RE: Aspiring Pen-Tester Seeking Advice
- From: "ep" <captgoodnight@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 14:55:29 -0800
For hardware, lets not forget about routing and switching :)
Invest in a cisco lab, say a couple 2950 switches, couple routers 2620s and
a couple pixs. Grab a copy of yersinia, cain, ettercap, hydra, goto
http://www.phenoelit-us.org/. Learn to beat the hell out of the protocols.
Poking routers and switches is so key to a proper pentest. Dare I say, gain
a deep knowledge of routing and switching, go study for a ccna, ccsp, ccnp.
Wall paper is nice, but if the motivation is education, and not decoration,
then this wall paper is honest and there's much to learn from it.
It's been more than a few that the egg didn't crack until we whacked a
router or hopped a vlan. You'll find, more times than not, all it takes is
one nugget and the network just unravels in your hands :)
Uber important, breathe routing and switching. It makes everything else
clearer. (flame suit on) Majority of workstation/server testing is mundane
and circus trickery; of course there's exceptions... Application and
infrastructure testing is truly a art.
My 2 cents, good luck.
CG
-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:listbounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 4:04 PM
To: pen-test@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Aspiring Pen-Tester Seeking Advice
Hello all - long-time lurker, first-time poster,
I'm about 2 quarters away from finishing my education (majoring in network
security and systems administration), and I'm currently interning at a
company, doing monitoring IDS and SOX compliance.
I've always been interested in security, and now that I've got some spare
time I would really like to start getting prepared for a potential position
doing penetration testing.
My school offers a few courses in security, however I've always been of the
mind-set that it's better to explore it yourself than try to have someone
teach it to you.
That being said, I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to give a
novice some helpful pointers on how to get started.
I've downloaded VMware and I've got a Windows XP, Ubuntu, and shortly a
Fedora Core 7 VM - I also plan on downloaded Windows Server 2003 with my
MSDNAA license. I've downloaded a copy of BackTrack2 and I'm in the process
of trying to turn that into a VM as well.
I installed nmap on both systems, as well as nessus, and soon metasploit.
I've played around with the former a little bit at work (I must say, it's
the most amazing tool I've used - not that I have much experience).
I'm really interested in getting into the 'hacker' mindset and walking
through the steps they use to find, conduct, and cover-up their attacks.
Surely, it's not all point and chick, and I'm having a little difficulty
getting into the groove.
I was also hoping the more experienced users might suggest a few tools to
check out first (I've already bookmarked the sectools.org list but there is
just so many).
Additionally, can anyone suggest a bunch of good books to read pertaining to
penetration testing? Someone recommended Counter-Hack, and another person
said Hacking Exposed, as well as a few others.
All that being said, are there some limitations of VM that I should be aware
of when conducting my research? I would be very interested in seeing if
there's a way to get router and network-like functionality from a VM since
it would seem like currently VMware is essentially acting like a hub and a
lot of the attacks (ARP spoofing, etc) don't seem possible the way I've
currently got it implemented.
I know there is a "Basics" mailing list, however since I am interested
specifically in pen testing, I figured it was probably more appropriate to
post to this list. If I am incorrect, then I apologize. If not, then thanks
in advance for tolerating my noobiness and for helping out an aspiring
pen-tester!
Best Regards,
Ryan
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