Python for Penetration Testers - course

I recently failed my OSCP exam, so I decided I needed a quick change of activity and decided to try and improve my Python hacking skills.

Python for Penetration Testers (https://www.udemy.com/share/102EOcAEMSdl5TRXwJ/)

This is the first course I've taken on Udemy, and I found the format worked well. Each activity had an accompanying video that walked through the different steps, and additional notes/code examples that were available to download.

The course instructor was Cristi Zot, whose passion for all things Python shined through in each activity. I've definitely come away with a new appreciation of what can be done with Python in terms of hacking and now have a growing Github repo of tools that I will continue to work on and improve. My only gripe with the course is that one of the activities required a subscription to AttackDefense labs, which I don't have. In some reviews, students have complained that certain tools do not work on their current OS/Distro - I enjoyed the challenge of researching and adapting the code to make it work on my machine and believe this to be an essential skill for any IT professional, let alone someone wishing to pursue offensive security.

Some examples

Here are a couple of examples of the tools that I made whilst completing the course:

MAC address spoofer - this needed some tweaking to get it to work well on Kali 2020, but I learnt more about the subprocess library as a consequence.

An MD5 Hash Cracker

Whilst there are other (much better) tools written by actually incredible infosec people, by making these I feel like I have gained some insight into Python exploits and, in particular, how to modify them to fit my needs. Hopefully this will increase my chances of success in my next OSCP exam.

Certificate

Thanks to Cristi for making this course free during the COVID-19 crisis. It was certainly a nice distraction from the world outside.