RE: Penetration Testing Services

["Hugo V. Garcia R." <hugo.garcia () infocenter com bo>]

Hi,

A good pen tester doesn't use only 1 tool,

In all the penetrations I have made, I have used several tools depending on the platform being attacked. Also good 
penetration testing does not only test from the point of view of an outside attacker, it can allow you to view internal 
vulnerabilities, that an employee may be able to exploit if he is willing to make some damage. Good penetration 
testing, test the human factor of the equation, that no automated tool can achieve.

Another difference is that penetration testing, really verify that a security flaw is exploitable and takes advantage 
of it going the deepest possible in the organization.

A tool like Nessus, only checks a signature to verify a vulnerability, a Pen tester exploits that vulnerability.

Regards
Hugo Vinicius Garcia Razera

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com]
> En nombre de cribbar
> Enviado el: lunes, 02 de agosto de 2010 07:18
> Para: pen-test () securityfocus com
> Asunto: Penetration Testing Services
>
>
> Penetration Testing Community - I am interested in getting an expert
> response to a discussion that keeps raising up in our company.
>
> First off, I have some basic IT/Infrastructure knowledge, but I am most
> definitely not up to the level of a penetration tester (please bare this in mind
> with your responses).
>
> Basically, our company has an internal IT Security section, who has recently
> purchased some of the popular vulnerability assessment software such as
> Nessus. They are running quarterly scans using Nessus across an IP range and
> producing a report to senior management on the types of security holes in
> the Network and how they can be fixed (and more importantly to
> management how much it is going to cost to fix).
>
> I’ve spent a couple of hours on the Nessus website looking at the types of
> “vulnerability” it will catch, and it seems to cover a whole array of topics and
> security issues. This leads to the inevitable comment from senior
> management, if we have an IT Security section who are using the most
> common vulnerability scanning / penetration testing tools –what is the point
> in investing significant $$$ in buying in a 3rd party to do exactly the same?
>
> I fully appreciate that penetration testing is an area of high skill, as a 3rd party
> you provide an independent neutral security review, it takes years to master
> the topic, and once mastered you need to stay up to date with all the current
> vulnerabilities and exploits, and it is your guy’s area of expertise, whereas a
> security admin is not specific to penetration testing.
> And let’s be honest, anyone can essentially download a user friendly piece of
> software and click “scan” or whatever and produce a report listing problems.
>
> However, in order to be in defence of the pen testing community during
> such discussions, I have a few questions….
>
> • How do you as penetration testers, portray the importance of this
> independent check to future potential clients? Is this independence really
> that important?
>
> • What broadly speaking do you as professional penetration testers bring
> additional to a nessus scan during the services you provide? If there are
> categories of security issues/vulnerabilities that you can flag up doing one of
> your penetration tests that Nessus wont - that would be incredibly useful to
> know, and I’d love to be able to identify the limitations of Nessus scans but I
> am a bit out of my depth to be able to do so.
>
> • I trawled through the archives of this forum and others, and it seems some
> pen testing companies use the exact same tools such as nmap and nessus,
> and in some cases simply pass across a Nessus report for a specific IP range
> and that’s the report they use. This to me sounds a complete rip off, and I
> can’t see the benefit. So where is the added benefit in having an internal
> security guy run nessus, and paying a 3rd party pen tester x amount of $$$
> money to do exactly the same? Why not just stick with the internal guy? Or
> am I missing something? I really would appreciate real examples of whereby
> just running Nessus is simply not enough as it wont catch a, b and c!
>
> I look forward to your comments.
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Penetration-Testing-
> Services-tp29324189p29324189.html
> Sent from the Penetration Testing mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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