1 1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:01,770 Scripting. 2 2 00:00:01,770 --> 00:00:04,200 In this lesson, we're going to talk about scripting 3 3 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:05,940 because it is so important 4 4 00:00:05,940 --> 00:00:07,740 to be able to automate things. 5 5 00:00:07,740 --> 00:00:09,090 Now, when it comes to automation, 6 6 00:00:09,090 --> 00:00:11,160 one of the best places to use automation 7 7 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:12,750 is within the cloud. 8 8 00:00:12,750 --> 00:00:14,310 Now, when you use cloud automation, 9 9 00:00:14,310 --> 00:00:17,250 this is the completion of cloud-related administrative tasks 10 10 00:00:17,250 --> 00:00:19,170 without human intervention. 11 11 00:00:19,170 --> 00:00:20,880 Now, essentially, this allows us 12 12 00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:22,860 to do lots and lots of things 13 13 00:00:22,860 --> 00:00:26,010 without even being awake or noticing that it's happening, 14 14 00:00:26,010 --> 00:00:27,960 we let the computers do it for us. 15 15 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:29,760 Now, when we deal with cloud automation, 16 16 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:32,280 this can occur through the graphical user interface, 17 17 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:33,300 through the command line, 18 18 00:00:33,300 --> 00:00:36,210 or through APIs like we just talked about. 19 19 00:00:36,210 --> 00:00:38,280 Now, let me give you a good example of this. 20 20 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:39,660 Here is a script. 21 21 00:00:39,660 --> 00:00:42,600 This simple script is less than 50 lines of code. 22 22 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:44,070 Now, you don't have to read the whole script, 23 23 00:00:44,070 --> 00:00:46,950 but if you want to pause the video and look at it, feel free. 24 24 00:00:46,950 --> 00:00:49,110 Now, this script, what is it doing? 25 25 00:00:49,110 --> 00:00:49,980 It's going to go through 26 26 00:00:49,980 --> 00:00:53,190 and find every cloud instance in your AWS region. 27 27 00:00:53,190 --> 00:00:56,520 In this case, it's set up for the US East 1 Region. 28 28 00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,130 Now, this is going to be any instance that's owned 29 29 00:00:59,130 --> 00:01:00,120 by your company, 30 30 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:02,760 and label this production within this environment. 31 31 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:04,860 Then, it's going to take a snapshot of them. 32 32 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:07,170 Now, that doesn't sound like a real big deal, right? 33 33 00:01:07,170 --> 00:01:09,060 If I only have one instance in the cloud, 34 34 00:01:09,060 --> 00:01:10,680 this isn't really helping me that much 35 35 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:11,700 because I could log in, 36 36 00:01:11,700 --> 00:01:13,920 I could take my own snapshot, and move on. 37 37 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:16,020 But let's think if you were a large company, 38 38 00:01:16,020 --> 00:01:18,390 let's say you worked for the US government, for instance, 39 39 00:01:18,390 --> 00:01:21,750 they have hundreds and thousands of cloud instances 40 40 00:01:21,750 --> 00:01:23,280 sitting in that region, 41 41 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:24,900 and so they can do this script 42 42 00:01:24,900 --> 00:01:26,310 and set up so that once a day 43 43 00:01:26,310 --> 00:01:28,680 it will go through and take snapshots for them. 44 44 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:31,200 Thousands of instances all at once. 45 45 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:32,940 This means no people have to think about it, 46 46 00:01:32,940 --> 00:01:33,990 there's no manual labor, 47 47 00:01:33,990 --> 00:01:36,300 and it's being done every single time 48 48 00:01:36,300 --> 00:01:37,410 because the code will run 49 49 00:01:37,410 --> 00:01:40,110 and do it seamlessly, every single time. 50 50 00:01:40,110 --> 00:01:42,270 That's the benefit of doing automation. 51 51 00:01:42,270 --> 00:01:43,830 Now, when it comes to cloud automation 52 52 00:01:43,830 --> 00:01:44,910 this is really important 53 53 00:01:44,910 --> 00:01:47,610 because if we don't have cloud automation and scripting, 54 54 00:01:47,610 --> 00:01:50,940 we can't actually do things like rapid elasticity 55 55 00:01:50,940 --> 00:01:53,820 because if I have to go and turn on a server myself 56 56 00:01:53,820 --> 00:01:56,640 and then install the software and then deploy it, 57 57 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:00,150 that takes away all the benefits of this cloud elasticity. 58 58 00:02:00,150 --> 00:02:02,790 And so scripting is inherently necessary 59 59 00:02:02,790 --> 00:02:04,530 anytime you want to do orchestration 60 60 00:02:04,530 --> 00:02:06,780 and be able to do cloud automation. 61 61 00:02:06,780 --> 00:02:08,580 Now, what can you do with scripting? 