PennTest Threat Intelligence - part-1
gAtO bEen ThInKiNg - In the hyper connected world we live in Pen-Testers have a lot on their hand, hardware, firmware, OS, web-apps. The facts are that a simple web-app upgrade, may open new holes that off-set the problem they had to begin with. A pen-test, is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders. Who are the outsider? How do the outsiders pen-test your system? Non-state actors have played an important part in many international cyber conflicts in the past two years- game changers. With the Anonymous crew(z), China, Russia, India, Iran out in force in cyberspace a company needs to know if they are the target from a political, competition or worse yet a loneWolf or activist.
Many think that with BackTrack anyone can be a tester, but it’s different today. Companies need to understand the Geo-Political aspect of their company and who are their markets and how does it play out in the real world. Look at Sony, HBGrays these are two different companies but their reputation has been tarnish by what, a bunch of kids, naw, these boy’s and girls are the new breed, smart, educated and connected. These people are System Admin in their day job and Anonymous during off-hours. They know how to work in the box and also see out-of-the-box tips and tricks and have thousands that want to try their game and imitate them. Whatever you think these new boy’s and girls will multiply, it’s a fab, a movement but they all want to be a cool hackers and the next generation of hacktivist will make these people look like amateurs.
Who knew that a Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) used to test how many connection your server will handle, would be used by the attackers themselves. A long time ago in cyber years (2-3 years ago) only the geeks had the knowledge and skills to do some of the hacks that we see today. Today Anonymous is not only a social movement but it’s a cause celeb, people want to belong and these social 4chan outcast have started a revolution in cyberspace that governments and corporations now are worried about, and well they should be.
Break out Backtrack and do some pen-testing and yes you may find misconfigured servers like gAtO hAs -(SCADA systems to boot) and such but if you can see what your enemy is looking at, planning. Nothing is better than threat intelligence to guide you in mitigating your company as to future attacks.
Look at the RSA and Diginotar APT attacks, the bad guy’s went after the certificate authority how does a typical pen-test tools know that, they don’t if you don’t have your pulse on the game your in, you may be next.
Remember the technical aspect is one thing but if you have many, many hands trying new things on your site guess what, they will hack you if your connected to the Internet. Your company cannot live in a bubble and so must expose themselves to customers, vendors and business partners your company cannot control all those aspects. When a simple email attachment to the c-Suite boys just like with the Nortel hack they got you big time, in Nortel chase they were inside their network for 10 years. The reputation, the technical all this means nothing if you don’t have good solid threat intelligence to know what’s going on in the world.
If you don’t have a team to look at threat intelligence for your company, get some people fast. If your connected you can be hacked, learn and be silent – Can’t stop the signal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere…. -gAtO oUt
dissidents. While Russia and China think about this more and more killings have happened. 
