Chapter 6.  Finishing the Attack - Report and Withdraw

Now that we have found and exploited our target in Chapter 5, Taking Action - Intrude and Exploit, it is time for the final stage of the Penetration Testing Kill Chain, which is Reporting and Withdrawing. Some may argue the validity and importance of this step, since much of the hard-hitting effort and impact was accomplished in Chapter 5, Taking Action - Intrude and Exploit, but without properly cleaning up and covering our tracks, we can leave little breadcrumbs which can notify others where we have been and also what we have done. This can certainly hurt not only our reputation as a penetration tester, but can also jeopardize the mission. Reports themselves are what our customer sees as our product. It should come as no surprise that we should then take great care to ensure they are well organized, informative, accurate, and most importantly, meet the customer's objectives. We should also ensure we handle this phase...