Book Image

Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments: The Ultimate Security Guide

By : Lee Allen
Book Image

Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments: The Ultimate Security Guide

By: Lee Allen

Overview of this book

The internet security field has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade. Everyday more people around the globe gain access to the internet and not all of them with good intentions. The need for penetration testers has grown now that the security industryhas had time to mature. Simply running a vulnerability scanner is a thing of the past and is no longer an effective method of determining a business's true security posture. Learn effective penetration testing skills so that you can effectively meet and manage the rapidly changing security needs of your company. Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments will teach you how to efficiently and effectively ensure the security posture of environments that have been secured using IDS/IPS, firewalls, network segmentation, hardened system configurations and more. The stages of a penetration test are clearly defined and addressed using step-by-step instructions that you can follow on your own virtual lab.The book follows the standard penetration testing stages from start to finish with step-by-step examples. The book thoroughly covers penetration test expectations, proper scoping and planning, as well as enumeration and footprinting. You'll learn how to clean up and compile proof of concept, exploit code from the web, advanced web application testing techniques, client side attacks, post exploitation strategies, detection avoidance methods, generation of well defined reports and metrics, and setting up a penetration testing virtual lab that mimics a secured environment. The book closes by issuing a challenge to your skills and ability to perform a full penetration test against a fictional corporation; followed by a detailed walk through of the solution.Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments is packed with detailed examples that reinforce enumeration, exploitation, post-exploitation, reporting skills and more.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Advanced Penetration Testing for Highly-Secured Environments: The Ultimate Security Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Now you see me, now you don't — Avoiding IDS


In a secured environment you can count on running into IDS and IPS. Properly configured and used as part of a true defense in depth model increases their effectiveness tremendously. This means that the IDS will need to be properly updated, monitored, and used in the proper locations. A penetration tester will be expected to verify that the IDS's are working properly in conjunction with all other security controls to properly protect the environment.

The primary method of bypassing any IDS is to avoid signatures that are created to look for specific patterns. These signatures must be fine-tuned to find only positively malicious behavior and should not be so restrictive that alerts are triggered for normal traffic patterns. Over the years, the maturity level of these signatures has increased significantly, but a penetration tester or knowledgeable attacker will be able to use various means to bypass even the most carefully crafted signatures. In...