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Creating an Admin User in Kali Linux and Debian-based Distros

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Dan Duran

To create an admin user in Kali and other Debian-based distros, you can use the command “adduser” followed by the username you want to create.

For example, to create a user named “peter,” you would use the command

adduser dan

To give the user admin privileges, you can use the command “usermod” followed by the username and the option “-aG” to add the user to the “sudo” group. For example, to add the user “dan” to the “sudo” group, you would use the command

usermod -aG sudo dan

To create the standard directories under /home/user, you can use the command

mkdir -p /home/user/Desktop /home/user/Downloads

You can also use the command useradd instead of adduser to create a user and usermod to modify the user and add it to the sudo group.

To set a password for a user that you have created, you can use the command “passwd” followed by the username. For example, to set a password for the user “dan” that you have created, you would use the command

passwd dan

This will prompt you to enter and confirm the password for the user.

You can also use the sudo passwd dan if you are logged in as a different user with administrative access.

Please note that it’s generally a best practice to set strong and unique passwords for all your user accounts. Also note that you need to be logged in as root or have administrative access to perform these commands.

Create a Simple Token-Based Authentication to Hide a Page

Posted on January 25, 2023 - January 30, 2023 by Dan Duran

Hi Guys! If you are working on a website or page and need to send the link to a few people but don’t want to create authentication for everyone, this method is perfect for you.

You can use a simple URI-based token system, where the token is included as a parameter in the URL. This approach is simple to implement, but it has some security risks, as the token is visible in the URL and can be easily shared or intercepted. So having said that, make sure you use this only for development and as a temporary solution!

You can use a simple PHP script that checks for the presence of a token in the query string of the URL and compares it to a predefined value to allow or deny access to the protected page.

Here’s an example of how you can implement this:

On the protected page, add the following PHP code at the top of the page:


<?php
    // Define the token value
    $token = "mysecretkey";

    // Check if the token is present in the query string
    if(!isset($_GET['token']) || $_GET['token'] != $token){
        // If the token is not present or is invalid, redirect the user
        header("Location: denied.php");
        exit;
    }
?>

Create a new page called “denied.php” that will be displayed when the user does not have a valid token.


<?php
header("HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden");
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Access Denied</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Access Denied</h1>
    <p>Sorry, you do not have the correct token to access this page. </p>
</body>
</html>

When you want to share the protected page, include the token in the URL as a query parameter, like this:

http://example.com/protected-page.php?token=mysecretkey

With this script, the protected page will only be accessible if the URL contains the correct token as a query parameter. If the token is not present or is invalid, the user will be redirected to the “denied.php” page.

Keep in mind that this is a simple example, and it’s not secure. Anyone can access the protected page by guessing the token or by looking at the source code, or even by using the browser history. Also, keep in mind that URI tokens can be cached by some browsers, so I recommend also putting a noindex, nofollow on your meta tag. Here’s the article for that: https://getcyber.me/do-not-index-development-pages-on-google/

Cheers!

Dan D.

Do Not Index Development Pages on Google!

Posted on January 25, 2023 - January 30, 2023 by Dan Duran

Hi Guys! When doing pen-testing for clients I often do quite a bit of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), Google Dorking and searches on web archiving.

And let me tell you! I find a lot of development apps and sites indexed and cached by Google. The funny thing is that even if you delete those pages, they will remain present in web archives! So this is a friendly reminder always to create no-index and no-follows for your development pages. AND… Always remember to remove them when you are putting apps into production!

To use the “noindex” and “nofollow” tags for search engines on your web page, you can add them to the <head> section of the HTML code for the page in question.

For “noindex,” you can add a “meta” tag with the attribute “name” set to “robots” and the attribute “content” set to “noindex.”
For “nofollow,” you can add a “meta” tag with the attribute “name” set to “robots” and the attribute “content” set to “nofollow.”

You can also use “noindex, nofollow” if you want to use both tags together.

Example:


<head>
  <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
</head>

If you want to apply the “noindex” and “nofollow” tags to all pages on your website, there are a few ways you can do this.

