Difference Between Bind Shell and Reverse Shell

A shell is a program that interprets our commands and gives the written commands to the operating system. It acts as an interface between the user and the operating system. It takes input from the keyboard and gives it to the OS, and the terminal lets you type commands and interact with the shell.

Some Popular Shell:

• Windows PowerShell
• Windows Command Prompt
• bash
• sh
• dash
• Born
• Korn

Port

In simple words, a port is an opening where a connection can be made. 

For example, for visiting a website like https://geeksforgeeks.org, the connection will be established to port 443 because HTTPS and the server use port 443 for connection. Ports are the number associated with IP addresses.

Some commonly used ports are:

• Port 21 for control, 20 for data transfer – FTP
• Port 22 – SSH
• Port 25 – SMTP
• Port 80 – HTTP
• Port 443 – HTTPS
• Port 465 – SMTPS
• Port 587 – SMTP
• Port 993 – IMAP

Bind Shell:

Bind Shell

A bind shell is a sort of setup where remote consoles are established with other computers over the network. In Bind shell, an attacker launches a service on the target computer, to which the attacker can connect. In a bind shell, an attacker can connect to the target computer and execute commands on the target computer. To launch a bind shell, the attacker must have the IP address of the victim to access the target computer.

Reverse Shell:

Reverse Shell

A reverse shell or connect-back is a setup, where the attacker must first start the server on his machine, while the target machine will have to act as a client that connects to the server served by the attacker. After the successful connection, the attacker can gain access to the shell of the target computer.

To launch a Reverse shell, the attacker doesn’t need to know the IP address of the victim to access the target computer.

Difference Between Bind Shell and Reverse Shell

S.NO.	Bind Shell	Reverse Shell
1.	Bind Shells have the listener running on the target and the attacker connects to the listener in order to gain remote access to the target system.	In the reverse shell, the attacker has the listener running on his/her machine and the target connects to the attacker with a shell. So that attacker can access the target system.
2.	In Bind shell, the attacker finds an open port on the server/ target machine and then tries to bind his shell to that port.	In the reverse shell, the attacker opens his own port. So that victim can connect to that port for successful connection.
3.	The attacker must know the IP address of the victim before launching the Bind Shell.	The attacker doesn’t need to know the IP address of the victim, because the attacker is going to connect to our open port.
4.	In Bind shell, the listener is ON on the target machine and the attacker connects to it.	The Reverse shell is opposite of the Bind Shell, in the reverse shell, the listener is ON on the Attacker machine and the target machine connects to it.
5.	Bind Shell sometimes will fail, because modern firewalls don’t allow outsiders to connect to open ports.	Reverse Shell can bypass the firewall issues because this target machine tries to connect to the attacker, so the firewall doesn’t bother checking packets.