersky, 7.6% of all Android users root — but for the 92.4% who don't, we wanted to talk to you. Rooting allows you to remove barriers and open Android to a level of unprecedented contro ...more
With the macOS stager created and the attacker's system hosting the Empire listener, the malicious AppleScript can be designed and disguised to appear as a legitimate PDF using a few Unicode and icon manipulation tricks. A real PDF is required for the attack to work. Files ov ...more
While the security behind WEP networks was broken in 2005, modern tools have made cracking them incredibly simple. In densely populated areas, WEP networks can be found in surprising and important places to this day, and they can be cracked in a matter of minutes. We'll show y ...more
Now that we have our payload hosted on our VPS, as well as Metasploit installed, we can begin developing the webpage which will trick our "John Smith" target into opening our malicious file. Once he has, we can take over his computer. This part is more involved, but the first ...more