My $.02 (what happened to the '¢' glyph on keyboards?)
It is better to have a good knack for spotting anomalies, thinking of unsual
interactions and combinations, and a mysterious, "artistic" ability to
follow intuitive hunches.
There is a different temperment to the usual pen/vuln-tester from either the
programmer or the QA tester. It is probably not measurable.
If you do not _really_ understand how computers work, how structures in
memory operate, how IP communication functions, and how code is written and
executed, you will have far fewer points to draw from. It is always of
value to enrich this knowledge for the tester - but not to become _focused_
on the aspect of producing working code.
I agree that "quick and dirty" task automation requires decent to good
scripting. Errors here can 'pollute' the target environment, and delay
testing or block otherwise exploitable conditions. Also, if one is
replacing values in forms-submission, etc. then it is probably wise to know
what you are doing in the client-side scripting dialect! ;-)
--Jeremiah "rusty tester" Cornelius
-----Original Message-----
From: Shenk, Jerry A [mailto:jshenk@decommunications.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 8:06 AM
To: johnny Mnemonic; pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: Programming skills for Pen Testers
I wouldn't say that programming is a requirement...possibly a basic
understanding of programming and if you're really honing in hard on
something it would be handy to know that programming language.
Pen-testing is really a lot of research and a log of trying different
stuff. If the environment you're testing is all based on MS SQL and
asp, then your C or C++ isn't really gonna be as helpful (in that
environment) as knowing how sql and asp work.
-----Original Message-----
From: johnny Mnemonic [mailto:security4thefainthearted@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 12:42 AM
To: pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: Programming skills for Pen Testers
ok we all know that in addition to good network, host and application
security skills, programming in C is a pre-requisite for a decent pen
tester
or at least one who wants to write their own security tools or simply
audit
the open source code they use. My question is, despite their
similarities
should a pen tester be concentrating on C or C++ ? That's it!
Thanks.
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futile against web application hacking. Check your website for vulnerabilities
to SQL injection, Cross site scripting and other web attacks before hackers do!
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