Near Field Communication, or NFC for short, is a feature that allows our smartphones to wirelessly communicate with other devices over a short distance while using almost no power at all. Think of it like a slimmed-down version of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that can send a small burst ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Throughout this series on Metasploit, and in most of my hacking tutorials here on Null Byte that use Metasploit (there are many; type "metasploit" into the search bar and you will find dozens), I have focused primarily on just two types of ...more
A while back, I wrote review of my favorite hacking movies of all time. Two of my key criteria were; (1) how realistic was the hacking, and (2) are the hackers portrayed as the "good guys." This past winter, a new hacker movie was released, appropriately named Blackhat starrin ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! We have looked at a number of ways that we sniff traffic on the network with such tools as Wireshark, tcpdump, dnsiff, and others, but each of these tools is only capable of pulling packets off the wire. Those packets can be examined for ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! When Wi-Fi was first developed and popularized in the late '90s, security was not a major concern. Unlike wired connections, anyone could simply connect to a Wi-Fi access point (AP) and steal bandwidth, or worse—sniff the traffic. The first a ...more
Complex shell scripts can be implanted into photo metadata and later used to exploit a MacBook. In addition to obfuscating the true nature of an attack, this technique can be used to evade network firewalls as well as vigilant sysadmins. In this attack scenario, a malicious c ...more
Apple's new iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max are sure to be hits this year. Of course, that means plenty of hungry customers are looking to sign up for a model once preorders begin on Friday, Sept. 14, for the XS models, and Oct. 19 for the XR. Luckily, there are preemptive actions y ...more
Networking is built largely on trust. Most devices do not verify that another device is what it identifies itself to be, so long as it functions as expected. In the case of a man-in-the-middle attack, we can abuse this trust by impersonating a wireless access point, allowing u ...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
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
While the USB Rubber Ducky is well known by hackers as a tool for quick in-person keystroke injection attacks, one of the original uses for it was automation. In this guide, I'll be going the latter, explaining how we can use it to automate Wi-Fi handshake harvesting on the Ra ...more
Many of our members here at Null Byte are aspiring hackers looking to gain skills and credentials to enter the most-valued profession of the 21st century. Hackers are being hired by IT security firms, antivirus developers, national military and espionage organizations, private ...more
It seems like every day now that we see a new headline on a cyber security breach. These headlines usually involve millions of records being stolen from some large financial institution or retailer. What doesn't reach the headlines are the many individual breaches that happen ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! In a recent tutorial, I showed how the SNMP protocol can be a gold mine of information for reconnaissance on a potential target. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest that you read it before progressing here, as little of this will make m ...more
Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to ...more
Among the younger generation, Roblox rivals major titles like Minecraft as one of the most popular online games out there. In fact, it's common to hear children tell new playmates to "friend me in Roblox!" so they can play together online. There's nothing inherently sinister h ...more
Almost every phone comes with biometric security of some sort these days, but the same can't be said of Windows computers. While fingerprint scanners are becoming increasingly common with laptops and desktops, they're nowhere near ubiquitous. Thankfully, your phone's scanner c ...more
With just one line of Ruby code embedded into a fake PDF, a hacker can remotely control any Mac computer from anywhere in the world. Creating the command is the easy part, but getting the target to open the code is where a hacker will need to get creative. Ruby is just one wa ...more
A powered-off Windows 10 laptop can be compromised in less than three minutes. With just a few keystrokes, it's possible for a hacker to remove all antivirus software, create a backdoor, and capture webcam images and passwords, among other highly sensitive personal data. The ...more
It's official — the newest version of Google's mobile operating system is called Android 8.0 Oreo, and it's in the process of rolling out to many different devices. Oreo has plenty of changes in store, ranging from revamped looks to under-the-hood improvements, so there's tons ...more
Welcome back, my budding hackers! This is the initial post of a new series on how to hack Facebook. It's important to note here that each hack I'll be covering is very specific. I have said it before, but I feel I need to repeat it again: there is NO SILVER BULLET that works ...more
