How to create a lab for Hacking?

 

The Lab

We will use a program called Virtual Box to set up our pentesting lab.

Virtual Box allows us to create virtual machines inside our current OS.

We will create the following machines in our lab (for now):

1. Attacker machine - Kali Linux

2. Victim 1 - Windows.

3. Victim 2 - Ubuntu Linux.

First of all download and install Virtual Box from here.

The Lab - Kali Linux

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution based on Debian, Kali is specially made for pentesters, it contains most of the tools that we need, installed, and configured correctly. Offensive Security maintains Kali Linux, a Debian-based Linux distribution. Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns created it. Kali Linux is a specially developed operating system for network analysts, penetration testers, or individuals who engage in cybersecurity and analysis. Kali Linux's official website is Kali.org. It rose to prominence after appearing in the Mr. Robot series. It was not intended for broad usage; rather, it is intended for use by professionals or individuals who are familiar with Linux/Kali.

 It is simple to install Kali Linux (single boot) on your PC. This article will walk you through the basic installation (which can be done on bare metal or in a guest VM), as well as the option of encrypting the partition. You may have sensitive data that you would like to encrypt with Full Disk Encryption at times (FDE). During the installation process, you can choose to perform an LVM encrypted installation on either hard discs or USB drives.

To begin, you will require appropriate computer gear. Kali Linux runs on the amd64 (x86 64/64-bit) and i386 (x86/32-bit) architectures. We advocate utilizing the amd64 images wherever possible. As indicated in the section below, the hardware requirements are basic, while greater hardware will naturally provide better performance.

This is going to be the attacker's machine.

1. You can download Kali Pre Built machines from the following link:

Download Now

The Lab - Installing Metasploitable

Metasploitable is a vulnerable linux distro, this OS contains a number of vulnerabilities, it is designed for pentesters to try and hack it. This is going to be one of the victims that we will try to hack. Before we can learn how to use the Metasploit Framework, we must first ensure that our setup meets or exceeds the system requirements listed in the sections below. Taking the effort to correctly arrange your Metasploit Lab Environment will aid in the prevention of numerous difficulties later in the course. To host your laboratory, we strongly advise you to have a system that can operate numerous virtual machines.

Failure to supply sufficient memory to your host and guest operating systems will eventually result in system failure and/or the inability to launch your virtual machine (s). You'll need RAM for your host OS as well as the amount of RAM you've allocated to each virtual machine. Use the table below to help you determine how much RAM you need for your specific situation.

Linux “HOST” Minimal Memory Requirements

• 1 GB of system memory (RAM)

• Realistically 2 GB or more

Kali “GUEST” Minimal Memory Requirements

• At least 1 GB of RAM (2 GB is recommended) // more never hurts!

• Realistically 2 GB or more with a SWAP file of equal value

Metasploitable “GUEST” Minimal Memory Requirements

• At least 256 MB of RAM (512 MB is recommended) // more never hurts!

• (Optional) Per Windows “GUEST” Minimal Memory Requirements

• At least 256 MB of RAM (1 GB is recommended) // more never hurts!

• Realistically 1 GB or more with a page file of equal value

You can download Metasploitable from the following link:

Download Now

The Lab - Installing Windows

Microsoft Windows is a multitasking operating system created by Microsoft Corporation that interacts with users via a graphical user interface. Microsoft was founded in 1972 as "Traf-O-Data," then renamed "Micro-soft" in November 1975, and finally "Microsoft" on November 26, 1976. In August 1981, Microsoft entered the market with the release of version 1.0 of the operating system Microsoft DOS (MS-DOS), a 16-bit command-line operating system. Microsoft was created by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and its core product is the Windows operating system.

We will also install a normal windows machine as a victim, we will be running our attacks against this machine. Microsoft has released a number of windows virtual machines that can

be downloaded from the following link (make sure you select windows 10

stable and virtual box)

Download Here

The Lab - Snapshots

A snapshot is a read-only copy of the whole file system as well as all of its files. Each snapshot's contents reflect the state of the file system at the time the snapshot was created. Each snapshot can be navigated as if it were still functioning. Your directories, folders, and files will be displayed exactly as they were at the time the snapshot was created. On this schedule, snapshots are taken.

● Snapshots allow you to save the state of a virtual machine.

● Can be used as bookmarks to go back and forward to different

configurations.

● Store stable state, updated state ….etc.

So this much is enough to know how we can setup our lab in a single machine using a virtual operating system. This can be easily found in other websites as well but I hope you found more in our website. I hope you all liked it. Leave comments below so that we can understand how you guys feel after reading this blog. You can also directly contact me through email. My email is given in the About Me page and you can email directly through Contact page.