Re: Pentesting an IDP-System

[Jay Beale <jay () bastille-linux org>]

I think of penetration testing as comprising much more than just an 
automated test "scan" for vulnerabilities.  Automated tools generally 
fit into the "vulnerability asessment," or VA, category.  They run a 
number of tests designed to generate a list of known vulnerabilities.

A full penetration test goes beyond this.

The full penetration test is basically a full compromise simulation, 
where one or more "ethical hackers" does everything that a real 
attacking organization would do, with the following limitations:

1) Time  - a real attacker might pursue a target for 6 man-months, while 
most of us can't afford to pay for that level of effort.

2) Scope - a real attacker can target any computer/network and
may use social engineering, wardialing and physical attacks.  Most 
organizations restrict the penetration test in one or more of these areas.

The penetration test serves as a simulation to answer some question, 
generally similar to "what would happen if a real attacker with skill 
targeted this application or our organization in general?"

From a services perspective, vulnerability assessment firms generally 
add value to their VA scanners by prioritizing and, to the extent 
possible, contextualizing the vulnerabilities.  Given enough information 
about your operation, they can guess what an attacker could do with the 
vulnerabilities.  The penetration test goes deeper, to find out what an 
attacker (limited by time and scope) could do to you.

Plug: my employer, Intelguardians, provides both services.

  - Jay



evilninja wrote:
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> Marcin Owsiany schrieb:
> | What does "to pentest" mean? I tried 4 dictionaries, without success.
> | Is it the same as "to test on paper"?
>
> penetration testing, as in http://www.penetration-testing.com/
> (just found it with google...)
>
> - --
> BOFH excuse #172:
>
> pseudo-user on a pseudo-terminal
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