RE: OSCP

[Craig Wilson <cwilson () ppilearning com>]

You appear to have misread my message - I have both certs, the OCSP is fine if you want to know how to break things 
that are already broken. I am more interested in how to ensure that things are not broken in the first place.




-----Original Message-----
Craig Wilson
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-----Original Message-----

From: J. Oquendo [mailto:sil () e-fensive net]
Sent: 17 November 2008 21:35
To: Craig Wilson
Cc: pen-test () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: OSCP

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, Craig Wilson wrote:

> Hi,
>
> OSCP is great for practical knowhow but I would rather employ a CISSP anyday; why and how you would protect systems 
> are much more important than how you break in.  Its all very well knowing how to make a shell run on a poorly 
> configed machine but understanding defensive configs to ensure the machine isn't in a position to be compromised are 
> more important IMHO.
>
> Additionally I would ensure you have day to day experience and knowledge of why you would advocate certain things in 
> corporate environments.
>
> Craig

Two different certs, two different purposes. I believe each has
their own specific purpose so it's comparing apples and oranges.
You are however so completely offbase in your assumption that a
an OSCP or any other well qualified pentester is slowly looking
for a method to run a "shell script" on a "poorly configured"
machine. Apparently you have an isolated view of some of the
research that goes on with fuzzying, intuition, session hijacking,
etc., perhaps you could learn from the OSCP and other technical
courses similar to it.

For the CISSP types in an enterprise environment, there can only
be so many managers pushing around papers and revamping policies.
A thorough and knowledgeable pentester can and should be able to
create the same logical reports based on their technical findings
else they shouldn't be in the industry. There is a lot more than
meets the eye from my perspective on what a pentester is and what
the industry perceives them to be. If you're basing your opinion
on the level of questions that float on this list "wHaT to0L dO
I yEwS" than I can't blame you however, CISSP's aren't impressive
to me. Nor is any exam that relies strictly on memorizing what's
in a book.



=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
J. Oquendo
SGFA, SGFE, C|EH, CNDA, CHFI, OSCP

"Each player must accept the cards life deals him
or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone
must decide how to play the cards in order to win
the game." Voltaire

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