Sensepost assessment automation
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This document discusses the automation of penetration testing and vulnerability assessments. It introduces BiDiBLAH, a tool created by SensePost to automate parts of their assessment methodology. The document outlines which steps of the methodology can be easily automated by BiDiBLAH, such as footprinting, fingerprinting, targeting, vulnerability discovery with Nessus, and exploitation with Metasploit. More challenging areas for automation include steps with exceptions or non-standard processes. The document demonstrates BiDiBLAH performing automated tasks and discusses considerations for releasing the tool to balance security and usability.
![Automation of footprint
Pheeww…glad that’s over!
Which steps are difficult to automate & why?
• Domain finding
• works semi OK, but never complete [not implemented]
• currently, you can learn a lot from reverse entries
• Sub domain finding – easy - [DONE]
• Forwards – easy - [DONE]
• Netblocks – difficult…
• AS expansion is not always good for smaller (hosted) blocks.
• Whois info on these blocks are pretty unless.
• No standard interface to registrars
• [Currently set to manual]
• Reverse scans – easy - [DONE]
• Vitality – easy [DONE (tcp only)]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sensepostassessmentautomation-111028104348-phpapp01/85/Sensepost-assessment-automation-23-320.jpg)
![Methodology: targeting
With a great deal of potential targets, we want to be able to select
only those that really interests us.
Targetting system should be able to target using
• Certain/All open ports (in all netblocks, or certain netblocks)
• – e.g. all open on TCP 53
• Keywords in service banners
• – e.g. wuftp*
• Keywords in DNS names
• – e.g. PRT*
• All hosts in a specific netblock
• – e.g. all in 172.16.43.0/24
• Particular OSes of version of OS [a problem - we don’t have it]
• - e.g. MS Windows XP SP1
• Certain keywords within vulnerability descriptions (later more)
• - e.g. RPC*](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sensepostassessmentautomation-111028104348-phpapp01/85/Sensepost-assessment-automation-30-320.jpg)
Sensepost assessment automation
- 1. Assessment automation: Deux ex Machina || Rube Goldberg Machine? 2005 LAS VEGAS
- 2. • Before we begin….you can find all of this at: • http://www.sensepost.com/research/bidiblah • As promised at Amsterdam…E-Or release! • http://www.sensepost.com/research/eor • (web application scanner) • Time considerations… • Shows in Vegas…
- 3. Introduction SensePost has done hundreds of external assessment Tried and trusted methodology So…in search of an automated assessment tool This talk is about: • What is this methodology? • Can it be automated? • Where does automation really work well? • Where does it simply suck? • Why does it fail? (and can it be corrected?) • Implications for penetration testers
- 4. Principles of automation To have an automatic process we need to code it To code it we need to have an algorithm or flow In order to have an algorithm or flow it we need to understand the process To understand the process we need to have done it many times If you cannot write the process down on paper you probably don’t understand it completely Exceptions on the rule – the root of all evil Tradeoffs – if it will work in 99.99% of cases and will take me 2 months to code support for the 0.01% of cases…is it worth it?
- 5. Weird perceptions Unix good….Windows baaaad! (meeaaaaa) ‘Hard core’ hackers will tell you that Windows sucks. GUI apps limit you to do complex things Problem is not the OS – it’s the implementation of the GUI People think that, because it’s a GUI app, it needs to be “dumbed down” People think that, because it’s a GUI app, it needs to user friendly People think that, because it’s a GUI app, stupid people will use it Unix command line tools are mostly “fire and forget” Unix command line tools are not interactive Unix makes it hard to write X11 interfaces – so ppl stick to text based interfaces BiDiBLAH uses “hot” text boxes – you can copy and paste & grep and awk and sed all you wish
- 6. The demos you are about to see… BiDiBLAH is a tool for doing attacks/assessments Its built for large networks …we don’t have a large network …but our clients do …but we don’t want to show their network …no...we don’t…really… SO: Passive: IBM,Playboy Active: SensePost/VMWare There’s just too much risk in doing this live …but everything you see is real (some time lapse in places – I’ll tell you where)
- 10. Methodology:Footprint:Find domains Initial domain TLD expansion Name expansion Related domains Content matching Network (MX/NS/IP) matching Meta data Final domain matching list
- 11. Methodology: Footprinting: Find subdomains
- 12. Video 1 – BiDiBLAH’s footprinting : Sub domains (5 minutes)
- 13. Methodology: Footprinting: Forward DNS entries Domain / subdomain MX/NS records ZT possible? Hit lists yes Perform forward All forwards
- 14. Video 2 – BiDiBLAH’s footprinting : Forwards (3min per domain)
- 16. Video 3 – BiDiBLAH footprinting : NetBlocks
- 17. Methodology: Footprint: Reverse DNS
- 18. Video 4 – BiDiBLAH’s footprinting : Reverse DNS (5min/ClassC)
- 20. Vitality : Async scanning
- 21. Video 5 - BiDiBLAH – Vitality (SensePost network) 2min/port/classB
- 23. Automation of footprint Pheeww…glad that’s over! Which steps are difficult to automate & why? • Domain finding • works semi OK, but never complete [not implemented] • currently, you can learn a lot from reverse entries • Sub domain finding – easy - [DONE] • Forwards – easy - [DONE] • Netblocks – difficult… • AS expansion is not always good for smaller (hosted) blocks. • Whois info on these blocks are pretty unless. • No standard interface to registrars • [Currently set to manual] • Reverse scans – easy - [DONE] • Vitality – easy [DONE (tcp only)]
- 24. Why should you care about footprinting?? Finding one vulnerability on one box vs Finding the one box with one vulnerability…
- 25. SensePost external methodology So, where are we now?
