Useful Firefox Plugins

Sharing my list of favourite Firefox plugins.  Some are used more for only when doing web application penetration testing, whereas some are useful for everyday awareness/protection when surfing around the interwebs.  Do leave comments if this helps, or you have any complaints/suggestions to help improve the list 😛

• Adblock Plus: you know what this is for…  Remember to disable when performing penetration testing.
• CacheViewer: Allows for viewing and sorting of cache files.  Seldom used, but a great tool nonetheless when the need comes for it.
• Domain Details: Displays plenty of information about the server (type, headers, IP, location) that you’re accessing.  Good for basic information awareness during normal surfing.
• Download Statusbar: View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar.
• DownThemAll: For fast grabbing of files from a directory.
• Firebug: Powerful tool for web developers that allows you to freely manipulate/view the loaded objects for a page.  I haven’t really figured out how to use this for penetration testing yet though.
• Greasemonkey: Could come in very handy if you want to do some mods to a site’s page automatically, remember to enable/disable the scripts that aren’t needed when on a penetration testing job.
• IE Tab: Don’t really use this, unless I get a site that’s coded to work only with “browsers like IE”.
• iMacros for Firefox: Another powerful macro editing/playback tool, I don’t use this though 😛
• JavaScript Debugger: JS debugger and profiler, more useful for web developers I think.
• Live HTTP headers: Great for showing basic information about the HTTP headers being exchanged.
• NoScript: A MUST-HAVE for Forefox.  Whitelists the scripts and objects that are allowed to load for a domain, amongst other protection features against other nasties out there.  Remember to disable for penetration testing engagements.
• People Search and Public Record Toolbar: Great tool for information gathering, pity I never had the chance to really use it 😦
• ScrapBook: Aids in archiving and organizing pages.  I use it to profile a site’s workflow.
• SwitchProxy / FoxyProxy: A must-have for changing between the many proxy tools that I use.
• Tamper Data: I use this to grab extra timeline information about the loading of pages.  Also allows you to do request/response editing.
• User Agent Switcher: Self explanatory.  Useful for certain situations only.
• View Dependencies: A must-have for organizing image/JavaScript/CSS resources for a page in a tidy manner.
• View formatted source: Formats HTML source neatly for viewing.
• View Source Chart: Formats final document DOM (after all the loading/JavaScript events have finished firing) for easy viewing.  Also for when View formatted source isn’t available for the version of Firefox that you’re using.
• Web Developer: Great for manipulating the forms/cookies/JavaScript/whatnot on a page.  A definite must-have for penetration testing.

Monitoring WordPress using syslog and OSSEC

This has got to be one of the unconventional (yet interesting) ideas I’ve come across.

It involves the use of a plugin (currently maintained at OSSEC) to get WordPress to send syslog events for OSSEC to parse.  It is a good idea since it is good to monitor any web applications running for anomalies, but WordPress doesn’t seem to provide any kind of audit logging.

Looking at its capabilities, the first use for this that comes to mind is to monitor sites that run WordPress with multiple user logons.  As for those with insufficient access to your web server (you’re on a shared webhost), you’re probably better off using the tips given at wpbeginner.

I won’t know yet, but perhaps I’ll have a better idea on what it is good for after I try it out.

Do YOU use OSSEC to monitor your WordPress installations?  Any comments on it?