One way is to include the “meta” tags in the common template or header file that is used by all pages on your site. This way, the tags will be included on every page that uses the template or header file.

Another way is to use server-side scripting, such as PHP, to include the “meta” tags on all pages dynamically. You can write a script that checks for the presence of the tags on each page, and if they are not present, the script will add them automatically.

A final way is to use the robots.txt file, which gives instructions to the search engines on what pages or sections of your site should not be crawled, you can simply add the Disallow: / on the robots.txt file to block all pages on your site.

It’s important to keep in mind that using the “noindex” and “nofollow” tags can prevent your pages from being indexed by search engines, which can negatively impact your website’s visibility and search engine rankings. So, make sure you only use them where necessary and appropriate.

Want to use a simple token to restrict access? Check this blog out!

I hope this helps!

Dan D.

Disable JSON-REST API on WordPress

Posted on January 23, 2023 - January 23, 2023 by Dan Duran

Endpoints for WordPress data types are provided via the WordPress REST API. This enables developers to interact remotely with sites by sending and receiving JSON objects.

Most website owners, however, do not need these functionalities. Therefore, it may be better to deactivate the WordPress JSON REST API.

Nobody can dispute the advantages that this API provides to WordPress developers. Simply, it enables developers to get data using GET queries readily. This feature is quite handy for developing applications with WordPress.

That being said, although this is important for developers, most website owners do not need it. In fact, it might make your WordPress website vulnerable to DDoS assaults. It may also be incredibly resource-intensive, slowing down your site.

A sluggish website is not something you want, particularly after you have taken so many steps to improve it.

Here, I’ll teach you how to deactivate it the correct way using functions.php. This is better than installing a plugin which eventually will need to be maintained and can contribute to bloating your site.

Open to your functions.php page inside your child theme with your favourite editor. It should be on the following path:

sudo nano var/www/yoursite/public_html/wp-content/themes/yourtheme-child/functions.php

Paste the following code at the end of the file and save (CTRL+x and y).


// Disable JSON-REST API
 add_filter( 'rest_authentication_errors', 'wp_snippet_disable_rest_api' );
   function wp_snippet_disable_rest_api( $access ) {
      return new WP_Error( 'rest_disabled', __('Sorry, the WordPress REST API is disabled.'), array( 'status' => rest_authorization_required_>
   }

To test if this fix worked, navigate to your site yoursite.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users. You should see the following message:

{"code":"rest_disabled","message":"Sorry, the WordPress REST API is disabled.","data":{"status":403}}

I hope this helps. Cheers!

Dan D.

How to Search for Specific Strings in Linux

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Dan Duran

This quick tip will show you how to search for strings inside files in Linux.

You can use the grep command to search for specific strings in files on a Debian 11 system. The basic syntax is:

grep "string" /path/to/search

This will search for the string “string” in all files in the specified directory. To search for the string in all files in a directory and its subdirectories, you can use the -r option:

grep -r "string" /path/to/search

You can also use find command to search for specific files and then use grep command to search for the string in those files. For example, to find all files with the .txt extension and search for the string “example” in them:


find /path/to/search -name "*.txt" -exec grep "example" {} \;

Lastly, you can also use ack-grep as an alternative, which is more efficient than grep for searching large codebases.

ack-grep "string" /path/to/search

Give it a try!

Dan D.

Connecting to AWS Instance via SSH (Termius)

Posted on January 20, 2023 - January 22, 2023 by Dan Duran

In this tutorial, I will show you how to connect to your AWS instance via SSH using Termius.

INSTALL TERMIUS

Head to https://account.termius.com/signup and create an account.

Login and download the app for macOS, Windows or Linux.

Once downloaded, install and run the app.

You can login to get a free trial or simply start set up to use the free version. Click on ‘Start Setup’ > ‘skip’ > ‘Skip’ > ‘Skip’ > ‘Skip’ until the set up is done. Then login to your account.

Click on ‘Compare Plans’ and ‘Downgrade to Starter Plan.’

Now enter your AWS host IP located in your EC2 console.

