How to pentest properly

[JungleJam]

I'm not teaching how to pentest,I'm asking.
I've been doing some basic hacking on systems and websites but have never done a pentest on a system or a website like a normal security guy(I'm not saying prof. simply becouse I don't want to have this as a profession but I need it as a skill.) and have been wanting to ask the questions below for a long long time.

1.How do you prepare?
So simply,how do you prepare for such an attack?Let's say you have a website like ebay.com and you want to take full control over it.How do you prepare for such an attack,do you use a vulnerability scanner or do you find the vulnerabilities yourself and exploit them yourself without any software?

2.How do you find the vulnerabilities and the ways to exploit them yourself?
If you're finding the vulnerabilities and the exploits for them yourself,from where do you learn all of them,becouse there are a lot of them?

3.What time did it took you to become a good pentester?
So what time did it took you for all of this work?I know that this cannot be done for 1-2 days and by my opinion it can take an year or two(even more).

4.How long a normal pentest on a system/website lasts?
How long can an ordinary pentest take?My guess is 2-3 hours depending on the website/system but I need to ask YOU before I make such conclusions?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you understand my need on this and I will be glad to get an answer on these questions.

[hellow533]

Number one, throw ebay out the window. You'd be lucky to find easy apache servers, brand spanking new, that are able to be penetrated. I would suggest looking in to the realistic missions on this site, and maybe the pen testing missions on Hellboundhackers.

I don't understand what you mean by full control, do you mean administrative powers? If so, there are thousands of possibilities.

When getting ready for an attack, you want to proxy chain yourself and all used applications. This will ensure it is harder to track. Most people who get caught may use a proxy to check out the site, but when doing a DOS or using nmap, they aren't hidden at all. Make sure things like nmap are going through a proxy as well.

The fun in penetration testing is definitely finding vulnerabilities yourself.

Like everybody I make suggestions to, I suggest you buy and read Hacking Exposed 6, and maybe 7. You don't have to read the full book, there are different sections that teach about applications, web hacking, network hacking, system hacking, etc.

Hop on Google and search around, web hacking is a story of its own. It'll take at least 3-6 months, if you really get in to it, to find out everything you want to know.

[JungleJam]

This is some good information.I have done some missions on the Realistic on HTS and pentest challange ot HBH but I have done just a few of them.I wanted to ask can I get a list of vulnerabilities from somewhere and the exploits for them.I know that I am writing like a Script Kiddie but I need to be sure.

[hellow533]

You can probably do an extensive search on Google to find different vulnerabilities. Don't know how many are built directly to HTS, but I mean, you can find ways to do it.

[JungleJam]

I will buy some books and do some googling on vulnerabilities and exploits and I hope that I can learn it for less than an year.

So,thank you very much for this information!

This topic is for closing.

Thankfully everything ended with no spam.