This intermediate, challenge-only project tests whether you can connect web reconnaissance and exploitation into coherent breach paths. Across three local applications, you will discover a hidden administrative surface, extract data through SQL injection, and chain authorization and template flaws into a simulated account takeover.
The course focuses on evidence-driven execution: each stage leaves behind a precise clue, cookie, record, or summary for the next stage or analyst. All hosts, accounts, customer records, and secrets are fictional and confined to the training VM.
What You Will Learn
- Fuzz a
Hostheader with ffuf to discover a hidden administrative virtual host - Enumerate sensitive application paths with Gobuster and isolate a debug parameter
- Assemble host, path, and parameter findings into a reusable entry-point URL
- Confirm SQL injection from an error response and bypass a vulnerable login with
curl - Enumerate and dump a targeted SQLite table with sqlmap
- Establish and preserve a low-privilege authenticated session with a cookie jar
- Exploit an IDOR flaw to recover a privilege-promotion token
- Chain role promotion and server-side template injection to recover a simulated admin secret
Who This Course Is For
This course is for learners who have already practiced basic web reconnaissance, HTTP requests, SQL injection, and access-control testing and want an independent breach-simulation project. It suits aspiring penetration testers, application security analysts, and defenders who want to understand how separate web weaknesses combine.
Prerequisites: Comfortable with a Linux shell, HTTP requests and headers, cookies and sessions, directory and virtual-host enumeration, SQL injection concepts, and basic authorization testing.
Learning environment: An Ubuntu 22.04 LabEx VM with three local simulated Flask/Python web applications and tools including ffuf, Gobuster, curl, sqlmap, and SQLite.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a guided beginner course?
No. It contains three challenge-based assessments. Requirements and expected artifacts are provided, but you are expected to construct and troubleshoot the commands and attack chains yourself.
Will I attack real websites or accounts?
No. Every web target runs locally on 127.0.0.1, and all domains, credentials, customer records, tokens, and secrets are fictional training data.
Which vulnerabilities do I actually practice?
You practice hidden virtual-host and path discovery, SQL injection for error confirmation, authentication bypass and controlled data extraction, IDOR-based token disclosure, and server-side template injection. The labs do not include an XSS exercise.
What evidence will I produce?
You will save a reusable hidden entry point, an authenticated cookie and selected database record, and a takeover summary documenting the low-privilege session, promotion token, and recovered administrative secret.