Like this:

Now click on ‘Create Host.’

Now label your host and enter ‘Admin’ as your username.

Then click on ‘Set a Key.” A window will slide from the right. Click on ‘Create a new key.’ Another window will slide form the right.

In here, label your New Key (ex: My Debian 11 Server) and click on ‘Import Key’. Import your .pem key from AWS. It should look like this:

Click on ‘Save.’ Now double click on the host you created.

Click on “Add certificate and continue.” In my case, I got an error. Please go back and edit your host. Your username should be ‘admin’ (not Admin).

Once you are in, this is what you will see.

Now you are ready to start working on your server.

Cheers!

Dan D.

Installing Debian 11 on Amazon Web Services

Posted on January 20, 2023 - January 22, 2023 by Dan Duran

To install Debian 11 on Amazon Web Services (AWS), you can use the AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. Here are the general steps you can follow:

Register on AWS https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup

Log in to your AWS account and navigate to the EC2 dashboard.

Click on the “Launch Instance” button to start creating a new virtual machine.

Name your instance and in the search bar type “Debian 11”. Inside “Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)” section, select the Debian 11 AMI x86.

Choose the type of instance you want to launch, and configure the settings as desired (such as the number of vCPUs and amount of memory). In this case, the free tier.

In the “Key pair (Login)” section, create a new “key pair.”

Name the key pair, select RSA and .pem.

The key pair .pem file will be downloaded. Make sure you keep this .pem secure and DO NOT LOSE IT!

Now, in Network Settings, create a new security group and allow SSH traffic only to “My IP”.

Configure Storage to 8GB gp2.

Click on the “Launch” button to launch the instance.

You may want to also open ports 80 (http) and 443 (https) only for your IP while you are building your stack. For that click on “View all Instances,” select your instance and click on security > Security Groups.

Click on your security group (ex: sg-05d7…).

Click on “edit inbound rules” and add HTTP > My IP and HTTPS > My IP. Save rules.

Once you have connected to your instance, you can start customizing it and installing any additional software you need.

Note: Make sure you are aware of the costs of running an instance on AWS, and shut down or terminate instances that you are no longer using to avoid unnecessary charges.

In the next post, I will show you how to connect to your instance using the private key file and the IP address or hostname of the instance using ssh.

Cheers!

Dan D.

Installing Apache2 on Debian 11, Virtual Host, Letsencrypt and PHP 8.2

Posted on January 20, 2023 - February 5, 2023 by Dan Duran

This guide will help you install Apache2, create a Virtual Host for your domain, install Letsencrypt and install PHP 8.2 on Debian 11:

APACHE2

Let’s begin by installing apache2 and creating a virtual host for your website.

Make sure to replace mydomain.com with the appropriate path and domain name for your virtual host.

First, update your package lists by running the command:

sudo apt-get update

Next, install Apache by running the command:

sudo apt-get install apache2

This will install the latest version of Apache available in the package repository.

After the installation is complete, start Apache by running the command:

sudo service apache2 start

You can check the status of Apache by running the command:

sudo service apache2 status

You may also want to enable Apache2 by default with the following command:

sudo systemctl enable apache2

To check if Apache is working correctly, open a web browser and navigate to:

http://localhost/

You should see the default Apache page. If you are in an online server, such as AWS, you can type in: http://your-ip-address.

To create a virtual host (for your domain), you will need to create a new configuration file in the directory: /etc/apache2/sites-available/

For example:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/mydomain.com.conf

In this file, you will need to specify the ServerName, DocumentRoot, and other settings for your virtual host. It should look like this:


<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/mydomain.com/html
    <Directory /var/www/mydomain.com/html>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

Make sure your domain on your DNS service (ex. GoDaddy) is pointing to your server. There should be an ‘A’ record with the value @ (or mydomain.com) pointing to your server IP. Also, there should be another ‘A’ record with the value ‘www’ pointing to your ‘@’ (or mydomain.com).

