Much of what you are considering depends on where in the "network security
lifecycle" your organization is located. If your organization is in the
"immature" stage of the lifecycle, they are investigating all possible
methods, what are the ramnifications, costs, etc. If your organization is
in the "discovery" stage (meaning that they know now who they are, what are
their goals and objectives, etc.) they are determining what areas need to be
secured. If your organization is in the "defensive" stage, they are
routinely conducting risk assessments annually, performing matrix
comparisons between other organizations, and determing what future direction
to go. If your organization is in the "mature" stage, they are concerned
about cost mostly, and what they will tackle -- next year.
As one who has done quite a number of security assessments, pentesting isn't
the only thing to be concerned with; consequently, neither is sitting around
waiting for something to happen, or stating that "we don't have any security
issues on our networks" routine. There MUST be a balance between the
pentesting aspect and the remainder. I used to think that being always on
the offensive was the best method. WRONG! There is alot more out there
that must be addressed, some of which neither you nor I have much say in,
esp. when politics or money come into the "Big Picture". Pentesting is just
ONE aspect of several aspects that make up a risk assessment evaluation.
Conducting routine audits (both scheduled and un-scheduled), forensics
management (break-in attempts, viruses, trojans, etc.), policy management
(in most cases, this can represent almost as much as 70% of the network
securification process -- without a good policy, nothing will have any
significance or meaning), and more. Pentesting is just 1-3% of the entire
securification process.
As an aside, perhaps we need a motto similar to: "The Last Defendable
Frontier."
Cheers.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erin Carroll" <amoeba@amoebazone.com>
To: <pen-test@securityfocus.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 7:37 PM
Subject: Moving from Defense to Offense (or vice versa) to secure your
network
All,
I was having an interesting discussion with a coworker the other day about
the differences between pen-testing (offense) and network security work
(defense) which we do in our day jobs. The majority of my security
background has been from a penetration standpoint so the way I view
network
security defense setups and priorities tends to be of the "how would I
break
this and get in" viewpoint rather than the "how do I secure this and
ensure
reliable reporting/monitoring" view that my coworker is more centered on.
The differences in the priorities and methods we would choose to secure
our
network for defense was much different than I anticipated.
So I was hoping some list members would share some similar experiences
with
us. How many of you have switched between offense/defense and what were
some
of the stumbling blocks or key differences you found in how you approached
your goals? Is it worth it to cross-train in some manner? How have you
sold
someone on the advantages of penetration-testing your network to quantify
and test the effectiveness of your existing defenses?
I would be interested to hear some cases you have run into out there.
--
Erin Carroll
"Do Not Taunt Happy-Fun Ball"
--
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