RE: Email Pen-testing

["Chuck Herrin" <me () chuckherrin com>]

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I have to agree.  In my experience, it is rare that a company
actually wants a "pen-test" in the sense of the term that Ron and I
both use. 
 
More often, they want a portscan, a nice report, and a pat on the
back.  Pen-testing is expensive, inefficient (in that you only have
to find one hole), and often does not provide an accurate picture of
"how to secure" a network.  IMNotSoHumbleO, the cycle in a perfect
world would be:
Vulnerability Assessment (the ISS and Nessus runs with pie charts and
detailed reports), remediation (either the in-house admins or 3rd
party people fix the holes), and then a pen-test to see if the fixes
actually hardened the network.

Unfortunately, very few companies can or will devote this kind of
time and $$ to their security.  They feel that their due diligence is
satisfied by paying someone to run Nessus against their firewall and
tell them everything's OK.  As for real tests involving social
engineering, dumpster diving, etc. many companies I've met with
consider it a waste of effort.  Actual quote: "We know you can get in
if you try to trick our people.  What we want is a real test of what
a hacker or a script kiddie would do."  <sigh> Smile politely, grit
teeth. </sigh>.  

Until companies realize that their people can be their biggest asset
or biggest liability in securing their network, attackers will always
have the Social Engineering Trump Card.

By the way, I can tell you from experience - Social Engineering and
Password Cracking are 2 VERY SPECIFIC things that MUST be laid out in
your proposal or scoping documentation from the start.  These 2
things will land you in a lot of trouble if explicit permission is
not given before doing either one.  A friend of mine almost went to
jail for assuming they'd be OK with it.  After the report was
submitted, it turns out they weren't.  Oops!

Just my 2 cents, 

Chuck

Www.chuckherrin.com



- -----Original Message-----
From: R. DuFresne [mailto:dufresne () sysinfo com] 
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 1:01 PM
To: Kevin
Cc: pen-test () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Email Pen-testing



It's about time the industry, IT as a whole comes to understand;

a pentest is something much more then a simple port/vuln scan from
outside.


a simple port/vuln scan has it's value, as a way to probe for
potential risks.  A *real* pentest is an attempt to actually make use
of potential holes, show they are in fact real risks, and will in
fact be able to be exploited to gain illegal//unwanted entry into an
org's systems and to their core data and apps.  At lesat tince
Mitnick's days social engineering has shown to be a major gateway to
resources that should be better protected.

A company asking for a mere set of potentials wants a sweet little
report done on a port/vuln scan that anyone with minimal skills can
accomplish. A companyt actually wishing to determine how well they
have done their job of protecting assests might opt for a full
pentest, with all the stops out of the bag.  Advance warnings of each
and every step is not a level playing filed and certainly does not
resemble reality for sure.

Thanks,

Ron DuFresne


On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Kevin wrote:

> Well, human are the weakest link in the security ring.. and social 
> engineering is always the easiest (if not the best) technique to
> open  up loopholes in a security system.
>
> Although it's an area which requires most emphasizes and concern,
> it  is also the most sensitive area where security managers get
> stuck  often in.
>
> If the company is ok with social engineering in the pen test, then
> I  suppose it's ok.. It's ethical as long as you're doing it for a
> cause  not malicious and harmful.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blake [mailto:netspan () hotmail com]
> Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 12:22 AM
> To: pen-test () securityfocus com
> Subject: Email Pen-testing
>
>
>
> Wanted to get your opinion on something...
>
> Doing a pen-test for a small bank which was proving very difficult
> to  get it. A friend of mine suggested I send a backdoor trojan
> attachment  via an email. If they clicked on it, the backdoor
> performs maybe a  boxscan, grab passwords, and connects out to the
> Internet. --Much like  a virus.
>
> I think this type of testing is becoming more relevant nowadays, 
> especially with whats out there. It reinforces properly configured 
> antivirus software and user awareness.
>
> I spoke with a previous customer of mine about the idea. He said he
>  would be very upset if he was not told prior to that type of test
> as  part of normal pen-testing.
>
> Generally speaking, my code of ethics doesn't allow me to social 
> engineer. I don't like lying and misleading people. Also people
> tend  to hate you after they've been punk'd.
>
> What's your ideas on the email pen-tesing?
>
>
> -Blake
>
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- -- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        admin & senior security consultant:  sysinfo.com
                        http://sysinfo.com

"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
                -- Johnny Hart

testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!


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You're a pen tester, but is google.com still your R&D team?
Now you can get trustworthy commercial-grade exploits and the latest
techniques from a world-class research group.
www.coresecurity.com/promos/sf_ept1
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You're a pen tester, but is google.com still your R&D team?
Now you can get trustworthy commercial-grade exploits and the latest
techniques from a world-class research group.
www.coresecurity.com/promos/sf_ept1
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