Once the configuration file is created, enable the virtual host by running the command:

sudo a2ensite mydomain.com.conf

Now navigate to /var/www and run the following command:

mkdir mydomain.com

Create another folder inside mydomain.com called ‘html.’

mkdir mydomain.com/html

Now create a file called ‘index.html’ like this:

nano mydomain.com/html/index.html

Inside the file type:

hello world!

Save the file by pressing CTRL+x and then y.

Now, if you navigate to http://mydomain.com you should see ‘hello world.’

Also, you need to disable the default Apache2 landing page (default site).

Locate the default site configuration file. It is typically located in the directory /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ and the file is usually named 000-default.conf or default-ssl.conf

Disable the default site by running the command:

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf or sudo a2dissite default-ssl.conf or both.

Verify that the default site is now disabled by running the command:

sudo apache2ctl -S

It should not list the default site in the output.

Restart Apache to apply the changes by running the command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Please keep in mind that the process above is based on the default apache2 configuration. If you made any changes or you are using a different version of apache2 the process could be different.

LETSENCRYPT SSL CERTIFICATE

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to install a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate on a virtual host in Apache 2 on Debian 11:

Installing certbot:

Add the certbot repository to your system by running the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot

Update the package list by running the command:

sudo apt-get update

Install certbot by running the command:

sudo apt-get install certbot

Obtaining a certificate:

Use certbot to obtain a certificate by running the command:

sudo certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/yourdomain.com/html -d mydomain.com -d www.mydomain.com

This command will place the certificate files in the /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com directory

It will also create a new file called:

mydomain.com-le-ssl.conf inside of /etc/apache2/sites-available

Configure your virtual host to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS:

Open the virtual host configuration file for your domain:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/mydomain.com.conf

Change the file so it looks like this


<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName mydomain.com
ServerAlias www.mydomain.com
Redirect permanent / https://mydomain.com/
</VirtualHost>

Now all traffic going to HTTP should be redirected to HTTPS.

Enable the SSL module by running the command:

sudo a2enmod SSL

Enable the virtual host by running the command:

sudo a2ensite mydomain.com

Configure the automatic renewal of the certificate by running the command:

sudo crontab -e

Choose 1 (nano) and then add the following to the end of the file:

0 0 1 * * certbot renew --quiet --renew-hook "systemctl reload apache2"

Save by pressing CTRL+x and then Y.

This will run the certbot renew command every month on the first day of the month at 00:00. The –quiet flag will prevent certbot from sending an email every time it runs, and the –renew-hook flag will automatically reload the Apache2 service after renewing the certificate.

You can also use certbot renew --dry-run to test the renewal process before setting up the cronjob to make sure that everything is working correctly.

You may want to restart apache so all changes are saved:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

INSTALLING PHP 8.2

Now let’s install the latest version of PHP 8.2.

Add the PHP 8.2 package repository by running the command

sudo apt-get install lsb-release apt-transport-https ca-certificates

and then

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg

Create the repository list file by running:

sudo echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list

Update your package lists by running the command:

sudo apt-get update

Install PHP 8.2 and the necessary Apache PHP libraries by running the command

sudo apt-get install php8.2 libapache2-mod-php8.2

NOTE: Installing just the PHP 8.2 package and the libapache2-mod-php8.2 package may not enough. To install additional PHP libraries, you can use the apt-get install command followed by the name of the library. Here are some of the most commonly used PHP libraries:

php-json: JSON extension for PHP
php-xml: XML extension for PHP
php-mbstring: Multibyte string extension for PHP
php-mysql: MySQL extension for PHP
php-gd: GD extension for PHP
php-curl: cURL extension for PHP
php-opcache: OpCache extension for PHP
php-intl: Internationalization extension for PHP
php-soap: SOAP extension for PHP
php-zip: Zip extension for PHP.

After the installation is complete, restart Apache by running the command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You can check the version of PHP installed by running the command:

php -v

To configure PHP to work with Apache, you need to edit the /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini file and adjust the settings to your liking.

