RE: Programming skills for Pen Testers

["johnny Mnemonic" <security4thefainthearted () hotmail com>]

Craig

Of course the assumption here is that any C coding is done prior to and 
outside of billable time and not during the engagement itself. If as a pen 
testing consultant I wish like to build a library of "good" exploits over 
time I would like to at least have the skills to proof read and possibly 
even fix publicly available but iffy exploit code or tweak my favourite open 
source security tool to suit a variety of different scenarios. Surely the 
reason we rely on customizable operating systems like Linux for a lot of our 
tools is at least party for this reason of customizability [sic].

So yes by all means use your perls and pythons during the engagement but 
have the C/C++ skills available during your research time between 
engagements. This is at least the feeling I'm getting from people who have 
replied on and off list.

Thanks for the reply.

> From: "Craig Wright" <cwright () bdosyd com au>
> To: "thomas springer" <tuevsec () gmx net>,"johnny Mnemonic" 
> <security4thefainthearted () hotmail com>
> CC: <pen-test () securityfocus com>
> Subject: RE: Programming skills for Pen Testers
> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:45:56 +1100
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: thomas springer [mailto:tuevsec () gmx net]
> Sent: 11 February 2006 3:30
> To: johnny Mnemonic
> Cc: pen-test () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: Programming skills for Pen Testers
>
> johnny Mnemonic wrote:
>
> > ok we all know that in addition to good network, host and application
> > security skills, programming in C is a pre-requisite for a decent pen
> > tester or at least one who wants to write their own security tools or
> > simply audit the open source code they use. My question is, despite
> > their similarities should a pen tester be concentrating on C or C++ ?
> > That's it!
>
> Time is money - your customers money. Most of my pentest-programming is
> quick and dirty and has to be highly adoptable - therefore it is usually
> done in high-level-languages like perl, python, vbscript, even nessus'
> nasl-language using external tools (hping etc) where applicable.
> i won't even think of doing object-oriented c++-programming for a
> pentest.
>
> things get different if you think of creating a "big" product like
> nessus or iss-scanner - but if you code stuff like this you are probably
> more a coder than a pentester... :)
>
> tom
>
>
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