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Many of you have probably heard of a man-in-the-middle attack and wondered how difficult an attack like that would be. For those of you who've never heard of one, it's simply where we, the hacker, place ourselves between the victim and the ...more
Whether you miss the good old days of Telnet or you want to know what hacking was like when security was nothing but an afterthought, Telehack is the game for you. The text-based hacking game is a simulation of a stylized combination of ARPANET and Usenet, circa 1985 to 1990, ...more
The Digispark is a low-cost USB development board that's programmable in Arduino and capable of posing as a keyboard, allowing it to deliver a number of payloads. For only a few dollars, we can use the Digispark to deliver a payload to a macOS computer that will track the Mac ...more
Imagine being able to play a video instantly on hundreds of thousands of devices across the globe. It's totally possible, as long as all of those devices have a Chromecast plugged in. When Chromecasts are left exposed to the internet, hackers can use add them to a botnet that ...more
With the rise of website encryption (TLS), sniffing passwords from network activity has become difficult. However, it's still possible to quietly exfiltrate a target's network traffic in real time to extract passwords and sensitive information. Pertaining to macOS, there are t ...more
The first question people ask me when they come to my apartment is usually "What's your Wi-Fi password?" While I'm happy to give my friends free access to the internet, it's hard to walk each person through my secure password. Luckily, there's a way to create a QR code that wi ...more
There's no doubt Kali has established itself as the most popular penetration distribution available. However, just because it's the fan favorite of beginners and security researchers doesn't make it right for everyone. Manjaro Linux is a beginner-friendly Arch-based distributi ...more
To some people, Thanksgiving is merely quality time with family and friends that they can't get throughout the rest of the year. To others, it's that one time when it's okay to be a greedy hog and get hammered all weekend long. In that spirit of eat-and-drink-until-you-drop, ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use ...more
You can beef up the security on your Mac all you want, but all the firewalls and antivirus apps in the world mean nothing when that can of soda tips over on your Macbook, destroying your laptop and all its data forever. You may have some of your data backed up to a cloud serv ...more
Hi, dear co-apprentices and wise masters. I've been recently trying to learn the basics to hacking here, and I've read all guides on Wi-Fi hacking and noticed no word is dedicated to this awesome script that comes bundled with Kali! Okay, it may be a potential skiddie toy, bu ...more
Welcome back, my budding hackers! We've spent a lot of time learning to compromise Windows systems, and we've successfully compromised them with Metasploit, cracked their passwords, and hacked their Wi-Fi. However, very little time was spent developing ways to extract the inf ...more
Data can be injected into images quickly without the use of metadata tools. Attackers may use this knowledge to exfiltrate sensitive information from a MacBook by sending the pictures to ordinary file-sharing websites. Continuing on the topics of DPI evasion, payload obfuscat ...more
Between the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the revelation that Facebook logs your calls and text history on Android, many are considering joining the #DeleteFacebook movement. But it can be difficult to leave the site, because so much of its content is only available to activ ...more
Android has several features built into the platform that improve user experience but require extra attention to prevent a security breach. By modifying these settings, you can drastically reduce the possibility of someone exploiting your device or intercepting information. B ...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
I've done numerous tutorials in Null Byte demonstrating the power of Metasploit's meterpreter. With the meterpreter on the target system, you have nearly total command of the victim. As a result, several of you have asked me for a complete list of commands available for the m ...more
Want to take advantage of your neighbor's super fast Wi-Fi connection? If they're smart, they probably have it password protected (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, would you?). But if you have an Android phone, you can get back at them for always parking in your spot an ...more
Windows 10 and macOS have poor reputations when it comes to customer privacy and user policies. Our hacking Windows 10 and hacking macOS articles might make it seem like a reasonably secure operating system doesn't exist. But I'm here to tell you that there is a viable alterna ...more
The Pixel and Pixel XL come with an awesome data-saving feature called Wi-Fi Assistant that automatically connects to open internet hotspots, then creates a secure VPN on your device to keep your data safe. When you're connected to a Wi-Fi network, internet speeds are general ...more
