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Introduction to Pentesting

What is Pentesting

  • A Penetration test or pentest is an ethically-driven attempt to test and analyse the security defences to protect these assets and pieces of information.
  • A penetration test involves using the same tools, techniques, and methodologies that someone with malicious intent would use and is similar to an audit.

Penetration Testing Ethics

  • Hackers are sorted into three hats, based on their ethics and motivations behind their actions.
    • White hats
    • Grey hats
    • Black hats

White Hats

  • Good hackers.
  • Follows rules and use their skills to benefit others.

Grey Hats

  • Does not follow rules all the time.
  • Uses their skills to benefit others often.

Black Hats

  • Evil hackers.
  • Often seek to damage organizations.

Rules of Engagement (ROE)

  • The ROE is a document that is created at the initial stages of a penetration testing engagement.
  • This document consists of three main sections.
    • Permission - This section gives explicit permission for the engagement to be carried out.
    • Test Scope - This section will annotate specific targets to which the engagement should apply.
    • Rules - This section will define exactly the techniques that are permitted during the engagement.

Penetration Testing Methodologies

  • The steps a penetration tester takes during an engagement is known as the methodology.
  • The steps involved in a typical penetration test are as below
    • Information Gathering
    • Enumeration/Scanning
    • Exploitation
    • Privilege Escalation
    • Post-exploitation

Information Gathering

  • This stage involves collecting as much publicly accessible information about a target as possible.
  • Example: OSINT and research.
  • This does not involve scanning any systems.

Enumeration or Scanning

  • This stage involves discovering applications and services running on the systems.
  • For example: Finding open ports, finding a web server that may be potentially vulnerable.

Exploitation

  • This stage involves leveraging vulnerabilities discovered on a system or application.
  • This stage can involve the use of public exploits or exploiting application logic.

Privilege Escalation

  • After exploitation, privilege escalation is an attempt to expand your access to a system.
  • There are two types of privilege escalations.
    • Horizontal escalation: Accessing another account of the same permission group (i.e. another user)
    • Vertical escalation: Accessing another permission group (i.e. an administrator).

Post Exploitation

  • This stage includes the following
    • What other hosts can be targeted (pivoting).
    • What additional information can we gather from the host now that we are a privileged user.
    • Covering your tracks.
    • Reporting.

OSSTMM

OWASP

  • Open Web Application Security Project - https://owasp.org/
  • Community-driven and frequently updated framework used solely to test the security of web applications and services.
  • Read about the top 10 vulnerabilities here: https://owasp.org/Top10/

NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1.1

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology - https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework/
  • Popular framework used to improve an organisations cybersecurity standards and manage the risk of cyber threats.

NCSC CAF

Principles of Security

CIA Triad

  • The CIA triad is an information security model that is used in consideration throughout creating a security policy.
  • The model consists of three sections: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA).
  • Confidentiality is the protection of data from unauthorized access and misuse.
  • Integrity is the condition where information is kept accurate and consistent unless authorized changes are made.
  • Availability is the condition where information should be available when authorised users need to access it.

Principles of Privileges

  • Two key concepts are used to assign and manage the access rights of individuals.
    • Privileged Identity Management (PIM)
    • Privileged Access Management (PAM)
  • PIM is used to translate a user's role within an organisation into an access role on a system.
  • PAM is the management of the privileges a system's access role has, amongst other things.

Security Models

  • Some popular and effective security models used to achieve the three elements of the CIA triad.
    • The Bell-La Padula Model
    • Biba Model
  • The Bell-La Padula Model is used to achieve confidentiality.
  • This model uses the rule "no write down, no read up".
  • The Bell LaPadula Model is popular within organisations such as governmental and military.
  • The Biba model is arguably the equivalent of the Bell-La Padula model but for the integrity of the CIA triad.
  • This model uses the rule "no write up, no read down".
  • For example: a doctor would not be able to read the notes made by a nurse in a hospital with this model.

Threat Modelling & Incident Response

Threat Modelling

  • Threat modelling is the process of reviewing, improving, and testing the security protocols in place in an organisation's information technology infrastructure and services.
  • An effective threat model includes:
    • Threat intelligence
    • Asset identification
    • Mitigation capabilities
    • Risk assessment
  • There are frameworks such as STRIDE, to help implementing the threat model.
    • Spoofing identity
    • Tampering with data
    • Repudiation threats
    • Information disclosure
    • Denial of Service
    • Elevation of privileges

Incident Response

  • A breach of security is known as an incident.
  • An incident is responded to by a Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT).
    • Preparation
    • Identification
    • Containment
    • Eradication
    • Recovery
    • Lessons Learned
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