In this chapter, we have defined security testing as it relates to this book, and we identified an abstract methodology that consists of the following steps: planning, nonintrusive target search, intrusive target search, data analysis, and reporting. More importantly, we expanded the abstract model when it came to the intrusive target search, and we defined within that a methodology for scanning. This consisted of identifying live systems, looking at the open ports, recovering the services, enumeration, identifying vulnerabilities, and finally exploitation.

Furthermore, we discussed what a penetration test is and that it is a validation of vulnerabilities and that it is identified with one step in our scanning methodology. Unfortunately, most clients do not understand that when you validate vulnerabilities, it requires you to run code that could potentially damage a machine or even worse, damage their data. Due to this, most clients ask that not be a part of the test. We have created a baseline for what penetration testing is in this chapter, and we will use this definition throughout this book. In the next chapter, we will discuss the process of choosing your virtual environment.