🖥️ Network Services

During a typical penetration test, we often encounter networked services designed to:

• Manage

• Edit

• Transfer

• Create content

These services are hosted with specific permissions and assigned to individual users.

---

🛠️ Common Network Services

Here are frequently encountered services during assessments:

Category	Services
📁 File Transfer	FTP, SMB, NFS
✉️ Email & Messaging	SMTP, IMAP/POP3
🧑‍💻 Remote Access	SSH, RDP, WinRM, VNC, Telnet
🗃️ Databases	MySQL, MSSQL
👥 Directory Services	LDAP

📚 For deeper understanding, explore the Footprinting module on HTB Academy.

---

🪟 Managing Windows Servers Remotely

When managing a Windows server over a network, we require services that allow:

• Executing commands

• Viewing or modifying files

• GUI-based or terminal-based control

✅ Commonly Used Services:

Service	Description
RDP	Remote Desktop Protocol – Full GUI access
WinRM	Windows Remote Management – CLI-based management over HTTP/S
SSH	Secure Shell – Rare on Windows, common on Linux

⚠️ While SSH is dominant on Linux, its usage on Windows is less frequent but growing.

---

🔐 Authentication Mechanisms

All these services rely on authentication:

• Typically: Username + Password

• Can be customized to use:

  • 🔑 SSH Keys

  • 🧾 Certificates

  • 🔐 Kerberos tokens

🔧 Many services run with default configurations, making them vulnerable to brute-force or credential stuffing attacks.