Today you are going to see how to setup DVWA using XAMPP on a windows computer:
Before going into the how-to guide, take a look at "what is DVWA?".
DVWA is a PHP/MySQL web application that is damn vulnerable. It is a safe and legal platform for penetration testers to test their skills and tools. And if you are a web developer you can use this damn vulnerable web application to understand the process of securing your web applications.
DVWA allows you to learn more about some of the most common web vulnerabilities. Using various difficulty levels, you can measure your skill level and improve yourself.
Here is how to setup DVWA on your windows computer:
1. Download and install XAMPP on your computer.
2. Open XAMPP:
Then open the XAMPP control panel and start "Apache" and "MySQL" service.
3. Download Damn Vulnerable Web App (DVWA)
4.Extract the Zip to htdocs :
Then extract the zip file to the htdocs folder and rename the folder to "DVWA" (without quotes) , so that it will be easy to access later. The htdocs folder can be found at C:\xampp.
5. Open the web browser:
Open the browser and then type "localhost/DVWA" in the address bar (without quotes). You will see the setup page
5. Click on "Create/Reset Database" button.
If it shows any error, go to C:\xampp\htdocs\DVWA-1.9\config and then edit the config file.
6. Edit the Password :
Here I'm using Notepad++ to edit the config file. Since the default password of PhpMyAdmin is blank, set db_password='';
7. Now click on "Create/Reset Database" button or just visit directly to: "localhost/dvwa".
The database will be created and then you will be directed to a login page.
8. Done !!
Enter "admin" as username and "password" as the password. Then click on the login button, you will see a page as shown below. Yes, you have setup DVWA successfully.
Thank You !!
