Common Terms

Shell: a program that takes input from the user via the keyboard and passes these commands to the operating system to perform a specific function. Typically called a command line interface (CLI). This includes Terminal, Command-Line, and PowerShell.

Reverse Shell: Initiates a connection back to a "listener" on our attack box.

Bind Shell: "Binds" to a specific port on the target host and waits for a connection from our attack box.

Web Shell: Runs operating system commands via the web browser, typically not interactive or semi-interactive. It can also be used to run single commands (i.e., leveraging a file upload vulnerability and uploading a PHP script to run a single command.

OWASP: Open Web Application Security Project