DEV Community: Ehtisham-sudo

Penetration Testing Stages and Methodologies

Ehtisham-sudo — Tue, 31 May 2022 18:01:44 +0000

Penetration tests have multiple objectives and goals. Each penetration test is different based on the target scope. But there are methodologies that are same as foundational steps in order to achieve the goal. Penetration test stages:

Information Gathering
This stage involves collecting as much publically accessible information about a target/organisation as possible, for example, OSINT and research. this stage has two sub-branches. Active and passive information gathering.

Enumeration
This stage involves discovering applications and services running on the systems. For example, web server and application version detection.

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 gaining initial access privilege escalation helps to escalate attacker's abilities to maximum (as root or admin user).

Post-exploitation
This stage involves process to target as many system as possible and escalate the attack surface of target.

Reporting
The final stage is to organize and document each step during the pentest and list all the discovered flaws and security suggestion in order to enhance the security

Methodologies

OSSTMM
The Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual provides a detailed framework of testing strategies for systems, software, applications, communications and the human aspect of cybersecurity.
OSSTM is used during testing:

Telecommunications
Wired Networks
Wireless Communication

OWASP
The "Open Web Application Security Project" framework is a community-driven and frequently updated framework used solely to test the security of web applications and services.
All most all web applications are tested based on these guidelines.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1.1
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a popular framework used to improve an organizations cybersecurity standards and manage the risk of cyber threats. This framework is a bit of an honourable mention because of its popularity and detail.

NCSC CAF
The Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) is an extensive framework of fourteen principles used to assess the risk of various cyber threats and an organization's defence against these.

What is Penetration Testing ?

Ehtisham-sudo — Mon, 30 May 2022 11:26:08 +0000

Penetration testing is a process of security audit that evaluates the organization's security, infrastructure, network and Applications against internal and external threat actors. It is helpful way to determine the security policies and controls. This process involves active evaluation of security by simulating an attack similar to real attackers. Main objectives are to test and analyze design weakness, technical flaws and vulnerabilities.

Security Audit
Security Audit checks whether an organization is following the standard security policies and procedures.

Vulnerability Assessment
A vulnerability assessment focus on discovering the vulnerabilities in the system but without any evidence that these can be exploited. Also it lacks the information to evaluate how much damage it can cause to the System security

Compliance Oriented Penetration testing
This type of testing is driven by compliance requirements. It is determined to evaluate compliance requirements about standards, frameworks, laws, acts etc.

Red-Team-based Penetration testing
Red-team-based testing covers all areas of security testing. It includes assessing people, networks, application ad physical security.

Black-Box Testing

limited knowledge about target
Requires a lot of research and information gathering
Resource and time consuming

White-Box Testing

Complete information about target
Less time and resource consuming
Bugs and vulnerabilities can be patched quickly

Gray-Box Testing

Combination of black and white Testing
usually limited information (depends on target scope)
Security testing and assessments are performed internally

Basic-Skills of a Penetration Tester

Networking (most important)
knowledge of Firewalls, Routers and Intrusion detection systems
Open Source Techniques
Web Servers, mail, SNMP stations and Access devises
Operating System knowledge
Web Application architecture (frontend-backend,)

Ability to read, learn and enhance Every day

Day-2 of learning Cyber Security

Ehtisham-sudo — Sat, 28 May 2022 12:23:50 +0000

Computer Networking

OSI Model & TCP Model
DNS and DNS types
The life of a data packet
Common Ports and running Services
Cyber Security Mindset and motivation

A resource to understand how internet works

Internet explained from first principles

Day-1 of learning Cyber Security

Ehtisham-sudo — Fri, 27 May 2022 08:30:29 +0000

Linux for beginners

Introduction to Linux
basic commands
package management
Network configuration
File permissions
Log management
DNS configuration

A very beginner friendly resource
https://linuxjourney.com
A website to explain commands and working process
https://explainshell.com