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DESCRIPTION
Penetration testing a network requires a delicate balance of art and science. A penetration tester must be creative enough to think outside of the box to determine the best attack vector into his own network, and also be expert in using the literally hundreds of tools required to execute the plan. This book provides both the art and the science. The authors of the book are expert penetration testers who have developed many of the leading pen testing tools; such as the Metasploit framework. The authors allow the reader “inside their heads” to unravel the mysteries of thins like identifying targets, enumerating hosts, application fingerprinting, cracking passwords, and attacking exposed vulnerabilities. Along the way, the authors provide an invaluable reference to the hundreds of tools included on the bootable-Linux CD for penetration testing.
KEY
SELLING POINTS
- Only book that covers both the methodology of penetration testing and all of the tools used by malicious hackers and penetration testers.
- The book is authored by many of the tool developers themselves.
- Only book that comes packaged with the “Auditor Security Collection”; a bootable Linux CD with over 300 of the most popular open source penetration testing tools.
MARKET
INFORMATION
A November 2004 survey conducted by “CSO Magazine” stated that 42% of chief security officers considered penetration testing to be a “security priority” for their organizations in 2005. The demand for penetration testing by corporations is reflected by the fact that there are now three certifications specifically designed for penetration testers: Certified Penetration Testing Professional CPTP, EC-Council's Licensed Penetration Tester, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and OSSTMM Professional Security Tester Accredited Certification (OPST). In addition, penetration testing is a key component of several other security certifications including CISSP, SSCP, TICSA, and Security+.
This is the only book which covers the complete methodology of penetration testing and the hundreds of attacks tools used by malicious hackers. It is also the only book/CD offering that includes the “Auditor Security Collection” which contains over 300 penetration testing tools in a bootable-Linux CD format.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Jay Beale is a security specialist focused on host lockdown and security audits. He is the lead developer of the Bastille project, which creates a hardening script for Linux, HP-UX, and Mac OS X; a member of the Honeynet Project; and the Linux technical lead in the Center for Internet Security. A frequent conference speaker and trainer, Jay speaks and trains at the Black Hat and LinuxWorld conferences, among others. Jay is a senior research scientist with the George Washington University Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute and makes his living as a security consultant through the MD-based firm Intelguardians, LLC, where he works on security architecture reviews, threat mitigation, and penetration tests against Unix and Windows targets.
Haroon Meer (B.Com [Info. Systems], CNA, CNE, MCSE, CISSP, CCSA, CCSE) is the Director of Development at SensePost. He completed his studies at the University of Natal with majors in information systems, marketing, and information systems technology. He began working for the University’s Computer Services Division during his first year of study and stayed on as a Systems Consultant, specializing in inter-network connectivity and Internet related systems. He joined SensePost in 2001 as part of the technical team, where he spends most of his time in the development of additional security related tools and proof of concept code. He has released several tools/papers on subject matters relating to Network / Web Application security and is a regular presenter at conferences like Black Hat and DEFCON.
Roelof Temmingh is the Technical Director and a founding member of SensePost - a South African IT security assessment company. After completing his degree in electronic engineering he worked for four years at a leading software engineering company specializing in encryption devices and firewalls. In 2000 he started SensePost along with some of the country's leaders in IT security. Roelof heads SensePost's external security analysis team, and in his "spare time" plays with interesting concepts such as footprint and web application automation, worm propagation techniques, covert channels/Trojans and cyber warfare. Roelof is a regular speaker/trainer at international conferences including the Black Hat Briefings, Defcon, RSA, FIRST and Summercon. Roelof gets his kicks from innovative thoughts, tea, dreaming, lots of bandwidth, learning cool new stuff, Camels, UNIX, fine food, 3am creativity, and big screens. He dislikes conformists, papaya, suits, animal cruelty, arrogance, track changes, and dishonest people or programs.
Charl van der Walt is a founder and director of SensePost Information Security, a South Africa-based Infosec services company. Having studied computer science in South Africa and then mathematics in Germany, Charl started his career as a programmer, before moving on to technical support and later to technical design of security technologies like firewalls, VPNs, PKI and file encryption systems, and finally to security analysis, assessments, and penetration testing. As a CISSP and BS7799 Lead Auditor Charl's combination of technical and theoretical skills are applied to developing systems and methodologies for understanding, evaluating and managing risk at all levels of the enterprise. He regularly releases work on both technical and theoretical issues and can often be see teaching or speaking at academic institutions and security conferences like Black Hat and DefCon.
TECHNOLOGY
BACKGROUND
A penetration test is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack by a malicious hacker. The process involves an active analysis of the system for any weaknesses, technical flaws or vulnerabilities. This analysis is carried out from the position of a potential attacker, and can involve active exploitation of security vulnerabilities. Any security issues that are found will be presented to the system owner together with an assessment of their impact and often with a proposal for mitigation or a technical solution. Open Source tools are most commonly used for penetration testing because they can most easily be developed and customized to identify and attack extremely precise targets on a network. Having all of these tools on a “bootable Linux CD” allows the penetration tester to launch and use all of the tools on the CD from any machine on a network regardless of any system requirements or conditions. |
