Penetration Testing with Kali Linux OffSec

Cross-Site Scripting
(XSS) 
vulnerability. The target we tested has a web page aptly named XSSBlog.html. When we navigate 
to it, we can enter a blog entry. 

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Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
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93 
Figure 5: XSS Testing 
When we read back the blog entry, we get the following alert: 
Figure 6: XSS Testing Issue 
In the course of making these requests, we keep a record of our actions, as shown below. 
Testing for Cross-Site Scripting
Testing Target: 192.168.1.52
Application: XSSBlog 
Date Started: 31 March 2022 
1. Navigated to the application 
http://192.168.1.52/XSSBlog.html 
Result: Blog page displayed as expected 
2. Entered our standard XSS test data:
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the 
commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such 
evil forebodings.
I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear 
sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of 
my undertaking.
3. Clicked Submit to post the blog entry. 
Result: Blog entry appeared to save correctly. 
4. Navigated to read the blog post 

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Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
PWK - Copyright © 2023 OffSec Services Limited. All rights reserved. 
94 
http://192.168.1.52/XSSRead.php 
Result: The blog started to display and then the expected alert popped up. 
5. Test indicated the site is vulnerable to XSS. 
PoC payload:  
Listing 26 - Example of a Testing Note. 
We now have a simple, fast, and expandable way to take coherent and comprehensive notes that 
another tester can follow. It’s worth repeating that the notes are not themselves the report we will 
deliver to the client, but they will be invaluable when we attempt to put our report together later. 
5.1.4
Choosing the Right Note-Taking Tool 
There are an enormous number of both free and paid note-taking tools available today. To decide 
on the right tool for a particular engagement, it is important to understand some requirements. In 
many cases we want to keep all information local to the computer rather than uploading it 
anywhere else, so certain tools are precluded from being used. By the same token, if an 
engagement is source-code heavy then a tool that does not allow for code blocks to be inserted is 
not going to be appropriate. 
While a comprehensive list of desirable properties to keep in mind is nearly impossible to 
enumerate, some of the more important items to remember are: 
•
Screenshots
: If a lot of screenshots are necessary, consider a tool that allows for inline 
screenshot insertion. 
•
Code blocks
: Code blocks need formatting to be properly and quickly understood. 
•
Portability
: Something that can be used cross-OS, or easily transferred to another place 
should be high on the list of priorities. 
•
Directory Structure
: In an engagement with multiple domains or applications, keeping a 
coherent structure is necessary. While manually setting up a structure is allowed, a tool that 
can do this automatically makes things easier. 
Now that we have a good baseline of our requirements, let’s consider the use of some particular 
note-taking tools. 
Sublime
198
is a pretty standard text editor that adds lots of useful features and functionality. One 
of the most important features it provides is flexible syntax highlighting. Syntax highlighting 
allows us to place code blocks into a file, and those code blocks will be highlighted according to 
the programming language’s specific syntax rules. However, this often comes with limitations. 
Highlighting two languages is not possible with one file. In an engagement with a single code 
type, this is not a problem, but for others, we may prefer to use different options. Additionally, it’s 
not currently possible to inline screenshots at the time of writing. 
Another tool we can consider is 
CherryTree
.
199
This tool comes as standard in Kali. It contains 
many of the features that are necessary for note-taking. It uses an SQLite database to store the 
198
(Sublime, 2022), https://www.sublimetext.com/download 
199
(Cherry Tree, 2022), https://github.com/giuspen/cherrytree 

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Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
PWK - Copyright © 2023 OffSec Services Limited. All rights reserved. 
95 
notes we take, and these can be exported as HTML, PDF, plain text, or as a CherryTree document. 
CherryTree comes with a lot of built-in formatting, and provides a tree structure to store 
documents, which it calls “nodes” and “subnodes”. 
Below is an example of CherryTree being used to store penetration testing notes using a fairly 
simple tree structure. 
Figure 7: CherryTree 
The final tool we’ll consider is the 
Obsidian
200
markdown editor, which contains all the features 
that we need for note-taking. We can install Obsidian as a snap
201
application or in its Flatpak
202
application form. It also comes as an AppImage,
203
meaning that all we need to do is copy it into 
our system, mark it as executable, and run it. 
kali@kali:~$