PentestGPT

We're testing PentestGPT on HackTheBox. Follow

Introduction

PentestGPT is a penetration testing tool empowered by ChatGPT. It is designed to automate the penetration testing process. It is built on top of ChatGPT and operate in an interactive mode to guide penetration testers in both overall progress and specific operations. A sample testing process of PentestGPT on a target VulnHub machine (Hackable II) is available at here. A sample usage video is below: (or available here: Demo)

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/78410652/232327920-7318a0c4-bee0-4cb4-becb-6658b80180ff.mov

• Comparison to Auto-GPT.
  • Using Auto-GPT in security testing is good, but it is not optimized for security-related tasks.
  • PentestGPT is designed for penetration testing with a customized session interaction (see here for the detailed design).
  • Currently, PentestGPT does not rely on search engine. The "Google-enhanced" version of PentestGPT is under development.

Contribute

• The project is still in its early stage. Feel free to raise any issues when using the tool.
• Please help to contribute by submitting the vulnerabilities you identified or challenges you solved with PentestGPT.
• This project is for research purpose. Please contact me if you're interested in collaboration.

Installation

1. Install requirements.txt with pip install -r requirements.txt
2. (Deprecated: Will update support for non-plus member later.) Install chatgpt-wrapper if you're non-plus members: pip install git+https://github.com/mmabrouk/chatgpt-wrapper. More details at: https://github.com/mmabrouk/chatgpt-wrapper. Note that the support for non-plus members are not optimized.
3. Configure the keys in config. You may follow a sample by cp config/chatgpt_config_sample.py. config/chatgpt_config.py.

Usage

1. To start, run python3 main.py.
2. The tool works similar to msfconsole. Follow the guidance to perform penetration testing.
3. In general, PentestGPT intakes commands similar to chatGPT. There are several basic commands.
   1. The commands are:
      • help: show the help message.
      • next: key in the test execution result and get the next step.
      • more: let PentestGPT to explain more details of the current step.
      • todo: show the todo list.
      • discuss: discuss with the PentestGPT.
      • exit: exit the tool.
   2. You can use <SHIFT + right arrow> to end your input (and is for next line).
   3. You may always use TAB to autocomplete the commands.
   4. When you're given a drop-down selection list, you can use cursor or arrow key to navigate the list. Press ENTER to select the item. Similarly, use <SHIFT + right arrow> to confirm selection.

Design Documentation

The current design is mainly for web penetration testing

General Design

PentestGPT provides a unified terminal input handler, and backed by three main components:

• A test generation module which generates the exact penetration testing commands or operations for the users to execute.
• A test reasoning module which conducts the reasoning of the test, guiding the penetration testers on what to do next.
• A parsing module which parses the output of the penetration tools and the contents on the webUI.

Function Design

The handler is the main entry point of the penetration testing tool. It allows pentesters to perform the following operations:

1. (initialize itself with some pre-designed prompts.)
2. Start a new penetration testing session by providing the target information.
3. Ask for todo-list, and acquire the next step to perform.
4. After completing the operation, pass the information to PentestGPT.
   1. Pass a tool output.
   2. Pass a webpage content.
   3. Pass a human description.

Update history

v0.3

• Prompt usage optimization.
• Documentation improvements.

v0.2

• A major update to improve the terminal usage
• Prompt optimization.