Client Side Exploits

[cribbar <crib.bar () hotmail co uk>]

Can anyone of you pen-testers give me some basic advice on client side
exploits and what potential impact they can have on server-side
infrastructure, and are these included in pen-tests. In my less than expert
opinion when it comes to client side exploits, that spells out to me stuff
like adobe reader, whereby to exploit an un-patched version of adobe,
requires a hacker to somehow trick a user into opening a malicious PDF which
in turn I assume lets the hacker run some sort of code under the privilege
of that user. 

I have read hackers typically target users and unpatched vulns on user’s
workstations in the network/domain that have access to specific servers as
opposed to targeting unpatched vulns on the server itself, is that true? Are
unpatched vulns on servers and server apps never targeted from the outside,
i.e. via dodgey email, malicious websites etc?

Does this mean then that if you had an un-patched version of adobe reader on
say a windows 2003 file server, there’s no real risk? Admins don’t use the
server to browse the net, open email etc, so how can you trick an admin into
opening a dodgey PDF on a server? 

Back to the running of malicious code once you have tricked a user into
opening your malicious PDF, what kind of code is it? What language? And how
can this code attack the server to get to whatever sensitive data you were
after? If the server has been hardened with strong passwords, ACL’s, patches
etc is it going to stand up to this malicious code execution? The thing that
worries me is if malware can execute code that can bypass windows security
features, so technically could a malicious insider if they had that code. I
just wondered what type of things the code will try and attack if its sole
focus is getting a copy of sensitive data on a file server.

And last but not least, another thing that baffles me, is if this dodgy PDF
gets onto a workstation, it then executes its malicious code and gets onto
an admin share on a windows server, and finds 20 word documents full of
sensitive restricted data, how does it get these word documents out and into
the hands of the hacker? I just cant see how that stage works.

And is this the kind of thing you include in your pen-tests, i.e. send a
shed load of dodgey PDF to corporate users via email and see what kind of
access and data it gets you access too?

Sorry about my ignorance but I have read some articles on this subject and
it makes less sense, so I thought I’d ask the experts. If you can put it in
lay persons terminology that would help me no end.

Thanks

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