- 26. Methodology: Fingerprinting OS detection from the Internet to a firewalled host is difficult…Not just technically, but conceptually : An Apache box protected by a FireWall-1 running on Win32 and 1:1NAT will report itself as a Windows machines on a network level…but as a Unix machine on app level..so what will it be?? BiDiBLAH does not try to do OS detection, but rather just do banner grabbing Using Async banner grabbing for 21,22,25,80,110,143 Multithreaded 443 (SSL) Any banner/version can be grabbed asynchronously but it gets increasingly tricky..
- 27. Async banner grabbing – the process
- 28. Video 6 - BiDiBLAH: Async banner grabbing (2000 banners / 3 min)
- 29. SensePost external methodology So, where are we now?
- 30. Methodology: targeting With a great deal of potential targets, we want to be able to select only those that really interests us. Targetting system should be able to target using • Certain/All open ports (in all netblocks, or certain netblocks) • – e.g. all open on TCP 53 • Keywords in service banners • – e.g. wuftp* • Keywords in DNS names • – e.g. PRT* • All hosts in a specific netblock • – e.g. all in 172.16.43.0/24 • Particular OSes of version of OS [a problem - we don’t have it] • - e.g. MS Windows XP SP1 • Certain keywords within vulnerability descriptions (later more) • - e.g. RPC*
- 31. Video 7 – BiDiBLAH - Targeting
- 32. SensePost external methodology So, where are we now?
- 33. Methodology: Vulnerability discovery Why reinvent the wheel? Use a solid, widely used scanner: Nessus… Thus…we write a Nessus client.. Give the user the ability to choose a set of plugins ..and let him save the list.. Thus – you can choose *all* plugins (if you are doing an assessment), or you can choose one plugin (if you are looking throughout your whole network for a particular problem) Scans are executed against what was marked as targets
- 34. Video 8 - BiDiBLAH: Plugin selection
- 35. Video 9 – BiDiBLAH vulnerability discovery
- 36. SensePost external methodology So, where are we now?
- 37. Methodology: Vulnerability exploitation Why reinvent the wheel? Use a solid, widely used exploitation framework: MetaSploit! Thus…we write a MetaSploit client.. Problem with MetaSploit – its very operating system specific ….and we DON’T KNOW the OS… Don’t specify target and hope for the best – hopefully it will brute force. Use Nessus to identify the weakness, MetaSploit to exploit it Thus … we need a NessusID to MetaSploit sploit name list We built it (thanks GP), and wrote plugins as needed Hopefully it can be an attribute of the sploit (looks at HD..) RHOST, SSL, LHOST – all known to us RPORT known via Nessus scanner Let the user choose the playload and additional parameters
- 38. Video 10 – BiDiBLAH exploitaion (VMware server)
- 39. SensePost external methodology So…we are done? In a perfect world…yes... In the real world we have false positives, we have to moderate Nessus results, and we have to write !=*|||(ing reports!!!
- 40. Video 11 - advance targeting and reporting
- 41. The Bottom line BiDiBLAH does 80% of the work within 20% of time it takes us The last 20% of the work takes 80% of the project time Some steps in the methodology are really hard to automate This is usually where things are “non-standard”, or an exception It would hopefully raise the bar on mediocre “pen testing” companies Release considerations Group1: “Surely you will not release this to the world – you arming script kiddies with dangerous point and click hacking tools!!? Group2: “Where do we download it? Thus: crippled version (20min run time, no save) released at http://www.sensepost.com/research/bidiblah Full version available on request
- 42. EXTRA: E-Or release Web APPLICATION assessment tool •http://www.sensepost.com/research/eor