Breaking In So You Don’t Have To
Each year, Rapid7 penetration testers conduct over 1,000 security assessments, pushing boundaries to expose vulnerabilities before the bad guys do. The mission? Get in, escalate privileges, and own the environment—physically, digitally, or sometimes just by sweet-talking an unsuspecting employee.
Names? Redacted. Companies? Anonymized. But the hacks? Real.
Welcome to Under the Hoodie, where we share stories straight from the frontlines of ethical hacking. Below are real accounts from our testers, revealing just how easy it can be to break into supposedly secure environments. Click through to hear each story unfold.
1. The Law Firm’s "Secure" File Share - Not So Secure
A law firm’s file storage system was sitting on the internet, just begging for a break-in. Using a mix of open-source intelligence (OSINT) and Burp Suite, our pen tester enumerated users, guessed a couple of predictable passwords (think "Winter2024!"), and walked right into confidential legal documents. Verdict? Guilty of weak security.
2. Taking Over a College (And Its Campus Police)
Ever wondered how much damage someone could do by simply plugging into an open network jack on a college campus? Turns out, a lot. Our tester started with network poisoning attacks, cracked some hashes, and before long, had access to criminal records, police databases, PhD research, and even student grade records. Could've handed out straight A’s if they wanted.
Check out the full infiltration.
3. Hacking SQL to Crack a Corporate Network
A misconfigured Microsoft SQL server turned out to be the golden ticket for total network compromise. After gain ..
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