62 62 00:02:08,580 --> 00:02:10,350 I just showed you a very simple script 63 63 00:02:10,350 --> 00:02:11,340 to be able to take a snapshot, 64 64 00:02:11,340 --> 00:02:12,930 but you can do so much more. 65 65 00:02:12,930 --> 00:02:15,180 Scripting can be used to provision resources, 66 66 00:02:15,180 --> 00:02:17,250 add accounts, assign permissions, 67 67 00:02:17,250 --> 00:02:18,990 and perform many other tasks, 68 68 00:02:18,990 --> 00:02:21,810 including backup, recovery, and scaling. 69 69 00:02:21,810 --> 00:02:23,580 It can provision, it can deprovision, 70 70 00:02:23,580 --> 00:02:25,350 it can do all sorts of stuff. 71 71 00:02:25,350 --> 00:02:27,150 It all depends on how creative you want to be 72 72 00:02:27,150 --> 00:02:29,100 and how you want to create your scripts. 73 73 00:02:29,100 --> 00:02:30,540 Now, when you create your script, 74 74 00:02:30,540 --> 00:02:32,820 you have to include several different elements. 75 75 00:02:32,820 --> 00:02:34,770 For instance, you have to have the parameters. 76 76 00:02:34,770 --> 00:02:36,780 What will that script take as input? 77 77 00:02:36,780 --> 00:02:38,730 You have to have the logic statements, 78 78 00:02:38,730 --> 00:02:41,370 what things are going to alter the flow of the execution? 79 79 00:02:41,370 --> 00:02:44,880 These are the if, then, else, do, while, 80 80 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:47,310 all those things, all come down to logic. 81 81 00:02:47,310 --> 00:02:48,780 Then we have validation. 82 82 00:02:48,780 --> 00:02:50,970 We have to be able to validate input that's coming in 83 83 00:02:50,970 --> 00:02:52,530 that we're going to get through the script 84 84 00:02:52,530 --> 00:02:53,490 and make sure it's good, 85 85 00:02:53,490 --> 00:02:54,840 and then if we have something bad, 86 86 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:56,340 we need to handle those errors, 87 87 00:02:56,340 --> 00:02:58,110 doing proper error handling. 88 88 00:02:58,110 --> 00:02:59,010 And at the end of this, 89 89 00:02:59,010 --> 00:03:00,660 we also need to do unit testing 90 90 00:03:00,660 --> 00:03:01,950 because if I create a script, 91 91 00:03:01,950 --> 00:03:04,770 I need to make sure I test it and it works flawlessly 92 92 00:03:04,770 --> 00:03:06,540 because if I'm going to spin something up 93 93 00:03:06,540 --> 00:03:09,210 and tell it to do it against a thousand instances 94 94 00:03:09,210 --> 00:03:11,880 if I do it wrong on one, that's kind of bad. 95 95 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:13,560 But if I do it wrong on a thousand things, 96 96 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:14,670 that's really bad. 97 97 00:03:14,670 --> 00:03:16,830 And it takes me a long time to clean that up. 98 98 00:03:16,830 --> 00:03:18,120 Now, when you're creating scripting, 99 99 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:19,650 you have to do it in a language 100 100 00:03:19,650 --> 00:03:21,900 and there are lots of different languages you can use. 101 101 00:03:21,900 --> 00:03:24,270 For instance, you can write your scripts in JavaScript, 102 102 00:03:24,270 --> 00:03:26,430 Python, Ruby, Go, 103 103 00:03:26,430 --> 00:03:28,710 and there are numerous other ones out there. 104 104 00:03:28,710 --> 00:03:30,090 Now, which one should you use? 105 105 00:03:30,090 --> 00:03:32,250 Well, that depends on you and your use case. 106 106 00:03:32,250 --> 00:03:35,310 For me, Python is by far my favorite language. 107 107 00:03:35,310 --> 00:03:38,010 Most of the automation I do is written in Python. 108 108 00:03:38,010 --> 00:03:39,150 It's easy to learn. 109 109 00:03:39,150 --> 00:03:40,620 It's extremely useful for scripting 110 110 00:03:40,620 --> 00:03:41,970 as a system administrator, 111 111 00:03:41,970 --> 00:03:43,440 or as a cybersecurity analyst, 112 112 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:45,360 or as a penetration tester. 113 113 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:47,640 If you continue upward in the field of cybersecurity, 114 114 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:48,750 I would recommend that you take 115 115 00:03:48,750 --> 00:03:51,030 at least a basic Python course 116 116 00:03:51,030 --> 00:03:52,920 so you can learn how to use it in the real world 117 117 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:55,050 to make your job easier in the long run. 118 118 00:03:55,050 --> 00:03:57,930 Now, for the exam, one quick tip. 119 119 00:03:57,930 --> 00:04:00,270 You do not need to know how to create scripts, 120 120 00:04:00,270 --> 00:04:02,490 that is not within the objectives of this exam, 121 121 00:04:02,490 --> 00:04:05,520 but if you do decide to move on to the PenTest+ curriculum 122 122 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:07,740 and that certification after CISA, 123 123 00:04:07,740 --> 00:04:10,050 be prepared to learn some basic scripting. 124 124 00:04:10,050 --> 00:04:11,100 On that exam, 125 125 00:04:11,100 --> 00:04:15,030 you do need to know Python, Ruby, PowerShell, and Bash. 126 126 00:04:15,030 --> 00:04:16,110 You don't have to be an expert, 127 127 00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:17,790 but you do need to be able to read those scripts 128 128 00:04:17,790 --> 00:04:19,140 and understand what they're doing 129 129 00:04:19,140 --> 00:04:21,690 because as a pen tester or a cybersecurity analyst, 130 130 00:04:21,690 --> 00:04:23,490 you will be analyzing scripts often, 131 131 00:04:23,490 --> 00:04:25,290 and sometimes even writing your own.