Читать книгу Penetration Testing For Dummies - Robert Shimonski - Страница 25

You might not realize it, but you don’t just dive into pen testing. You should take these specific steps before you get into the heart of pen testing:

 Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the basics of information technology (IT) systems, networks, and other technologies at the fundamental level. This knowledge aids your career in security, pen testing, and ethical hacking.

 Conduct vulnerability tests. A type of pen testing is a vulnerability test. A vulnerability test identifies in advance any potential threats — areas where a hacker could potentially attack a vector — to your systems. An attack vector is a method or pathway a hacker uses to access or penetrate the target system; hackers poke around your systems to find something that’s weak or vulnerable. I discuss vectors in further detail in Chapter 4. One example of a vulnerability is a known software bug that allows elevated privileges.You’ll use framework tools such as Metasploit (see Figure 1-5) and other tools to produce vulnerability reports that detail all the security concerns you need to know. From there, you can run additional tests to determine exactly what you need to do (if anything) to fix the threat. Vulnerability tests become more complex and exponentially more useful when you use them in combination with other tests. Other tests may include, but aren’t limited to, system checks (for example, checking logs for access), vulnerability logs, and system performance tests that show items such as high CPU, disk utilization, or other system issues that could potentially show an exposure, breach, or injection of code or an unwanted visitor.

 Consider when to scan. It might seem obvious, but when you decide to scan is also important. To keep vectors as secure as possible, you need to set up schedules in which you scan, during specific and regular intervals, that cover all areas of the enterprise in which you aim to protect.

 Choose which tools to use. Figure 1-5 shows Metasploit (which I discuss further in Chapter 4), a tool you can use to run scans. There are many management and monitoring tools, logs, and other software to augment your pen test to have a complete view of the holes in your security. I cover many of these tools in Chapter 3 and discuss additional tools and sources throughout Part 2.

 Test in a safe environment. You’ll want to test all changes and new scans in a lab (sandbox) prior to unleashing them on your production systems, to make sure you know what they will do before you cause more impact.

FIGURE 1-5: Metasploit is one tool for pen testing.