Читать книгу The Art of Attack - Maxie Reynolds - Страница 17

The offensive attacker mindset (OAMs) allows you as an EA to direct an event in the direction of the objective. More specifically, it allows you insights normally invisible to others (namely defense). It is always scanning for vulnerabilities and creating them from information. OAMs is oppositional and unyielding, and it uses information and environments only to further your position. It does not care about anything outside of its focus, which is always the objective. Typically, your objective as a pentester is access to an asset, information, or place within a building(s) or on a network.

This mindset uncovers a catalog of valuables and vulnerabilities, and not only those you've identified for your own, relatively narrow objective—it also helps you identify what else the target deems important in the moment. It will reveal vulnerabilities that you might not be able to use due to your scope of work or that you've missed because they do not suit your objective but may still be a critical or severe vulnerability. For example, if your objective is to get into the building and to the network operations center (NOC) without using any other entrances or exits other than the front door, you should still note if there are opportunities to do so, whether it be the loading dock or parking structure.

In another example, you may believe due to your scope and objective that the NOC is the thing the company wants to protect most. However, upon entering an environment, you may figure out that actually they are preparing for a market-disrupting move that executives are meeting for, talking about, and writing about. This is valuable information—it doesn't change your scope or objective, but it is worth noting in your report or directly to your point of contact (POC).

OAMs is also what keeps you in a sort of hunt mode as the attack unfolds, identifying any opportunities that present themselves and exploiting them with seeming ease and poise—all without letting the target know that you have any ulterior motive or missing a beat as you deviate from your original plan. It leads you to learn new things about your target and apply those lessons for the good of the objective. For example, you might not learn until you get on-site that they have upgraded their visitor system to a digital kiosk that can be circumvented with the standard out-of-the-box key code.

There is also a sense of competitiveness with OAMs. It doesn't want to be beaten. Ever. It doesn't want to be merciful or helpful. It wants only to win. Your competitive drive is always influenced greatly by your determination to set and achieve goals. It should keep you striving for progress with a quiet but unrelenting focus. It's the peak of your curiosity and persistence combined. It is your competitive desire combined with critical thought that helps you match and surpass defenses meant to stop you. Your OAMs is powerful—a force to be reckoned with, neatly hidden behind a pretext or stealthy moves.

OAMs also guides the achievement of our objective through certain advantageous vectors. It does so by revealing facilitation in places you might not have considered looking otherwise, like vendors, suppliers, insurance providers, and building maintenance contractors. It helps you look at the world in an adversarial and alternative way. It sees through a lens that only identifies helpful or unhelpful data and information. OAMs wants to proceed and succeed. It's the machine that weaponizes information.