There are three main types of payload modules in Metasploit: Singles, Stagers, and Stages.
Whether or not a payload is staged, is represented by ‘/’ in the payload name.
windows/shell_bind_tcp is a single payload with no stage.
windows/shell/bind_tcp consists of a stager (bind_tcp) and a stage (shell).
Singles
Singles are payloads that are self-contained and completely standalone.
Inline, Non Staged, and more Stable.
Stagers
Stagers setup a network connection between the attacker and victim and are designed to be small and reliable.
It is difficult to always do both (small/reliable) of these well so the result is multiple similar stagers.
Metasploit will use the best one when it can and fall back to a less-preferred one when necessary.
Windows NX vs. NO-NX Stagers
Reliability issue for NX CPUs and DEP
NX stagers are bigger (VirtualAlloc)
Default is now NX + Win7 compatible
Stages
Stages are payload components that are downloaded by Stagers modules.
The various payload stages provide advanced features with no size limits.
Types by Function
Meterpreter
Short form of Meta-Interpreter.
The Meterpreter resides completely in the memory of the remote host and leaves no traces on the hard drive.
Scripts and plugins can be loaded and unloaded dynamically as required.
PassiveX
PassiveX help in circumventing restrictive outbound firewalls by using an ActiveX control to create a hidden instance of Internet Explorer.
Using the new ActiveX control, it communicates with the attacker via HTTP requests and responses.
NoNX
The NX (No eXecute) bit is a feature built into some CPUs to prevent code from executing in certain areas of memory. In Windows, NX is implemented as Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
The Metasploit NoNX payloads are designed to circumvent DEP.
Ord
Ordinal payloads are Windows stager based payloads.
Advantages
It works on every flavour and language of Windows without the explicit definition of a return address.
They are also extremely tiny.
Disadvantages
It relies on the fact that ws2_32.dll is loaded in the process being exploited before exploitation.
It’s a bit less stable than the other stagers.
IPv6
The Metasploit IPv6 payloads, as the name indicates, are built to function over IPv6 networks.
Reflective DLL Injection
Reflective DLL Injection is a technique whereby a stage payload is injected into a compromised host process running in memory, never touching the host hard drive.
The VNC and Meterpreter payloads both make use of reflective DLL injection.
Generating Payloads
When you use a certain payload, Metasploit adds the generate, pry, and reload commands.
To remove unwanted bytes or bad characters, e.g., the null byte (\x00), we issue the generate command followed by the -b switch with accompanying bytes we wish to be disallowed during the generation process.
To evade anti-virus and make payloads less prone to detection, use the iteration switch -i to specify how many encoding passes must be done before producing the final payload.
The more iterations one does the larger our payload will be.
Issue the show options command to see which options we can change for this payload.
To change the default values, use the -o switch followed by the value we wish to change. The syntax is VARIABLE=VALUE separated by a comma between each option.
Adding a NOP (No Operation or Next Operation) sled is accomplished with the -s switch followed by the number of NOPs. This will add the sled at the beginning of our payload.
The larger the sled the larger the shellcode will be. So adding a 10 NOPs will add 10 bytes to the total size.
