Using IP Ping Test For Successful Pentesting

                 Using IP Ping Test Effectively | IP Ping

 

 

Ip Ping is a computer network administrator utility used to test the reliability of a host on an Internet protocol (IP) network and to measure the round-trip time for the messages sent from originating host to destination computer or server.

As a professional Pentester we need to check the reachibility of a computer in the network. Ping is one of the utility that will allow you to test and collect important information like IP Address, maximum packet frame size about the victim computer to help in successful Penetration testing. 

This post will provide insight into the ping command and show how to collect useful information using ping command. In this tutorial we are going to use a windows based operating system like windows 7, windows 8 or windows server 2012.

The ping command sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request packets to the target host and waits tor an ICMP response. During tins request response process, ping measures the time from transmission to reception, known as die round-trip time, and records any loss of packets.

On your windows system start the command prompt as administrator. In windows 8,  press the windows key on you keyboard and go to apps. There find the command prompt icon and right click on it and run as administrator.

In the command prompt type : ping www.site.com and press enter to find the ip address of the site. The result will look something like this.

You also get information on Ping Statistics, such as packets sent,packets received, packets lost, and Approximate round-trip time.

Now, find out the maximum frame size on the network. In the command prompt type

 

ping www.certifiedhacker.com - f - l 1500 

 

 

The display Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set means that the frame is too large to be on the network and needs to be fragmented.

Since we used -f switch with the ping command, the packet was not sent, and the ping command returned this error. Type

  

ping www.certifiedhacker.com  -f  -l  1400

 

 

You can see that the maximum packet size is less than 1500 bytes and more than 1400 bytes.

So by changing the values in this command and observing the response we can find out the maximum packet size allowed.

Now, find out what happens when TTL (Time to Live) expires. Every frame on the network has TTL defined. If TTL reaches 0, the router discards the packet. This mechanism prevents the loss of packets.

In the command prompt, type 

ping www.certifiedhacker.com -i 1 -n 1

(Use -n 1 in order to produce only one answer, instead of receiving four answers on Windows or pinging forever on Linux.)

We have received the answer from the same IP address in two different steps. This one identifies the packet filter. Some packet filters do not decrement TTL and are therefore invisible.

Repeat the above step until you reach the IP address for your site i.e increase the value after -i by 1 and observe the response. 

The ip address of the site will be when you get answer from same ip address in one step.