Linkedin Ethical Hacking: Evading Ids%2c Firewalls%2c And Honeypots

Traditional ethical hacking focuses on packets: SYN scans, ICMP echo requests, and HTTP payloads. Firewalls and IDS are adept at catching these. However, LinkedIn traffic rides on TLS 1.3 over port 443. To a firewall, a connection to linkedin.com looks identical to a connection to evil-c2[.]com—provided you use HTTPS.

The Blind Spot: Most EDRs (Endpoint Detection and Response) and NGFWs perform SSL inspection, but they decrypted traffic. However, if an ethical hacker uses LinkedIn as their C2 (Command & Control) channel or OSINT source, they blend into the 90% of corporate traffic that is "professional social networking."

Evasion isn't about being invisible. It is about looking boring. A mature SOC team ignores 99% of traffic because it looks like normal business. Your job as a security professional (on either side of the fence) is to make the abnormal look normal.

Question for the comment section: Have you ever set a honeypot trap and caught an internal threat actor? What was the signal that tripped them up? Let’s discuss below.

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and authorized security testing only. Unauthorized network scanning is a crime.

The LinkedIn Learning course Ethical Hacking: Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots , led by cybersecurity expert Malcolm Shore

, provides intermediate-level training on testing organizational network perimeters against outside attacks. Course Overview Instructor:

Malcolm Shore, a specialist in cybersecurity and security testing. Approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes. Skill Level: Intermediate. Core Objective:

Prepares professionals to test client defenses by understanding and bypassing common security measures like Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) Key Topics Covered

The course curriculum breaks down into several technical domains: Firewall Technology:

Detailed mechanics of how firewalls operate in both Windows and Linux environments, including hands-on firewall simulations using GNS3 networks. Advanced Defense Mechanisms: Strategies for managing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), API gateway threat mitigation , and utilizing to trap and detect intruders. Evasion Techniques: Advanced methods to bypass detection, such as: Exotic Scanning:

Non-standard techniques to map networks without alerting defenses. Tunneling: Moving traffic through unconventional protocols like DNS tunneling to bypass security filters. IDS Specific Evasion:

Exploiting discrepancies between how an IDS and a target host process packets (e.g., insertion and evasion attacks). Intrusion Management: Practical use of the Security Onion suite for monitoring and responding to detected threats. Why These Skills Matter

Ethical hackers (often called "white-hat hackers") use these skills with permission to find and secure vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them. Organizations use firewalls as a first line of defense to control traffic, while IDS and honeypots provide deeper pattern recognition and threat analysis to catch sophisticated attacks that might otherwise slip through. specific evasion technique

mentioned in the course, such as DNS tunneling or exotic scanning?

I can’t help with content that explains or facilitates evading IDS, firewalls, honeypots, or other security controls. That includes step-by-step techniques, tools, or advice intended to bypass or defeat defensive systems. Traditional ethical hacking focuses on packets: SYN scans,

If you want, I can instead help with any of the following legitimate, ethical alternatives:

Pick one and I’ll produce a concise, well-structured piece.

Led by Malcolm Shore, the LinkedIn Learning course "Ethical Hacking: Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots" aligns with the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) curriculum to focus on perimeter defense testing. It covers practical techniques for bypassing security systems, including DNS tunneling, exotic scanning, packet manipulation, and the use of tools like GNS3 and Security Onion. For more details, visit LinkedIn Learning.

Headline: How I walked past a $2M firewall to steal the CEO’s credentials (Legally).

Post Body:

Three weeks ago, a fintech startup asked me to test their crown jewels: the internal network segment holding their customer transaction database.

Their CISO was confident. "We have next-gen firewalls, an EDR, and three honeypots you'll never find," he said.

Challenge accepted.

Phase 1: The Firewall – "The Polite Intruder"

Nmap showed port 443 open to their VPN portal. A standard SYN scan would trigger their IDS immediately. So I didn't scan.

Instead, I used nmap -sA (ACK scan) to map firewall rules without creating a full handshake. The firewall replied to ACK packets on port 443 but not 22. Bingo. Stateful filtering confirmed.

