RE: Required Help on Automated Tools

["Prodigi Child" <prodigi.child () gmail com>]

The problem with relying *only* on automated tools is that you may be
missing some attack vectors that an automated tools may not exploit (such as
the PCI example that Matt brought up). I think the best way to do these
tests is a happy medium of using the automated tools to take care of the
obvious stuff like web server vulnerabilities, combined with manual methods
like manually looking at the responses from the server, and using manual
tools like netcat, etc. The approaches should be complementary, and I can't
think of any reason to only rely on one or the other.


Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On
Behalf Of Dharmendra T
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:24 AM
To: Matt - MRS Security
Cc: pen-test () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Required Help on Automated Tools

Dear matt,

Can you give few points as to why we should not automate the assessments 
or testing? Don't you think the automation helps you in so many ways, 
one of the best I could think of is "it will be faster compared to manual"??

Regards,
Dharmendra T.

Matt - MRS Security wrote:
> Vin Oxious wrote:
> > Hello Everyone,
> >
> >                                Greetings !! ..Can you please list me
> > some tools that would allow automated testing of the below ...  (
> > while I have already got a few tools .. just wanted to know if there
> > are some good ones ) ..
> >
> > SQL Injection -
> >
> > XSS -
> >
> > Improper Session Management -
> >
> > URL Access -
> >
> > Direct Object Reference -
> >
> >
> > regards,
> > Noxious
> >
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> >   
> Please, please, please, please, please dont automate this kind of 
> testing and then based upon the results give the customer a pass if 
> nothing found.
>
> I never ever advise automated application assessments to anyone. I 
> personally from the outset at the most automate the spidering of the 
> site and then manually audit it.
>
> Improper session management can really only be assessed manually by 
> looking at the cookie or any session data passed as part of the URL.
>
> There are a number of issues that automated tools will never discover.
>
> Sorry to beat home this fact but at the most automated tools should be 
> run at the end of the test to verify your results.
>
> I know personally of a PCI ASV that i competed against during some 
> work and they used automated scanning, they passed the merchant and i 
> found SQL injection (XP_CMDSHELL level), XSS, CSRF, weak session 
> management, data passed in the clear to name a few.
>
> More than likely this email is going to cause an argument, but please 
> do not automate testing from the outset. Use it to verify your results.
>
> Thanks
>
> Matt.
>
>
>
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