RE: PT Activity duration/time

From: Sol Invictus (sol@haveyoubeentested.org)
Date: Sat Sep 24 2005 - 23:42:43 EDT


Joe and All,

After reading thru both posts, we need to determing what tasks fall under
Vulnerability Exploitation. Here is what I would say..

1. Researching the availability of the exploit on the net.
2. Ensuring that exploit is "trojan free"
3. Contacting the point of contact at the client to notify them and request
permission to move forward with exploitation.
4. Using this exploit (or one from your toolkit) to exploit the box.

#1 would probably be the most time consuming of the 35%. But this is also a
very important step. Not every malicious hacker out there has commercial
tools with all the latest and greatest exploits out there.
#3 is also a very important task. Even during a black box test, you need to
keep in touch with your Point of contact to ensure exploiting the box at
that point in time will not cause unreasonable damage to the target. With
their permission it takes some of the liability off the tester.

Sol Invictus

-----Original Message-----
From: Miller, Joseph A [mailto:joseph.miller@eds.com]
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 3:52 PM
To: BSK; pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: PT Activity duration/time

Perhaps this will start a rant but... Is there really a need to spent 30% of
your time breaking into a hole when you can show the exposure as well
documented and exploitable? I understand there is a difference between full
pen and vuln assessment. However, that's like black box determining the
external IPs for an external. The value to any client for a "hacker"
approach is giddy and fun, but if you were just handed the IPs you could
just show the exposures and not waste your time OR YOUR CLIENT'S.

I guess you have to gauge what you are trying to prove. If your client
requires you to gain root, great. If you are doing a pen, you already have
the understanding from the client. That's what you are there for in the
first place. You are the expert and showing that there is an exposure for a
remote buffer overflow on a given system is your job, and more so showing
the customer how to fix it.

Eventually it all comes down to time, like you said. What amount of time
should you spend on what... I think everyone on this list will agree to the
following:

1) AUTOMATE as much reporting as possible (35%?????) ouch
2) Define your scope to your client

If they want full stealth black box, ensure they understand the time
limitations... I assume you don't work for free.

IP count is decent, however, the numbers in the open source testing doc show
decent numbers that can help you determine scan times for large sets of IPs,
etc.

Of course, a FULL UDP port scan of a Solaris is a tad different than other
systems... Plan accordingly.

3) Experience... The more you do the more you can optimize, have a game plan
when you show up. You should already be done with your information gathering
before the start time.

..... Did I miss anything?

-----Original Message-----
From: BSK [mailto:bishan4u@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 9:43 AM
To: pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: PT Activity duration/time

Dear All,

We have been conducting a number of PT's till date.

1. There is one thing which has always bothered us, a good effort estimate,
especially for Black-box PT. We generally estimate our efforts based on IP
addresses.
I would request other Pen-Testers on this list to share their views and
methods of effort estimation.

2. Secondly, what is the amount of time that should be spent on each phase
of PT?

For e.g:

Information Gathering - 5%
Footprinting - 10%
Vulnerability Scanning - 10%
Vulnerability Analysis - 10%
Vulnerability Exploitation - 30%
Reporting - 35%

Await some input/ feedback from other Pen-Testers on this list.

Thanks,
Bshan

                
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