Objective 1.8 - Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing

Professional hacking to access data and computing power without being granted access; professional pen-testers are hired to identify and repair vulnerabilities and only work once, given written permission to obtain ungranted access.

Known environment

An environment where the outcomes or outcome probabilities are given

Unknown environment

The pentester knows nothing about the systems under attack

Partially known environment

A partially known environment penetration test is a focused approach that usually provides detailed information about specific systems or applications.

Rules of engagement

obtaining authorization before conducting any penetration or vulnerability test

Lateral movement

The process by which an attacker is able to move from one part of a computing environment to another.

Privilege Escalation

An attack that exploits a vulnerability in software to gain access to resources that the user normally would be restricted from accessing.

Persistence

an attacker's ability to maintain a presence in a network for weeks, months, or even years without being detected

Cleanup (Penetration testing)

Leave the network in its original state

Bug bounty

Reward scheme operated by software and web services vendors for reporting vulnerabilities.

Pivoting (Penetration Testing)

Gain access to systems that would normally not be accessible

War Flying (reconnaissance)

flying in private planes or with drones while collecting information on wireless networks

War Driving

Deliberately searching for Wi-Fi signals while driving by in a vehicle

Footprinting

the process of systematically identifying the network and its security posture (usually a passive process)

OSINT

Open Source INTelligence; gathered from publicly available sources

Red Team

The "hostile" or attacking team in a penetration test or incident response exercise.

Blue Team

The defensive team in a penetration test or incident response exercise.

White Team

Staff administering, evaluating, and supervising a penetration test or incident response exercise.

Purple Team

Made up of both the blue and red teams to work together to maximize their cyber capabilities through continuous feedback and knowledge transfer between attackers and defenders.