You should have a basic knowledge of operating systems, including Windows and Linux. We will be using Linux tools and the shell heavily throughout this book, and familiarity with the environment is ideal.
Some scripting knowledge will definitely help but it is not required. Python, JavaScript, and some PHP code will appear throughout this book.
We will explore command and control servers in the cloud and it is highly recommended that a free account on one of the major providers be set up in preparation of following along with the examples in the book.
A virtual machine or host running either Kali or your penetration testing distribution of choice will help you hit the ground running when trying some of the scenarios in the book.
We routinely download code from open-source projects on GitHub, and while in-depth knowledge of Git will certainly help in this regard, it is not required.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example; "Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system."
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appear in the text like this. For example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."