Once you have finished configuring PHP, restart Apache again for the changes to take effect by running the command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You can install all of these library by running the command:

sudo apt-get install php8.2-json php8.2-xml php8.2-mbstring php8.2-mysql php8.2-gd php8.2-curl php8.2-opcache php8.2-intl php8.2-soap php8.2-zip

Please note that these are just some of the most commonly used libraries, and your specific project may require additional libraries. Also, make sure you restart Apache after installing these libraries so that Apache can pick up the newly installed libraries.

After installing PHP, You can use the command php -v to check the version of PHP that is currently installed on your system. This will display the version of PHP, the build date, and other information. It should look like this:


$ php -v
PHP 8.2.0 (cli) (built: Jan 14 2022 21:16:03) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.0.0-dev, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

You can also create a simple PHP script to display the PHP version and configuration information by creating a new file called phpinfo.php in your web root directory. Run the following command:

sudo nano /var/www/mydomain.com/html/phpinfo.php

And add the following to the file:


<?php
    phpinfo();
?>

You can access this file through your web browser (http://yourdomain.com/phpinfo.php) to see the PHP version and configuration information. Make sure you delete the file afterward.

Additionally, you can check the installation of specific PHP modules by running the command php -m this will list all the modules that are currently installed on your system.

Tada! Cheers!

Dan D.

Enable and disable websites on Apache 2

Posted on January 17, 2023 - January 22, 2023 by Dan Duran

After trying a few things, I continued to get the following error:

user@host: a2dissite /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mysite.com.conf ERROR: Site /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mysite.com.conf does not exist!

🤦🏻

OMG, The solution is simple. You don’t need the paths to enable or disable sites:

user@host: a2dissite mysite.com.conf Site mysite.com disabled. To activate the new configuration, you need to run: systemctl reload apache2

The same is true for a2ensite:

user@host: a2ensite mysite.com.conf Site mysite.com enabled. To activate the new configuration, you need to run: systemctl reload apache2

Now, this is why you should not trust online sources. Learn to look in the man pages or the official sources: https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/apache2/a2ensite.8.en.html

NAME a2ensite, a2dissite - enable or disable an apache2 site / virtual host SYNOPSIS a2ensite [-q|--quiet] [-m|--maintmode] [ site ] a2dissite [-q|--quiet] [-m|--maintmode] [-p|--purge] [ site ] DESCRIPTION This manual page documents briefly the a2ensite and a2dissite commands. a2ensite is a script that enables the specified site (which contains a <VirtualHost> block) within the apache2 configuration. It does this by creating symlinks within /etc/apache2/sites-enabled. Likewise, a2dissite disables a site by removing those symlinks. It is not an error to enable a site which is already enabled, or to disable one which is already disabled. Apache treats the very first virtual host enabled specially as every request not matching any actual directive is being redirected there. Thus it should be called 000-default in order to sort before the remaining hosts to be loaded first. OPTIONS -q, --quiet Don't show informative messages. -m, --maintmode Enables the maintainer mode, that is the program invocation is effectuated automatically by a maintainer script. This switch should not be used by end users. -p, --purge When disabling a module, purge all traces of the module in the internal state data base. EXIT STATUS a2ensite and a2dissite exit with status 0 if all sites are processed successfully, 1 if errors occur, 2 if an invalid option was used. EXAMPLES a2dissite 000-default Disables the default site. FILES /etc/apache2/sites-available Directory with files giving information on available sites. /etc/apache2/sites-enabled Directory with links to the files in sites-available for enabled sites.

You live, you learn.

Cheers!

Dan D.

Problems Uninstalling Node.js? Do This!

Posted on January 16, 2023 - January 22, 2023 by Dan Duran

If you can’t uninstall Node.js, you may want to try this. This hack is based on nvm (Debian 10/11).

First, try uninstalling it the legit way:

sudo apt remove nodejs

If this doesn’t work, then try deactivating it:

sudo nvm deactivate

Now, get the version of Node:

node -v

Now you can uninstall it using nvm and the correct version of node. Example:

sudo nvm uninstall v16.19.0

There!

Short tutorial but works nicely. (Thanks, Wei) Cheers!

Dan D.