Testing DNS beacon in a lab without getting/buying a domain
Assuming you already have an Active Directory lab with domain setup you can use that to setup a custom domain which will exist only inside a lab. We'll use it for testing a DNS beacon in Cobalt Strike . Domain Controller needs to be setup as DNS server for all computers in the lab. This can be usually done with firewall setup such as pfSense. If you are looking to get started, I recommend looking at Guide To Pentesting course by DemmSec and the Building Your Own Super Duper Home Lab SANS webcast. To setup a custom domain we need to create a DNS zone. This is done in the DNS manager: Right clicking the Forward lookup zones, we add a new zone. Let's call it BEACON.LAN since that will be our TLD existing only in our lab. That should be primary zone which will be resolved at DC. We keep other settings the default. This should look like this: Next, we create a host pointing to our team server. Let's use the parent domain (right click, New Host). We also create