I still argue that all that aside (and it can be valuable), what I generally want if I'm in need of a quality piece of work to free up time is a PT engagement where the testers are made fully aware of the business context of the system they are testing and the risks and exec summary framed in that context. Lack of SSL on an inside VLAN may be something to fix in time, but it's a heck of a lot less important than the public Internet facing one; access to a social committee intranet server less important than a customer DB - stupidly simplistic, but you get the idea. Canned scans are for obliging the tickbox-generation auditors and general information. Business context is the only way to a valid remedial plan of action. a
________________________________ From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 12 March 2012 19:20 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Vulnerability scanning, and calling it a Pen test the rant continues Yeah well it seems that I am digging a mile deep with a few of my own tools ( Backtrack, Nmap, Rapid 7 Nexpose, Metasploit) to verify what the issues are based on a Qualys Scan that a outside organization didn't have the time to "validate" the findings, so its been a real joy digging through 100's of pages of qualys scan information. Nessus is ok but seen the false positives with those also, Z Edward Ziots CISSP, Security +, Network + Security Engineer Lifespan Organization [email protected] From: Stu Sjouwerman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 2:55 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Vulnerability scanning, and calling it a Pen test the rant continues That's what we do for our customers here. We scan with Nessus, but provide a shortlist of the real dangerous low hanging fruit and we poke around a bit, and do a conference call where we show them what the problem is. Warm regards, Stu From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 8:36 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Vulnerability scanning, and calling it a Pen test the rant continues Thanks, I am glad I am not the only one. Now if someone followed the Penetration test Execution Standard, and did a real Pen test and validated the business risks, then I would be impressed, so back to chewing through this Qualys scan and making heads or tails of what needs to be fixed and what isn't a big risk. Z Edward Ziots CISSP, Security +, Network + Security Engineer Lifespan Organization [email protected] From: Alan Davies [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 8:25 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Vulnerability scanning, and calling it a Pen test the rant continues You pays for what you gets ... even reports of actions that go beyond VA into PT still aren't a proper PT engagement if they're not in a meaningful report, written in English! Having said that, sometimes you just want to know if something can be broken and do the rest yourself. Rarely though .. I have 1better things to do with my time than translating someone else's results into an Exec Summary and business context specific findings Rant welcome :o) a ________________________________ From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 05 March 2012 13:12 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Vulnerability scanning, and calling it a Pen test the rant continues Not sure if anyone on the list is responsible for Vul Scanning in their organizations/business or Pen testing there systems, but it still blows my mind that we have folks out there providing services to organizations and business calling the output from a Qualys or Nessus vulnerability scanner a Pen-test. I am current been going through someone else work for about 1.5 weeks validating the scanners findings on the systems, so I can get working on slimming down a 225 page report to something that is realistic and achievable. Sorry about the rant, it isn't how I wanted to start my Monday morning. 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