CSS-Exchange VS Metasploit

The MaxServicePointIdleTime property I changed because of what I saw suggested here: https://github.com/microsoft/CSS-Exchange/issues/1581.

This is actively exploited, patch immediately. Microsoft also provided a script that checks Exchange items for malicious messaging items: https://github.com/microsoft/CSS-Exchange/blob/a4c096e8b6e6eddeba2f42910f165681ed64adf7/docs/Security/CVE-2023-23397.md

Microsoft has released a PowerShell script that can be run on Exchange infrastructure to scan email files for malicious UNC paths, however, patching is the preferred mitigation strategy.

I would expect that installing the URL Rewrite 2 module shouldn't cause any problems -- E2013 as such doesn't care about it. In fact, Microsoft's own EOMT script for the Hafnium mitigations suggests installing it. It'll likely require a reboot, though, or at the very least an IIS restart.

Yep, the August security update and OS updates were installed on all four nodes. But the order in which they were installed may have been different... I don't recall. Someone just posted above that this is a known problem with Windows 2012/R2: https://github.com/microsoft/CSS-Exchange/pull/1166

Which is the latest I can find on Github. This server is running Exchange 2019 CU 11. It has the March updates (KB5012698), but not the May one (KB5014261). You can also verify from the build number it's not up to date. There are no vulnerabilities reported and the only thing in "red" is that TCP keepalive warning.

https://github.com/microsoft/CSS-Exchange/issues/535 Even the maintainer David Paulson of the ExchangeHealtcheck script opened an issue on this matter, only waiting on feedback of the Exchange Team.

Metasploit

Metasploit: https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework

1-) Learn Hacking on a debian based distro like Kali Linux - I personally started with tools like nikto, camhacker... and then moved to more complex frameworks like metasploit.

I once had to give a presentation about Metasploit, and whether it was ethically correct for the creator to make it free and open-source, available to everyone. And in researching this I realized that there were a lot of parallels between the arguments for or against hacking tools being readily available and the arguments for or against gun control. I'll just list a few quickly:

Metasploit Framework (mentioned earlier)

This phase is where the pen testers practically prove that there exist potential vulnerabilities in the target system. The pen testers do the hacking using an array of technical approaches and social engineering methods to exploit the vulnerabilities. The ethical hackers commonly use Metasploit framework to automatically execute exploitation against the target systems. Moreover, they may install malwares such as rootkit to persistently maintain their foothold and further compromise the target system.