Lecture A. Penetration Testing 1
Dr. Younghee Park
1/30/2014
Class Notes
• Submit your transcript for prerequisite proof and honesty pledge during our break if you didn’t submit them in our CMPE department.
– If you need add codes, please ask me after class.
• From next class, I will try to provide 5-min. talks in
SDN around the end of class.
– It’s not related to our exam.
• Next class, we will discuss a course project on Feb. 9
– Draft Due will be on Feb. 20
– Class demos from ISAs if time is allowed
• Confirm: Our first guest speaker are on Feb. 16
– Next speaker will come from Intel security group.
COMPUTER ENGINEERING CMPE 209 Dr.Park
Why Do We Study Hacking?
• What do we study hacking and penetration testing?
• The malicious hackers have all the information they need to do all kinds of nasty things
• Our focus is on defense
– Must understand the offensive tools used by our adversaries
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The Threats from Outside
• Threats coming from outside
– Organized crime – attackers look for sensitive data for identity theft or other fraud, e.g.,
• Counterfeit credit cards based on stolen credit card information
• Money laundering
• Extort money from a target by launching denial-of-service attacks
– Terrorists – cyber attacks on critical infrastructure of the country – Governments – governments have huge interest in the activities of organizations operating on their soil.
• For military or business advantages
• Law enforcement
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The Threats from Outside (2)
• Threats continued …
– The competition – an organization’s competition will turn to computer hacks to gain the upper hand, e.g.,
• An e-commerce site targeting their competition to knock them offline – Hacktivists – attackers breaking into systems to make a political point or demonstrate regarding social issues
– Hired guns – attackers looking to make money by stealing information or gaining access to computer systems on behalf of a client
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The Threats from Inside
• Threats can come from inside, by people who have direct access to the computer systems as their job or a business relationship
• Insider threats are
– Disgruntled employees – the most frequent and damaging attackers of computer systems
– Clueless employees – employees advertently compromise the organization’s security
• Disabling antivirus tools/Surfing malicious sites
– Suppliers – from malicious employee on a supplier’s network
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The Threats from Inside (2)
• Insider threats continues …
– Vendors – vendors often have full access to systems for remote diagnostics, system upgrades and administration
• Cloud service providers
– Business partners – joint ventures, shared projects, and other business relationship link network together
– Contractors, temps, and consultants
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Penetration Testing
• Penetration testing can be defined as a legal and authorized attempt to locate and successfully exploit computer systems for the purpose of making those systems more secure
– By using the same tools and techniques as an attacker to find security issues
• Penetration testing is also known as
– Ethical hacking
– White hat hacking (vs. black hat)
– Offensive security
– Red teaming (vs. blue teaming)
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Vulnerability Assessment
• Penetration testing is different from vulnerability assessment • Vulnerability assessment is the process of reviewing services and systems for potential security issues
• Penetration testing performs exploitation and proof of concept (PoC) attacks to prove that a security issue exists – Pen test goes a step beyond vulnerability assessments by simulating hacker activity and delivering live payloads
• We will cover vulnerability assessment as the one step to complete a penetration test
