Truth be told, and if I’m being a bit candid, I really dislike the word “why”. Now, if you find yourself asking inside your head, “but why?” then this article might be for you. Some of the explanations in this article might be overly simplified, but I still encourage the underlying concepts to be explored….
Category: Uncategorized
Mindset for hacking GraphQL Applications
I’ve tried to summarize a lot of information from HackTricks, YouTube, HTB write-ups, disclosed vulnerabilities, and the GraphQL documentation to come up with succinct notes on GraphQL. This way you don’t need to be an expert to focus on what’s important. I’m not claiming to be an expert on GraphQL, but enough to know what…
Shell Games — A closer look at the behavior of different msfvenom shells with strace
During a recent engagement I had the chance to test various payloads against a few different endpoint detection tools. Think of anti-virus, but with remote administration and enterprise support. The technologies are amazing, however, when testing different kinds of reverse shells, some payloads could be used to easily evade the agents protecting the hosts. This…
Leveraging Postman Collections for Offensive Webapp Testing
I was recently in an engagement with a web application that was interconnected with about half a dozen services while offering up a few dozen API routes that had to be tested within three days. As I stared at the flow chart provided and tried to gather an understanding of what I needed to test…
How to configure Android Studio with BurpSuite
Let’s say you’ve been assigned some mobile work. You’re a pentester, mobile developer, or just a tinkerer who needs to be able to see traffic flowing to and from your Android device. Chances are you’re going to want to use BurpSuite to help make your life a little bit easier. Problem is that the instructions…
Timing-Based Username Enumeration: What’s a fix versus mitigation?
For web-based applications, Timing-based Username Enumeration is a great find. For testers it’s low-hanging fruit and a great way to enumerate valid accounts for password attacks or social engineering. For engineers, fixing can be a pain in the rear end. Recently, I had an interesting debate with a coworker after writing a re-test report for…
The mental tweak that helped me on my OSCP journey
In a previous post, I highlighted my overall OSCP experience. The high-level ideas around education, studying, and exam attempts are there, but I wanted to touch on something that I didn’t elaborate on — mindset. A lot of the OSCP prep feels like a grind. Enumerate a machine, find something vulnerable, exploit, elevate privileges, repeat. Over time,…