Penetration Testing

Web Application Penetration Testing

Web Application Penetration Testing is a crucial process in ensuring the security and integrity of a web application. That involves thoroughly examining the application for any potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses that could be exploited by malicious actors. Here are the main steps involved in conducting a comprehensive Web Application Penetration Testing:

1. Mapping the attack surface

This step involves identifying and understanding all the components and functionalities of the web application that could potentially be targeted by attackers. By mapping the attack surface, we can ensure that no area is left unexplored.

2. Footprinting every aspect of the application

In this step, we gather information about the web application, such as its technologies, frameworks, and infrastructure. This helps us understand the underlying structure of the application and identify potential vulnerabilities.

3. Analysis of all entry points

We thoroughly analyze all the entry points of the web eapplication, such as user input fields, APIs, and authentication mechanisms. By doing so, we can identify any weak points that could be exploited by attackers.

4. Deconstruction of application architecture

This step involves breaking down the application's architecture and examining each component in detail. By deconstructing the application architecture, we can identify any flaws or weaknesses that could be exploited.

5. Selecting the right tools and attack vectors

We carefully select the appropriate tools and attack vectors based on the specific characteristics of the web application. This ensures that we use the most effective methods to identify vulnerabilities.

6. Cleaning results from automated tools

Automated tools are used to scan the web application and identify potential vulnerabilities. However, it is important to manually review and validate the results to eliminate false positives and ensure accurate findings.

7. Manual testing regarding the gathered information

In addition to automated tools, manual testing is also conducted to further validate the vulnerabilities identified. This involves simulating real-world attack scenarios to assess the security posture of the web application.

8. Manual exploitation of discovered vulnerabilities

Once vulnerabilities are identified, we proceed with manual exploitation to determine the impact and severity of each vulnerability. By exploiting the vulnerabilities, we can provide a more accurate assessment of the potential risks

9. Preparing a detailed report with all discovered vulnerabilities

Finally, we compile all the findings and vulnerabilities discovered during the penetration testing process into a comprehensive report. This report includes detailed information about each vulnerability, its potential impact, and recommendations for remediation.

By following these steps, we can ensure a thorough and effective web application penetration testing process that helps identify and mitigate potential security risks.

External Infrastructure Penetration Testing

External infrastructure Penetration Testing aims to identify and address vulnerabilities in the perimeter of an organization's IT environment. It includes all the digital assets, services, and resources exposed to the Internet. The external infrastructure is, therefore, more vulnerable to potential cyber threats as it is directly accessible from the outside.

We test the external infrastructure in several cycles, each consisting of a Reconnaissance and a Exploiting phase.

1. Reconnaissance phase

  • conducting in-depth reconnaissance by scanning open ports and available services using automated and manual tools
  • thoroughly identifying the versions of third-party services and meticulously uncovering any known vulnerabilities
  • engaging in OSINT (Open-source intelligence) activities to gather information across the entire perimeter, including public IP addresses, third-party services, VPN gateways, and more
  • utilizing OSINT techniques to gather information about employees, email addresses, leaked passwords, and other sensitive information relevant to the assessment

2. Exploiting phase

  • manually exploiting known vulnerabilities of third-party services
  • conducting automated and manual penetration testing of custom services, including web applications
  • performing brute-force attacks against login pages of services and VPN gateways using leaked passwords and common passwords

3. Repeating phases 1 and 2 as necessary based on the discovered facts

4. Final Report

  • documenting all gathered information about the tested external infrastructure
  • reporting all findings and vulnerabilities
  • providing a summary for the IT Team with all necessary steps to strengthen the perimeter

External Infrastructure Penetration Testing is a critical component of an organization's cybersecurity strategy, helping to proactively identify and address weaknesses before they can be exploited by malicious actors.

Internal Infrastructure Penetration Testing

Internal Infrastructure Penetration Testing is a comprehensive security assessment service designed to evaluate the robustness of an organization's internal network. The primary goal is to assess and validate the security measures implemented within an organization's internal network.

During this type of penetration testing, our objective is to simulate the actions of an insider attacker or a group of attackers who have already gained initial access to the system.

  1. conducting reconnaissance to gather detailed information about the internal network, including IP addresses, domain names, and network topology
  2. documenting relevant information about internal systems, applications, and any potential entry points that could be exploited by malicious actors
  3. utilizing automated scanning tools to analyze the internal network for any known vulnerabilities or weaknesses
  4. performing manual verification and validation of identified vulnerabilities to ensure accuracy and eliminate any false positives that may arise
  5. actively attempting to exploit the identified vulnerabilities in order to gain unauthorized access and assess the effectiveness of existing security measures
  6. engaging in lateral movement within the network to simulate the actions that an attacker might take after gaining initial access
  7. investigating privilege escalation techniques to determine the extent of potential security breaches and assess the overall risk level
  8. exploring methods of persistence to understand how an attacker could maintain access to the network over an extended period of time
  9. simulating various activities that an attacker might carry out after gaining initial access, such as data exfiltration or further compromise of sensitive information

By following these steps, organizations can conduct a thorough Internal Infrastructure Penetration Test to identify and address security weaknesses, ultimately enhancing the overall security posture of their internal network.

Cloud Security Assessment

Cloud Security Assessment is focused on security in the cloud. It means that we review and test controls that secure data, secure the operating system, protect the network layer, manage logical access and so on. The goal is to ensure that functionality and configuration options of individual Cloud services/resources follow established security standards.

We focus on these security principles during the security audit:

  • Principle of least privilege
  • Need-to-know principle
  • Enable traceability (monitor, alert, and audit actions and changes to your environment)
  • Apply security at all layers (VPC, every instance and compute service, operating system, application, code, etc.)
  • Protect data in transit and at rest (encryption, tokenization, access control)
  • Keep people away from data (protect sensitive or critical business data …)
  • Prepare for security events (incident response)

We have created our own checklist based on the following security frameworks and standards:

  • CIS
  • Haxoris Security - Services 6
  • PCI-DSS
  • ISO27001
  • GDPR
  • HIPAA
  • FFIEC
  • SOC2A

We also follow Cloud provider's security best practices such as:

Based on the results of our findings, we provide comprehensive recommendations to better protect your critical information assets, and increase data confidentiality, integrity and availability.