Re: Programming skills for Pen Testers

["Justin Ferguson" <jnferguson () gmail com>]

As I previously said when I originally replied, I completely agree,
but I want to emphasize something here. Just like you said, how can
you understand buffer overflows without understanding C/assembly,
building upon that idea, each language has its own subset of security
flaws, some which build upon others (i.e. C++ can have the same
problems as C), and some of their own (C++ brings with it some of its
own insecurities that don't exist in C), that said, its beneficial to
learn and understand everything you can, How usefull overall it will
be depends on your target audience.

To elaborate further on the subject, figure that knowing about buffer
overflows will help you find them, fix public exploits, and/or create
your own exploits, but say your target is written in Java. While it
may be technically possible for some misused section of the code to
cause an overflow in the JVM, its not very likely. But some insecurity
in the say the class loader causes private members to become
accessible is more probable, thus here the buffer overflow knowledge
wouldn't help where as an understanding of Java would.

So all in all the point is, there really are 6 million ways to die,
don't limit yourself to just one. If you really want to know the
subject matter, sit down and learn it, but its not necessary, there is
an entire industry of security personnel who know how to hit enter,
they can run the programs you eventually write, and thus knowing how
to write the program isn't necessary, but it sure helps.

Also, because people distorted what I was saying last time, no I am
not suggesting you sit down and try to audit the source for every
program on a clients machine on their time, but it won't hurt to sit
down and learn it on your own, it can only make you better at your
job.

On 2/28/06, Jeremy Saintot <jeremy () caramiel com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Sure, programming does not inevitably take part of a pen-test.  But don't
> you think some coding skills could be useful to perform certain tasks ?
> Not just talking about reading/patching/compiling an exploit or something
> found on the Internet, but sometimes you can use scripting languages such
> as Perl to automate some tests or other things...
>
> I think programming skills are not fully required, but at least recommended
> for a pen-tester.  How can you understand buffer overflows if you don't know
> about C and/or Assembly ?  What about applicative web vulns if you don't
> have
> any PHP/SQL/XSS skill ?
>
> As an answer, I would say that at least one compiled language (C) and one
> scripting language (Perl) are recommended and can be useful for a pen-tester
> if intelligently used.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jeremy
>
> Craig Wright wrote:
>
> > Hello
> > First just to get this in C programming is a good skill. C++ is also not
> > bad to have. This said, what the hell is this doing in a pen test
> > discussion.
> >
> > /*
> > **     start rant
> > */
> >
> > How can anyone here honestly state that programming skills are needed
> > for pen testing? An audit of source code is NOT a pen test. This does
> > require coding skills - they are not the same thing and anyone who
> > thinks they are is under a delusion.
> >
> > Are we talking "Vulnerability Research' or Pen. Tests? Do we all
> > understand that they are NOT the same thing?
> >
> > If a business/organisation/etc is paying you for 20 hours of applied
> > testing - I certainly hope that you are not going off on some ill
> > conceived tangent and effectively taking their money without doing the
> > service you have been commissioned for?
> >
> > Thomas is correct "Time is money - your customers money" - Do not forget
> > this!
> >
> > Welcome to reality. There ARE time constraints. You are not paid to
> > research every possible theoretical vulnerability or find a new buffer
> > overflow in a Pen Test!
> >
> > No wonder businesses do not trust information security. No wonder the
> > profession is not being taken as seriously as it should be.
> >
> > /*
> > **     Rant complete
> > */
> >
> >
> > Regards
> > Craig
>
>
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