Penetration Testing mailing list archives
RE: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing
From: "Debasis Mohanty" <mail () hackingspirits com>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 23:45:35 +0530
Hi Jeffrey, Thanks for your inputs but I guess you are confusing pen-testing with entire risk assessement lifecycle. Well as far as the article goes, it only covers the scope of pen-testing and I have tried to highlight all possible variables of pentesting and to dig further one can google for those variables. I wrote this article to give a clear picture of how a pen-test is done and how it is different from vulnerability assessment.
Nice, but it doesn't cover the "So what?" question. If a CEO asks you, "So you broke into my systems, so what?", how do you
answer that question? When you first sit down
with a company to discuss what you are planning on doing, you should ask
them what is critical to their company. Have
them list what is critical to their company that would adversely affect
them if that information became public or ended
up in the hands of their competitors.
The "So what?" is beyond the scope of this article. There are two things I believe every security firm does before and after pen-testing. i.e. Identifying the critical servers / assets before pen-testing and hardening/patching of servers after the pen-testing. Probably that satisfies your "So what?" query. But these are something which are beyond the scope of the article.
But showing the company that some important research that they have spent
millions of dollars and years of time on
could easily be compromised will get the CEO directly involved. CEOs
don't like having their ass handed to them (and I
feel that should be the goal of any pen-test).
That is the reasons Security firms signs strict NDAs with the clients. Most of the cases the Pen-Tester has to sign much stricter agreements with the customers and as well as the parent company for security reasons.
You'll get a few raised eyebrows when you add to your report, "we broke
into these servers, and these are the log
entries from your servers where you should have caught us." Your
customer will feel they get more for their money if
you help educate them.
This is what the customer expects to see evertime but somtime it might happen that a pen-tester might not get 100% success for all the identified critical servers. I hope all your queries are answered. Regds, Debasis Mohanty -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Denton [mailto:dentonj () gmail com] Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 3:02 PM To: Debasis Mohanty; pen-test () securityfocus com Subject: Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:07:43 +0530, Debasis Mohanty <mail () hackingspirits com> wrote:
This presentation is targeted for all security practitioners (i.e. Security Officers / Sys Admins / Security Auditors / Security Enthusiasts.etc). This presentation will give a clear picture on how pen testing is done and what are the expected results. Various screenshots are provided as a proof of concepts to give a brief picture of
possible end-results. Nice, but it doesn't cover the "So what?" question. If a CEO asks you, "So you broke into my systems, so what?", how do you answer that question? When you first sit down with a company to discuss what you are planning on doing, you should ask them what is critical to their company. Have them list what is critical to their company that would adversely affect them if that information became public or ended up in the hands of their competitors. Examples include new products soon to be released to market, new technologies in the process of being patented, research, contract bids, pending lawsuits (tread with caution here, your right to do pen-testing usually doesn't wave attorney-client privileges), etc. What I'm trying to say is that data mining should be a part of every pen-test. Breaking into their systems in nice, but shocking the customer with what you've been able to gather about them gets more results. Owning a network might end up with your report on some sysadmins desk with the instructions to "fix this." But showing the company that some important research that they have spent millions of dollars and years of time on could easily be compromised will get the CEO directly involved. CEOs don't like having their ass handed to them (and I feel that should be the goal of any pen-test). Also, having a goal with pen-testing is more fun than just owning a network. =) Some other suggestions, if it's obvious that the sysadmins haven't detected any of your intrusions, grab the logs from the servers you broke into. You'll get a few raised eyebrows when you add to your report, "we broke into these servers, and these are the log entries from your servers where you should have caught us." Your customer will feel they get more for their money if you help educate them. Just a suggestion. dentonj
Current thread:
- Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Debasis Mohanty (Dec 10)
- Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Jeffrey Denton (Dec 12)
- Re: Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Michael Puchol (Dec 13)
- RE: Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Vic N (Dec 14)
- RE: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Debasis Mohanty (Dec 15)
- Laptop Considerations David Bouchard (Dec 12)
- Re: Laptop Considerations calvin maready (Dec 13)
- Re: Laptop Considerations Michael Puchol (Dec 13)
- RE: Laptop Considerations Omar Herrera (Dec 13)
- RE: [in] Laptop Considerations Curt Purdy (Dec 13)
- Re: Laptop Considerations Volker Kindermann (Dec 14)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing miguel . dilaj (Dec 13)
- RE: Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Christopher Adickes (Dec 13)
- Fwd: Article Announcement - Demystifying Penetration Testing Jeffrey Denton (Dec 12)