Writing good reports is in my opinion one of the most import tasks for people who work in security, no matter if pentesting, forensics or other topics. The report is the final product of your work, it is leaving an impression even after some time and it represents your company, your department and yourself. Unfortunately some people underestimate this topic.
Course Syllabus: * Module 1: Telling a Story * Module 2: Writing Penetration Testing Reports * Module 3: Forensic Writing * Module 4: Most Common Writing Mistakes
The price is pretty fair, 97$ at the time of this writing. Even folks who don’t like to write reports gave me great feedback, and for myself I can highly recommend it. It takes about 6-8h for going through, you have access to forums and in the end you get a certificate of completion. Although writing lot’s of reports over the past years I got some great new ideas for imrovement.
So it is not possible to review all of it, this post is just meant to give a rough overview and some examples.
Pentester Academy
As said before, in the courses sections are 40+ courses available. The topics include for example (all from a security perspective, but some are also from a defenders viewpoint): Python, ADS, shellcoding (I made SLAE 2015, helped me also with my OSCE certification), Javascript, web app pentesting, some forensics topics, WiFi and network pentesting, exploitation and much more.
Currently I started the course Traffic Analysis: Tshark unleashed, so this is the short example for this post.
Screenshot from the Tshark course.
What comes really handy is that you can just start the labs in the AttackDefense labs, so you don’t need to setup own VMs only for following the courses:
Screenshot from one of the Traffic Analysis: Tshark unleashed course
What is also great, you can download the videos, so you can also watch them later.
As far as I can say, all the videos are suitable more or less for beginners.
AttackDefense Labs
The labs include a huge amount of topics, including: Webapps, MSF, Pivilege Escalation, Eploiting, Wi-Fi, Forensincs, Reversing, Cracking, Python and so on. Some labs include a small task, but others include for example full blown webapps like juiceshop.
Some examples from the Wab Apps labs.
In this case there was a small issue (for me), the labs are timing out after some time, which might be a bit annoying when having a full web app. For the smaller labs I never had problems.
As advanced labs there are also some CTF style labs available.
Verifiable Badges
With verifiable badges it is possible to verfiy your knowlege to an external source, as I did here:
Network Scanning Basics – Daniel Sauder : Accredible : Certificates, Badges and Blockchain. https://t.co/4R5R5ruN49
“The holder of this badge has successfully completed the Network Pentesting challenge exercises in Pentester Academy’s AttackDefense labs. These challenge exercises test a practical understanding of how to perform remote network reconnaissance of various infrastructure components.” (https://www.credential.net/b5050be1-05c9-41fa-93a9-ea0b5cd8825f#.Xg8KBMQX5XM.twitter)
As far as I could see all badges have three small challenges where you have to find flags (like a small CTF), badges are available for lot’s of topics (19 badges are available at the time of this writing) and most of them can be done after you viewed and worked through the courses.
Yes, the machine itself is called writeup. My first step was running nmap:
# nmap 10.10.10.138
Starting Nmap 7.70 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2019-07-03 21:54 CEST
Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.138
Host is up (0.021s latency).
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.74 seconds
# nmap -A -p 22,80 10.10.10.138
Starting Nmap 7.70 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2019-07-03 22:06 CEST
Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.138
Host is up (0.022s latency).
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 7.4p1 Debian 10+deb9u6 (protocol 2.0)
| ssh-hostkey:
| 2048 dd:53:10:70:0b:d0:47:0a:e2:7e:4a:b6:42:98:23:c7 (RSA)
| 256 37:2e:14:68:ae:b9:c2:34:2b:6e:d9:92:bc:bf:bd:28 (ECDSA)
|_ 256 93:ea:a8:40:42:c1:a8:33:85:b3:56:00:62:1c:a0:ab (ED25519)
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.4.25 ((Debian))
| http-robots.txt: 1 disallowed entry
|_/writeup/
|_http-server-header: Apache/2.4.25 (Debian)
|_http-title: Nothing here yet.
Warning: OSScan results may be unreliable because we could not find at least 1 open and 1 closed port
Aggressive OS guesses: Linux 3.10 - 4.11 (92%), Linux 3.12 (92%), Linux 3.13 (92%), Linux 3.13 or 4.2 (92%), Linux 3.16 (92%), Linux 3.16 - 4.6 (92%), Linux 3.18 (92%), Linux 3.2 - 4.9 (92%), Linux 3.8 - 3.11 (92%), Linux 4.2 (92%)
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
Network Distance: 2 hops
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel
TRACEROUTE (using port 22/tcp)
HOP RTT ADDRESS
1 20.28 ms 10.10.12.1
2 20.47 ms 10.10.10.138
OS and Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 13.40 seconds
Login to cms is protected with a .htaccess file, creds are not valid here. Good that there is a thing called password re-use.
User flag
But ssh worked with the creds:
# ssh jkr@10.10.10.138
jkr@10.10.10.138's password:
Linux writeup 4.9.0-8-amd64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The programs included with the Devuan GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
Devuan GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Thu Jul 4 14:51:59 2019 from 10.10.12.57
jkr@writeup:~$
jkr@writeup:~$ ls
pspy64s user.txt
jkr@writeup:~$ cat user.txt
d4e493fd4068afc9eb1aa6a55319f978
So user flag was done…
Root flag
For escalating to root I first used exploit suggester and tried the exploits, but without success.
So I did some research and came across a tool called pyspy. For transfering the file I used apache and wget.
So here is just a very short one. Always when I have to set up a new pentest machine, I have to look it up again, so here is a small list of browser addons that are usefull for webapp pentesting (using Firefox):
One of the good things about Defcon is that there is a No Starch Press store at the vendors area.
So I bought it for the flight, but it took a bit longer until I was through the book.
The book has 20 chapters, starting with Bug Bounty Basics. The next 17 chapters go through different classes of vulnerabitlites like XSS, SQLi, memory corruption, CSRF and so on.
After an explanation of the vulnerabilty itself, real reports are also included with further hints. At the end of each chapter the reader can find useful takeaways.
The last two chapters are not about bugs, one is about finding bugs in general, including some descriptions for tactics and tools. The last chapter is about writing a good report, communication to the companies and how to deal with the different programmes, which seems very useful to me.
Real-World Bug Hunting is helping to maximaize payouts and finding more bugs. It shows up lots of attack vectors and creative way for exploing them.
Real-World Bug Hunting: A Field Guide to Web Hacking Author: Peter Yaworski Content: A very practical guide to bug hunting and bug bounties Career: Penetration Tester, Bug Bounty Level: Beginner, Intermediate
End of August I travelled from Germany to far away Kathmandu in Nepal for visiting threatcon and the browser security workshop by Mario Heiderich and the beautiful country. Here is a short review.
Browser Security Workshop
With the conference I booked the 2 days workshop Offensive HTML, SVG, CSS & Other Browser-Evil. The covered topics:
History of browser security and the browser market
Defense 101
XSS
URL obfuscation
Unicode, character sets
Breaking Filters (WAF)
IE/Edge compatibility modes
mXSS
The presentation includes 255 slides, so in 2 days it was not possible to cover everything, also there was no time for the hands-on parts. XSS is not the big topic anymore, but I was happy I can fresh up my knowlege and also learned some new stuff.
The Conference
The conference was one day with a single track, so contrary to Blackhat & Defcon everything was clearly arranged. On the speaker list were Mario Heiderich, Jim Manico, Georgia Weidman, Vignesh, Yogesh Ojha, Aniruddha Dolas and Prashant Tilekar, you may see some familiar names here.
Between the presentations there was lot of time for networking and discussions, with the business pass I also joint the evening event which came with great drinks & food.
For me the best at conferences, of course, is the networking part. It was a great pleasure to meet and connect with new people and friends.
When you are new to IT security I highly recommend to visit smaller and local conferences if possible, it is much easier to connect and to visit.
Thanks to the organizers of threatcon for a great event.
Visiting Nepal
After the conference I took four days for traveling and sightseeing, this is just a very small impression (I made >1000 shots). I travel a lot, and this was one of the most impressive experiences I’ve had.
Black Hat is a pretty commercial conference, tickets for two days cost more than 2000$, if you want to attend the briefings. There are also trainings, costs vary and are much higher. The content qualitiy is usually very high, the attendees vary from consultants, CISOs, developers, and all kind of IT security professionals. There is a big crowd with about 17000 attendees in 2017.
The Black Hat is being held at the Mandalay Bay.
The briefings are picked by a review board in a call for papers process. Researchers present their top work, often campaigned weeks before the conference. In the business halls all kind of vendors are present and giving away loads of swag for attendees and also throwing parties.
Keynote
Black Hat USA 2019 Keynote: Every Security Team is a Software Team Now by Dino Dai Zovi
Arsenal
I am mainly at the Black Hat for the Arsenal. It is a great opportunity for developers to present their work at booths that are also located at the business hall. For the last three years I could thankfully present AVET (AntiVirus Evasion Tool), which is giving presenters a briefings pass. The tools are also picked by a review board.
Defcon is the “real” hacker event in Vegas and is completly different as Black Hat (although both have the same founder). Black Hat and Defcon overlap one day, Defcon is four days. Costs for 2019 were 300$, qualitiy of the talks is also high and more fun might be included (like talks about phreaking). More offensive security stuff seems to be included here.
This year the event was spread over four hotels including four presentation tracks, several villages (areas with talks and hands-on for several topics), parties, CTFs, movies and so on. It was said that about 30000 people attended defcon in 2019, so everything was pretty crowded and also a bit confusing. Walking between the different spots can take between 10-20 minutes.
Defcon is meant to be a hacker con, which is true. Also, there is a strong drinking culture present, fist time speakers must drink a shot (and attendees demand it loudly).
Track 2 @ 11 am! Might have to make the speaker take a shot.
— defcon parties @ cancelled (@defconparties) August 10, 2019
There is also a media server which is worth a look.
Conclusion
If you have the chance to attend Black Hat/Defcon you should give it a try. It is great to connect and develop your skills and I have met some great people and made new friends. For people who want to advance their career it is definetly great, but if it is your first conference you might consider to go to a smaller event. The atmosphere in Las Vegas is somewhat special, with the hotels, the casinos and the tourists around.
While I wrotethearticles about how to start a pentesting career I came accross more great resources that I did not mention before, so here they are. Most of it is hands-on :).
The Complete Beginner Network Penetration Testing Course for 2019
The Hacker Playbook 3 Authors: Peter Kim Content: Main focus is on Red Teaming Career: Penetration Tester Level: Intermediate, Expert
This week I did read the great book The Hacker Playbook 3 by Peter Kim. The focus of the book lies on Red Teaming, it makes sense to read also the first two books if you do not have prior knowledge to penetration testing.
Content:
Difference between pentesting and red teaming
MITRE ATT&CK framework
Tools setup
Reconnaissance phase
optional lab setup & exercises
about web attacks like node.js, nosql injections, deserializiation attacks and more
hacking the (windows) network for example with responder, password spraying
privilege escalation with misconfigured services, exploit suggester and more
mimikatz magic of course
attacks on macs with empire
bloodhound and sharphound
lateral movement using different techniques
pivoting
social engineering campaings & physical attacks
recompile meterpreter dlls for avoiding detection
password cracking
write your own droppers
I highly recommend this book, especially if you are into Red Teaming it is a good resource. Maybe a report about owing the Cyber Space Kittens lab would have been nice, since reporting in Red Teaming is a non trivial task.
We learn Security! 