If you're just starting out with Android—or smartphones in general, for that matter—there are a lot of little things to learn. One of the first terms you'll likely encounter is "Wi-Fi," which is a wireless internet connection served up by a router in your home, office, or loca ...more
Malevolent hackers can divert your incoming calls and texts to any number they want, and they don't need to be a criminal mastermind to do it. Even friends and family members can reroute your incoming calls and messages so that they know exactly who's trying to reach you, and ...more
RedRabbit is an ethical hacking toolkit built for pen-testing and reconnaissance. It can be used to identify attack vectors, brute-force protected files, extract saved network passwords, and obfuscate code. RedRabbit, which is made specifically for red teams, is the evil twin ...more
An attacker can repurpose public MyBB forums to act as command-and-control servers. It only takes a few lines of code to configure a MacBook to fetch commands and send responses to any website the attacker desires. Before you keep reading, know that this project is not geared ...more
One of the ultimate goals in hacking is the ability to obtain shells in order to run system commands and own a target or network. SQL injection is typically only associated with databases and their data, but it can actually be used as a vector to gain a command shell. As a les ...more
The latest Star Wars movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story, has grossed almost $350 million worldwide during its first month in theaters. This is a good opportunity to discuss how hackers can use media hype (in this case, Hollywood movie hype) to disarm an unsuspecting Windows user i ...more
Surveillance is always a useful tool in a hacker's arsenal, whether deployed offensively or defensively. Watching targets yourself isn't always practical, and traditional surveillance camera systems can be costly, lacking in capabilities, or both. Today, we will use motionEyeO ...more
OpenVAS is a powerful vulnerability assessment tool. Forked from Nessus after Nessus became a proprietary product, OpenVAS stepped in to fill the niche. OpenVAS really shines for information gathering in large networks where manual scanning to establish a foothold can be time- ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Generally, you will want to perform a vulnerability scan before doing a penetration test. Vulnerability scanners contain a database of all known vulnerabilities and will scan your machine or network to see whether those vulnerabilities app ...more
Hello NullByte, it's mkilic! This time I'm here with the C.H.I.P from NTC. Although it is not too popular, the C.H.I.P is a brand new micro computer. It is very similar to the Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone Black. The key difference with this particular board is its cost and size. ...more
The USB Rubber Ducky is a well-known hacking device in the cybersecurity industry, but it needs to be preprogrammed before it can be used. That means it's not easy to issue commands to a target computer since you can't interact with it from afar after plugging it in. And if yo ...more
We've shared a capture-the-flag game for grabbing handshakes and cracking passwords for Wi-Fi, and there are some upcoming CTF games we plan on sharing for other Wi-Fi hacks and even a dead-drop game. While security-minded activities and war games are excellent ways to improve ...more
Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet. So no, there's no such ...more
Arduino is a language that's easy to learn and supported on many incredibly low-cost devices, two of which are the $2 Digispark and a $3 ESP8266-based board. We can program these devices in Arduino to hijack the Wi-Fi data connection of any unlocked macOS computer in seconds, ...more
Windows 10 passwords stored as NTLM hashes can be dumped and exfiltrated to an attacker's system in seconds. The hashes can be very easily brute-forced and cracked to reveal the passwords in plaintext using a combination of tools, including Mimikatz, ProcDump, John the Ripper, ...more
QR codes are supposed to make life easier, but having to install potentially shady third-party apps just to scan one is more trouble than it's worth. Thankfully, there's a QR code reader built into all Google Pixels, but you wouldn't know it unless you stumbled across the feat ...more
Figuring out the Wi-Fi at a new location is challenging enough. Connecting to said Wi-Fi should be as easy as possible. Unless someone you know is already connected on their iPhone, you're probably used to the usual routine of heading to the Wi-Fi page in the Settings app to g ...more
It's easier than you might think to hack into Wi-Fi routers using just one unrooted Android phone. This method doesn't require brute-forcing the password, a Windows OS for converting PowerShell scripts into EXE format, a reliable VPS for intercepting hacked Wi-Fi passwords, or ...more
One of the best things about Android is the ability to customize every aspect of your device to make it your own. However, unless you have prior knowledge or experience with every single setting available to you, you might have missed a few critical features without even knowi ...more