In this post I’m going to present some useful resources to learn about penetration testing and where to use exploitation tools and techniques in a safe and legal environment. This list contain a set of deliberately insecure LiveCDs, Virtual machines and applicarions designed to be used as targets for enumeration, web exploitation, password cracking and reverse engineering.
If you have other links/distribution/virtual machines, please leave a comment.
List updated on 13/9/2011
UltimateLAMP
UltimateLAMP is a Ubuntu VM running vulnerable services and containing weak accounts.
The UltimateLAMP VM runs the following services:Postfix, Apache, MySQL, WordPress, TextPattern, Seredipity, MediaWiki, TikiWiki, PHP, Gallery, Moodle, PHPWebSite, Joomla, eGroupWare, Drupal, Php Bulletin Board, Sugar CRM, Owl, WebCalendar, Dot project, PhpAdsNew, Bugzilla, OsCommerce, ZenCart, PhphMyAdmin, Webmin,Mutillidae 1.5 (OWASP Top 10 Vulns)
webgoat
WebGoat is a deliberately insecure J2EE web application maintained by OWASP designed to teach web application security lessons. In each lesson, users must demonstrate their understanding of a security issue by exploiting a real vulnerability in the WebGoat application. For example, in one of the lessons the user must use SQL injection to steal fake credit card numbers. The application is a realistic teaching environment, providing users with hints and code to further explain the lesson.
Holynix
Similar to the de-ice Cd’s and pWnOS, holynix is an ubuntu server vmware image that was deliberately built to have security holes for the purposes of penetration testing. More of an obstacle course than a real world example.
http://pynstrom.net/index.php?page=holynix.php
WackoPicko
De-ICE PenTest LiveCDs
The PenTest LiveCDs are the creation of Thomas Wilhelm, who was transferred to a penetration test team at the company he worked for. Needing to learn as much about penetration testing as quickly as possible, Thomas began looking for both tools and targets. He found a number of tools, but no usable targets to practice against. Eventually, in an attempt to narrow the learning gap, Thomas created PenTest scenarios using LiveCDs.
http://de-ice.net/hackerpedia/index.php/De-ICE.net_PenTest_Disks
Metasploitable
Damn Vulnerable Web App (DVWA)
Damn Vulnerable Web App is a PHP/MySQL web application that is damn vulnerable. Its main goals are to be an aid for security professionals to test their skills and tools in a legal environment, help web developers better understand the processes of securing web applications and aid teachers/students to teach/learn web application security in a class room environment.
www.dvwa.co.uk
Hacking-Lab
This is the Hacking-Lab LiveCD project. It is currently in beta stadium. The live-cd is a standardized client environment for solving our Hacking-Lab wargame challenges from remote.
http://www.hacking-lab.com/hl_livecd/
Exploit kb vulnerable web app
exploit.co.il Vulnerable Web app designed as a learning platform to test various SQL injection Techniques This is a fully functional web site with a content management system based on fckeditor. You can download it as source code or a pre configured.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/exploitcoilvuln/
Gruyere
This codelab shows how web application vulnerabilities can be exploited and how to defend against these attacks. The best way to learn things is by doing, so you’ll get a chance to do some real penetration testing, actually exploiting a real application. Specifically, you’ll learn the following:
How an application can be attacked using common web security vulnerabilities, like cross-site scripting vulnerabilities (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (XSRF). How to find, fix, and avoid these common vulnerabilities and other bugs that have a security impact, such as denial-of-service, information disclosure, or remote code execution. To get the most out of this lab, you should have some familiarity with how a web application works (e.g., general knowledge of HTML, templates, cookies, AJAX, etc.).
Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL)
Damn Vulnerable Linux is everything a good Linux distribution isn’t. Its developers have spent hours stuffing it with broken, ill-configured, outdated, and exploitable software that makes it vulnerable to attacks. DVL isn’t built to run on your desktop – it’s a learning tool for security students.
http://www.damnvulnerablelinux.org
pWnOS
pWnOS is on a “VM Image”, that creates a target on which to practice penetration testing; with the “end goal” is to get root. It was designed to practice using exploits, with multiple entry points
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/backtrack-videos/2748-%5Bvideo%5D-attacking-pwnos.html
Virtual Hacking Lab
A mirror of deliberately insecure applications and old softwares with known vulnerabilities. Used for proof-of-concept /security training/learning purposes. Available in either virtual images or live iso or standalone formats.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualhacking/files/
Badstore
Badstore.net is dedicated to helping you understand how hackers prey on Web application vulnerabilities, and to showing you how to reduce your exposure.
http://www.badstore.net/
BodgeIt Store
The BodgeIt Store is a vulnerable web application which is currently aimed at people who are new to pen testing.
Hackademic Challenges
The OWASP Hackademic Challenges , is an open source project that can be used to test and improve one’s knowledge of information system and web application security. The OWASP Hackademic Challenges implement realistic scenarios with known vulnerabilities in a safe, controllable environment. Users can attempt to discover and exploit these vulnerabilities in order to learn important concepts of information security through the attacker’s perspective.
OWASP Vicnum Project
A flexible web app showing vulnerabilities such as cross site scripting, sql injections, and session management issues. Helpful to IT auditors honing web security skills and setting up ‘capture the flag’ . Play the game at http://vicnum.ciphertechs.com
Stanford SecuriBench
Stanford SecuriBench is a set of open source real-life programs to be used as a testing ground for static and dynamic security tools. Release .91a focuses on Web-based applications written in Java.
Kioptrix
This Kioptrix VM Image are easy challenges. The object of the game is to acquire root access via any means possible (except actually hacking the VM server or player).
The purpose of these games are to learn the basic tools and techniques in vulnerability assessment and exploitation. There are more ways then one to successfully complete the challenges.
hackxor
Hackxor is a webapp hacking game where players must locate and exploit vulnerabilities to progress through the story. Think WebGoat but with a plot and a focus on realism&difficulty. Contains XSS, CSRF, SQLi, ReDoS, DOR, command injection, etc
Project GameOver:
Project GameOver was started with the objective of training and educating newbies about the basics of web security and educate them about the common web attacks and help them understand how they work. It is collection of various vulnerable web applications, designed for the purpose of learning web penetration testing. We have included some of the above mentioned deliberately vulnerable websites.
