Web Application Hacking and Security (WAHS) — Lesson 2: Discovery, Enumeration, Vulnerability Analysis, and Attack-Path Modeling

Learning Objectives

• Explain the structures, services, data, settings, roles, and dependencies governing Asset Discovery and Service Enumeration.
• Implement and validate Vulnerability Analysis, Attack-Path Mapping, and Risk Hypotheses and Evidence Capture using reviewable evidence.
• Evaluate the condition where a control passes a basic check but fails during Attack-Path Mapping because Vulnerability Analysis data, version, or dependency assumptions differ and select a proportionate corrective response.

Detailed Topics

• Asset Discovery applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, dependencies, controls, and evidence.
• Service Enumeration applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, dependencies, controls, and evidence.
• Vulnerability Analysis applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, dependencies, controls, and evidence.
• Attack-Path Mapping applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, dependencies, controls, and evidence.
• Risk Hypotheses and Evidence Capture applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, dependencies, controls, and evidence.

Instructor Demonstration

The instructor traces an authorized assessment team must evaluate a scoped environment without disrupting services and provide reproducible, risk-ranked findings. The walkthrough connects tools, configuration or analysis logic, system messages, decisions, and evidence captured in the authorized web assessment plan, findings evidence, exploit-validation notes, and remediation retest report. It also tests the exception where a control passes a basic check but fails during Attack-Path Mapping because Vulnerability Analysis data, version, or dependency assumptions differ.

Hands-On Exercise

Complete a controlled, authorized EC-Council exercise covering Discovery, Enumeration, Vulnerability Analysis, and Attack-Path Modeling and preserve the verified result in the authorized web assessment plan, findings evidence, exploit-validation notes, and remediation retest report.

1. Confirm scope, authorization, prerequisites, versions, identities, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
2. Execute the workflow while recording settings, outputs, events, decisions, and system messages.
3. Test normal behavior, one boundary condition, and the stated exception without targeting real third-party systems.
4. Document corrections, evidence, ownership, retest criteria, rollback or recovery, and handover actions.

Scenario Analysis

• Identify which object, service, policy, setting, or sequence most strongly influences Asset Discovery.
• Compare two defensible responses and explain technical, security, operational, legal, and support trade-offs.
• Determine how the authorized web assessment plan, findings evidence, exploit-validation notes, and remediation retest report should be approved, retained, retested, and updated.

Troubleshooting Guidance

Start where expected behavior first differs from the observed result. Check authorization, prerequisites, identity, configuration order, data quality, version compatibility, connectivity, status, resource limits, and evidence separately. Treat “a control passes a basic check but fails during Attack-Path Mapping because Vulnerability Analysis data, version, or dependency assumptions differ” as a hypothesis until logs, settings, captured outputs, and retest outcomes confirm the cause.

Validation Checklist

• Required components, identities, permissions, settings, safety controls, and dependencies are present.
• The authorized web assessment plan, findings evidence, exploit-validation notes, and remediation retest report connects each conclusion to objective, reviewable evidence.
• Normal processing, a boundary condition, dependency behavior, and the stated exception were tested.
• Corrections, ownership, retest criteria, rollback or recovery, documentation, and operational handover are complete.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can apply Discovery, Enumeration, Vulnerability Analysis, and Attack-Path Modeling, explain the resulting security or operational behavior, and defend the outcome through the authorized web assessment plan, findings evidence, exploit-validation notes, and remediation retest report.