Physical Penetration Testing is an assessment that involves testing physical security controls to see where they might fail. While this can include a number of different activities, including social engineering, many doors and locks are designed to simply slow down an attacker, not completely protect against one. At RSM, we constructed a sample door for demonstration and ... READ MORE
A Beginner’s Guide to the CVE process
Before I got into the security field full time, I made it my goal to someday discover a previously unpublished exploit that would warrant the assignment of a CVE. I was always amazed at the constantly updated Exploit-DB list and wanted to be able to make my own contribution to the database. This month, I was finally able to accomplish my goal and submit my first two ... READ MORE
CTF Example – Social Engineering
When a client requests a Social Engineering assessment, they are wanting to test any weaknesses found in the people themselves, not necessarily technology. After all, it's often easier to just ask someone directly for their password instead of trying to find an exploit for an application. In the context of a penetration test, typically this takes the form of impersonating ... READ MORE
CTF Example – Physical Challenges
In the Physical Challenge category, problems are focused on simulating technical skills that a consultant might have to use on an asssessment. Two major skills that come in handy are knowledge about lockpicking and security cameras. Lockpicking Lockpicking is something of both an art and a science. The scientific part is easy to understand as illustrated by this fantastic ... READ MORE
CTF Example – Web Application Security Part II
In our previous post, we talked about using robots.txt to uncover hidden information about a target website. By the end of this post you should be able to: Use dirb to spider a website for directory content Use Burp to attempt a brute forcing attack You will need the following: Kali Linux virtual machine installed and ready to go The following ISO file ... READ MORE
CTF Example – Hacking
CTF Example – Hacking Although hacking can have multiple different meanings, in the context of the RSM CTF the hacking category focuses on the active exploitation of vulnerable services. In this blog, you should expect to come away with the following skills: Use VMWare to set up and configure a safe test lab environment Use Nmap to find out what services are running on ... READ MORE
Running a Data URI Phishing Campaign with King Phisher
Data URI Phishing with King Phisher One of the newest techniques being blogged about in the security world is phishing through the data URI. Thanks to a viral Twitter post, many sites like Wordfence have published specific advisories to warn users about this type of attack. What makes this technique so effective is the ability to create a convincing address in the address bar. ... READ MORE
CTF Example – Forensics
You might not realize it, but your files say a lot about your identity. Whenever you take a picture on a digital camera or cell phone, essential information called metadata is written into the image file. This data can include things like the model of camera, whether or not the flash fired, date, time, and even GPS coordinates. EXIF data is a specific subset of metadata ... READ MORE
Bypassing Gmail’s Malicious Macro Signatures
Malicious macros in Excel spreadsheets are one of the most common methods of delivery in phishing attacks. If the premise is enticing enough, an unsuspecting user may download the document and enable macros which could result in arbitrary code being run on their system. In order to simulate a phishing campaign from an attacker, we at RSM will typically utilize the macro ... READ MORE
Leveraging MS16-032 with PowerShell Empire
It's not very often in the life of a pentester that you find a point-and-click exploit that works right out of the box. Most public scripts are simple proofs of concept that don't work in every scenario and must be modified to perform the desired action. In fact, the OSCP course from Offensive Security has a big section dedicated to altering existing code to make it work for a ... READ MORE