One of the most exciting and useful skill sets on the red team side of cyber security is exploit development. It’s also been considered a major motivating factor to get people interested in cyber security. So, what exactly is exploit development?
Exploit Development
Exploit development is the process of creating methods of mitigating vulnerabilities in computer systems. Typically, it refers specifically to writing scripts or programs which can be used in cyber attacks.
As with all areas of cyber security and computer science, exploit development is always evolving, meaning the terminology can get muddled. Generally speaking, however, the term covers any sort of scripting and programming to account for vulnerabilities while applying lessons learned from those ventures to improve the defensive environment.
During red team operations, exploit development typically follows a research phase and a fingerprinting / scanning phase. The information gathered about the target system can be used to identify vulnerabilities and develop exploits to allow the red team to take advantage of them.
How Is It Used in Cyber Security?
Like almost all other aspects of cyber security, exploit development can be used ethically and unethically. During pentesting, the red team uses exploit development to take advantage of vulnerabilities, gain access to target systems, and learn about the current cyber security weaknesses of those systems.
Without exploit development and execution, it’s difficult for cyber security teams to fully assess the extent of suspected vulnerabilities. Furthermore, from the perspective of blue team tactics, understanding exploit development findings is essential for preparing effective cyber security defensive measures.
What Are the Benefits of Exploit Development?
At first glance, exploit development may seem more relevant to cyber criminals than cyber security professionals, but this is not the case. The are several benefits of using exploit development to help keep computer systems secure, which include:
- Analyzing Vulnerabilities: When a vulnerability has been identified, it’s often necessary to more thoroughly analyze how it can be exploited. By developing one or more exploits, cyber security professionals can develop better solutions.
- Understanding Possible Attacks: It’s also helpful to understand exploit development to establish an understanding of how cyber attacks work. Cyber security professionals should understand both sides of the coin.
- Reverse Engineering Attacks: After an attack has happened, it may be useful to reverse engineer the exploit in a simulated environment. This can aid the process of protecting against the attack in the future.
- Checking Solutions: Pentesting is a valuable tool for evaluating full security systems. The same concepts can be applied to specific, known vulnerabilities to ensure that the proposed solution is effective.
How To Learn Exploit Development
If you want to get started with exploit development, you’ll need to learn several key skills. First and foremost, it’s important to understand how computer systems and software work. It may be beneficial to learn the programming language C because it can serve as a useful way to create exploits and more deeply understand how the system is working. Unlike higher-level languages, C doesn’t hide memory management from the programmer, which is often relevant to exploits.
Additionally, it’s important to understand software debugging and the general practices for exploit development. This should include learning how modern anti-exploit solutions work and what their weaknesses are. Exploit developers must also learn how to use a variety of tools to discover vulnerabilities and build more effective exploits.
While many of these skills can be learned through self-teaching and exploration, most people tend to thrive better in a more structured environment. Taking a course on exploit development may be the right answer for you.
Get Started With the Basics of Exploit Development
INE provides self-paced courses on a wide variety of computer science and IT topics. Their cyber security courses include opportunities to learn exploit development. All cyber security professionals are encouraged to explore the red and blue team continuum to develop a better understanding of computer security.
Sources:
https://dayzerosec.com/blog/2021/02/02/getting-started.html
https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/exploit-development-everything-you-need-know-0167801/
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/state-of-exploit-development-part-1/
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