Ethical Hacking: Week 4

Question 1

Types of Hackers

Answer 1

1) White Hat:
Acts with authorisation

2) Black Hat:
Acts without authorisation

3) Gray Hat:
Sometimes good guy, sometimes bad

Question 2

Leetspeak

Answer 2

Higher leetification, harder to read

Question 3

Types of Pen Testing

Answer 3

1) Whitebox
- Tester is aiming to be thorough
- Tests all known aspects of a system/network and doesn’t try to cover their tracks (‘overt’)
- Detailed info regarding target is known

2) Blackbox
- Hackers will attacking ‘stealth’ mode (‘covert’)
- Attacker have minimal or no pre-knowledge of the target system
- Employees may be tested (eg. helpdesk, call centre)

Question 4

Pen Testing Activities

Answer 4

1) Reconnaissance
- Preliminary information gathering, when you don’t know much information about the system.
- Eg. Google dorking, social engineering, dumpster diving

2) Scanning (and Enumeration)
- Gather information about vulnerabilities
- Eg. Use tools such as nmap/zenmap to find open ports and the services/application running behind then with that check with the Public Domain Vulnerability Database to find potential vulnerability that can be exploited for next stage.

3) Exploitation
- Exploit vulnerabilities
- Makes use of external references to vulnerabilities to do exploits

4) Maintaining Access
- For whitehats, it might a whole day to get to a certain stage (breaking through multiple layers), hence they will want to maintain access so they do not have to repeat this process again the next day, so they will set up a backdoor to continue from where they left off.
- For blackhat is similar, if he managed to gain access to a weaker neighbour he will want to maintain access so he can continue from where he left off to work his way to the main system.
- Eg. Backdoor tools: NetCat

5) Covering Tracks
- For whitehats, similarly need to clean up when finish restoring to the original state before returning to the client.
- For blackhats, once getting what you want need to cover the tracks so no one will easily find out the loss of confidentiality, preventing investigation and patches.
- Eg. Tools: windows features: explorer/command prompt, tools

6) Penetration Test Report (Whitehat)
- Pentest scope and objectives
- Record of findings during pentest
- Specific advice on how to close the vulnerabilities
- Steps to be followed by clients in future
- Delivered directly to an officer of the client organization