Gerard Johansen - Kali Linux 2 Assuring Security by Penetration Testing

Gerard Johansen is an information security professional with over a decade of experience in areas such as penetration testing, vulnerability management, threat assessment modeling, and incident response. Beginning his information security career as a cybercrime investigator, Gerard has built on that experience while working as a consultant and security analyst for clients and organizations ranging from healthcare to finance. Gerard is a graduate of Norwich University with a Masters of Science in Information Assurance, and he is a certified information systems security professional.

Gerard is currently employed with an information security consulting firm in the United States focusing on penetration testing and threat assessments. He has also contributed to several online publications focused on various aspects of penetration testing.

I would like to thank Lisa, Caleb, and Jenna for their support during this project. Their support was instrumental. I would also like to thank Dr. Marie Wright, who opened my eyes to the challenging and rewarding nature of information security. To the staff at Packt Publishing, especially Sanjeet, your patience and support made this possible. Finally, to all those in the past, present, and future who have shown me new and inventive ways to help keep the keys to the kingdom safe, thank you.

Lee Allen is currently working as a security architect at a prominent university. Throughout the years, he has continued his attempts to remain up to date with the latest and greatest developments in the security industry and the security community. He has several industry certifications including the OSWP and has been working in the IT industry for over 15 years.

Lee Allen is the author of Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments: The Ultimate Security Guide, Packt Publishing .

I would like to thank my wife, Kellie, and our children for allowing me to give the time I needed to work on this book. I would also like to thank my grandparents, Raymond and Ruth Johnson, and my wife's parents, George and Helen Slocum. I appreciate your encouragement and support throughout the years.

Tedi Heriyanto currently works as a principal consultant in an Indonesian information security company. In his current role, he has been engaged with various penetration testing assignments in Indonesia and other countries. In his previous role, he was engaged with several well-known business institutions across Indonesia and overseas. Tedi has an excellent track record in designing secure network architecture, deploying and managing enterprise-wide security systems, developing information security policies and procedures, performing information security audits and assessments, and providing information security awareness training. In his spare time, he manages to research, learn, and participate in the Indonesian Security Community activities and has a blog http://theriyanto.wordpress.com. He shares his knowledge in the security field by writing several information security books.

I would like to thank my family for supporting me during the whole book-writing process. I would also like to thank my boss for trusting, helping, and supporting me in my work. I would like to thank my colleagues and customers for the great learning environment. Thanks to the great people at Packt Publishing: Rubal Kaur, Sweny Sukumaran, Joel Goveya, Usha Iyer, and Abhijit Suvarna, whose comments, feedbacks, and support made this book development project successful. Thanks to the technical reviewers, Alex Gkiouros and Neil Jones, who have provided their expertise, time, efforts, and experiences in reviewing the book's content. Last but not least, I would like to give my biggest thanks to the co-authors, Lee Allen and Shakeel Ali, whose technical knowledge, motivation, ideas, challenges, questions, and suggestions made this book-writing process a wonderful journey.

Finally, I would like to thank you for buying this book. I hope you enjoy reading the book as I enjoyed writing it. I wish you good luck in your information security endeavor.

Shakeel Ali is a Security and Risk Management consultant at Fortune 500. Previously, he was the key founder of Cipher Storm Ltd., UK. His expertise in the security industry markedly exceeds the standard number of security assessments, audits, compliance, governance, and forensic projects that he carries out in day-to-day operations. He has also served as a Chief Security Officer at CSS Providers SAL. As a senior security evangelist and having spent endless nights without taking a nap, he provides constant security support to various businesses, educational organizations, and government institutions globally. He is an active, independent researcher who writes various articles and whitepapers and manages a blog at Ethical-Hacker.net. Also, he regularly participates in BugCon Security Conferences held in Mexico, to highlight the best-of-breed cyber security threats and their solutions from practically driven countermeasures.

I would like to thank all my friends, reviewers, and colleagues who were cordially involved in this book project. Special thanks to the entire Packt Publishing team and their technical editors and reviewers, who have given invaluable comments, suggestions, feedbacks, and support to make this project successful. I also want to thank my co-authors, Lee Allen and Tedi Heriyanto, whose continual dedication, contributions, ideas, and technical discussions led to the production of such a useful product you see today. Last but not least, thanks to my pals from past and present with whom the sudden discovery never ends and their vigilant eyes that turn the IT industry into a secure and stable environment.