Lion Cipher Lab

Exploit and then patch a known CVE in your own lab

• Penetration Testing / Red Team
• Intermediate
• ~90 min
• Free · no account required

Why it matters

Almost every serious breach in the news comes down to the same two-line story: some software had a known flaw, and someone ran an exploit for it before the owner installed the patch. To really understand security you have to see both halves of that story with your own hands — not just read that 'attackers exploit vulnerabilities and defenders patch them', but actually run a real exploit, watch it succeed, then apply the fix and watch the exact same exploit fail. That single before-and-after is the most convincing lesson in all of cyber, because it turns 'patch your systems' from a nag into…

What you'll learn

• understanding what a virtual machine (VM) and a hypervisor are, and running two VMs at once
• understanding what a CVE, an exploit, a payload, and a Metasploit module actually are, in plain words
• installing VirtualBox, the free hypervisor, from the official site
• downloading and importing Metasploitable 2, a deliberately vulnerable target VM built for exactly this practice
• getting an attacker machine with Metasploit (Kali Linux, or Metasploit on its own)
• building a host-only network so your two VMs can talk to each other but NEITHER can reach the internet
• proving the isolation is real: confirming the vulnerable target cannot get online
• finding your target's IP address on the isolated network and confirming the vulnerable service is listening
• running one well-known exploit (the vsftpd 2.3.4 backdoor, CVE-2011-2523) with Metasploit and landing a shell
• understanding how that maps to a real attacker technique (MITRE ATT&CK Exploit Public-Facing Application, T1190)

Steps in this lab

1. First, the one rule that makes this legal: your VMs, your isolated network, nobody else
2. The words you need first: VM, hypervisor, CVE, exploit, payload, module, patch (from zero)
3. Install VirtualBox (the free hypervisor) on your own machine
4. Download and import your deliberately vulnerable target (Metasploitable 2)
5. Get your attacker machine: Kali Linux with Metasploit built in
6. Build the isolated host-only network and put BOTH VMs on it
7. Boot both VMs and PROVE the isolation is real before you touch an exploit
8. Confirm the vulnerable service is listening on the target
9. Run the exploit: land a shell with Metasploit (CVE-2011-2523)
10. See the attacker's move for what it is (MITRE ATT&CK T1190)
11. Patch it: remediate the vulnerability on your own target
12. Prove the patch defeats the exploit: run it again and watch it fail
13. What you proved, how to clean up, and where it takes you

Open the full interactive lab →