To evade the deep packet inspection (DPI), I wrapped my initial payload in DNS over HTTPS (DoH). Firewalls rarely block DoH to 1.1.1.1. I injected my reverse shell inside a benign-looking TLS SNI field: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; ...)

The firewall saw encrypted web traffic. It smiled and let me in.

Phase 2: The IDS – "Low and Slow"

Inside the DMZ, the IDS was signature-hungry. Any aggressive dirb or sqlmap would trigger a high-severity alert. Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and

So I went manual.

I wrote a Python script that sent one HTTP request every 90 seconds—randomized jitter. Each request had a unique User-Agent pulled from real browser data. I fragmented my payload across 10 packets ( ipfrag ) so the IDS couldn't reassemble the malicious intent.

The SIEM logs looked like background noise. No alert.

Phase 3: The Honeypot – "Don't Touch the Candy"

I found an SMB share named "HR_Confidential_Payroll." Too juicy. Red flag.

I checked the metadata: creation timestamp was a Sunday at 3 AM (no HR works then). File size was exactly 4.2KB—too small for a real spreadsheet.

Classic honeypot.

Instead of opening it, I used a decoy technique: I bounced a single SMB packet off a compromised IoT printer in the break room, making the printer appear to touch the honeypot. The security team's alert fired on the printer's IP. They spent two hours "containing" a Canon copier while I pivoted to the backup domain controller.

The Payoff:

45 minutes later, I was dumping ntds.dit from the real DC. The CISO got my report at 8 AM with a screenshot of his own password hash.

Lesson for defenders:

Ethical hacking isn't about power. It's about patience, protocol minutiae, and knowing that every defense can be sidestepped—if you think like the water, not the rock.

Agree? Disagree? What’s your favorite IDS evasion trick? 👇

#EthicalHacking #RedTeam #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #InfoSec

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) love predictability. They love default user agents, default Nmap timing templates (-T4), and common exploit patterns. Pick one and I’ll produce a concise, well-structured piece

The Fix: Fragmentation & Obfuscation A modern WAF or IDS will reassemble packets. But can it reassemble chaos?

Pro Tip for your next assessment: If you see an IDS block your first scan, switch to nmap --scan-delay 5s or use nmap --data-length 200 (adds random bytes). You won't look like a script, you'll look like legitimate bloatware.

The era of the noisy port scanner is over. The modern ethical hacker must be a ghost in the machine—using the victim’s own trusted applications (LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft 365) as the highway for attack.

By mimicking human behavior on LinkedIn, routing C2 traffic through legitimate APIs, and identifying honeypots through metadata analysis, you render firewalls and IDS useless. The firewall is not the target; the human behind the firewall is.

Final Rule: Just because you can evade LinkedIn’s defenses doesn’t mean you should without authorization. Use these techniques only in purple team exercises or authorized red team engagements. The goal is to illuminate the blind spots, not to exploit them for malice.

Author’s Note: This article is for educational purposes and authorized security testing only. Unauthorized scanning or social engineering is illegal under the CFAA (USA) and similar laws globally.

Headline: Beyond the Perimeter: Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots in Modern Red Teaming

Subtitle: Ethical hacking isn't just about finding vulnerabilities; it’s about understanding how defenses think—and how to move when they aren't looking.

As ethical hackers and red teamers, we often joke that the firewall is just a "suggestion." But in today's Zero Trust world, that joke is dangerously outdated.

Modern defenses (Next-Gen Firewalls [NGFW], IPS/IDS, and Deception Networks [Honeypots]) have evolved from simple packet filters into behavioral analysis engines. If you are still running nmap -sS -p- 10.0.0.1 and expecting silence, you are going to set off every alarm in the SOC.

Here is how we, as authorized penetration testers, legally and ethically evade these three pillars of defense.

An IDS looks for anomalies. To evade:

Most firewalls allow outbound ICMP for ping monitoring, and outbound DNS. Combine this with LinkedIn’s URL shortener (lnkd.in).

Firewalls struggle to block DoH (port 443). A sophisticated evasion tactic: