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Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

sophron.github.io

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#41
Is this pen testing or a puzzle?

I can kind of get behind the malformed header. But I have very hard time thinking up any suite of actions that would lead to a code resulting in leaked obfuscated query with a hard coded password. All while password somehow using a LIKE statement matching a sql injection.

Is there any precedent for this?

Edit: rewrote my sentence because it was barely readable.

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect these would be realistic vulnerabilities introduced by freelance or inexperienced devs hired by a startup, for example. They might have hardcoded admin-level passwords for debugging, then forgotten about it. They might have mis-typed HTTP headers like 'set-cookie', after having written manually a lot of auth & session management that should really be done using well-vetted libraries instead.

Respectfully, you are incorrect. Delegating session and cookie management to the framework or (in php's case) the language is so much simpler that I have seen manual implementations of this behavior only 2-3 times in my career. And the idea that logging in incorrectly would somehow return a malformed, but correct, session-setting header is again, pathological. Most of the time, these types of profound errors come fro…

> once worked with a poor guy who was dynamically generating individual IDs for each element on a page and their corresponding CSS for each page

That looks like what modern bigcorp webapps do, with random looking css class names that change every release.

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#44
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect these would be realistic vulnerabilities introduced by freelance or inexperienced devs hired by a startup, for example. They might have hardcoded admin-level passwords for debugging, then forgotten about it. They might have mis-typed HTTP headers like 'set-cookie', after having written manually a lot of auth & session management that should really be done using well-vetted libraries instead.

Respectfully, you are incorrect. Delegating session and cookie management to the framework or (in php's case) the language is so much simpler that I have seen manual implementations of this behavior only 2-3 times in my career. And the idea that logging in incorrectly would somehow return a malformed, but correct, session-setting header is again, pathological. Most of the time, these types of profound errors come fro…

I can see both of your viewpoints, here. I wouldn't make the blanket statement that OP is incorrect. The fact that you have only seen this a handful of times in your career is not surprising. This sort of silly bullshit is far less common nowadays. However, as OP has stated, these things were somewhat more common a while back. Mind you, much of this very poorly written software is still being used in dusty corners by large companies. You should keep an open mind when testing and not dismiss these things are outright impossible or else you're going to miss a lot of bugs :P

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#45
> Some of them claim to possess industry-accepted certificates

I'll trust them on that claim. But is my $100 getting me an industry-certified analysis?

I could hire a licensed MD Engineer Pharmacist Cosmetologist Veterinarian to walk my dog for me, but I don't expect them to perform heart surgery for $100

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#46
post #41

Is this pen testing or a puzzle? I can kind of get behind the malformed header. But I have very hard time thinking up any suite of actions that would lead to a code resulting in leaked obfuscated query with a hard coded password. All while password somehow using a LIKE statement matching a sql injection. Is there any precedent for this? Edit: rewrote my sentence because it was barely readable.

Not-invented-here (NIH) coders end up worrying about this kind of situation. People who develop "creative" systems by working ground-up starting with foundational system logic. They create proprietary systems really fast, and those proprietary systems often do some wackadoodle things in the name of internal logic.

As a result, those systems are typically harder to maintain or secure by just anybody, even by some experts who are not from the NIH mindset (here's where the author's approach isn't really fair, IMO). Proprietary systems are are less likely to present the typical bell curve security issues that an automated scanner would pick up.

What they are more vulnerable to is puzzle logic--the "what's going on here, hmm let's have a tinker" approach. Which is exactly what the author presented and it also matches his broader approach of "let's have a tinker...with freelancers".

It's a subjective security vs. objective security approach. Both sides are important. But both sides should know about how the other side works.

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#47
post #35

This is a common problem when hiring supposed experts. Unless the one doing the hiring is reasonably skilled in the area being hired for, it is very difficult to judge the skill and quality of the candidate.

This statement ignores the prices. Just look at the prices and you'll see there's no way anyone thinks they're paying for an expert.

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#48

So how would someone know they have connected to a honeypot? Presumably detecting this sort of thing is deliberately difficult, otherwise there isn't much point of the honeypot?

Some SSH honeypots accept more than one password for root. So, if 'letmein' and 'changeme' get you a root shell, it's probably a honeypot... but it could be a very broken PAM config as well (I have seen this firsthand).

Re: Penetration testing and low-cost freelancing

#50
post #23

People are paying pentesters because their payer’s policy asks them to. Of course there will be a huge market for someone with an alleged certification to run automated tools, the value is in the box checking and report generation, not the bespoke broken website fixing.

Obviously this is a bit of a reaching statement, some organizations understand the legal, career, and regulatory risk and proactively do it. In every org I've sat down with the head to explain those risks, I can see how it can be made priority and budget.

Can we collectively refrain from making comments like this on Hacker News—or in any venue, for that matter? Is it that hard to read an assumed “In my experience, it is often the case that…” in front of everyone’s comment?
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