Christine Kronberg ha scritto:
Davide,
Skills do not relate to the time you need to do the test.
Pen Test means "Try to get in and tell me what you can reach".
And then you tell the customer that you didn't accomplish a
thing because you didn't had a clue what to do and not enough
time to get the clue?!
I tell the customer i did not reach goals in the given timeframe.
Pen Test doesn't mean I will reach goals, but i will try to!
From the customer's point of view, pen test is an activity that shows
if it's feasible or not that in a given, reasonable, timeframe someone
could penetrate his information systems.
Let's assume that i need to pen test my information system and that the
only point of access is the Internet (do not talk of Sociale Engineering
now...). I (customer) define the timeframe based on the motivation of
the attacker, type of information i hold, exposures (Web app, DB, DNS
...), DB etc and so on; let's say i estimate 15 days because i think
that at 99% no one would spend more time to get my informations or to
penetrate my systems for any other purpose.
Then i contact you because someone told me you have the right skills to
"act as an attacker" and i ask you to try to get in in 15 days.
If it is possible to get in but your skills are not enough, that's my
problem and your reputation will no longer be the same....
Unfortunately customers can rather evaluate pen tester skills...thi is
why there are so many unqualified pen testers around ....
Yes, time does relate to skills. Directly. My skills enable me
not only to perform the testing but read the results correctly
in a reasonable time to fire off the next proper set of tests.
If time is defined, how could skills influence it?
When you perform a pen test you must define:
- Targets
- (reasonably) goals
- Timeframe within achieve these goals
- Areas of the test (Internet, X.25, PSTN, Wi-fi/Bluetooth etc.): if
you define these, you are probably limiting the "vision" of the test
and the achievement of your goals
You have to achieve these goals within a given timeframe.
In this scenario, skills relate to the goals you reach.
100% agree. And there are times that I am not able to reach the
goals in the given time simply because I cannot do it while others
can. Because my set of skills simply do not match.
... or because it is not feasible within tha given timeframe
So I tell my
customer to give the job to someone else.
you should have never get the job if you don't believe your skills are
enough to do it in the best way...
Cheers,
Chris.
--
Davide Carnevali
CEO
Protechta - Information Security
OPST, CCSP
Tel. +39 0521 2021
Fax. +39 0521 207461
http://www.protechta.it/
e-mail: davide@protechta.it
Disclaimer: http://www.protechta.it/disclaimer
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