Assessing Network Security

Chapter 4. Conducting a Penetration Test

You have probably seen it in a movie: the attacker, sporting a five o’clock shadow or being too young to shave, sits down at the console and cracks his knuckles as sweat begins to soak through his shirt. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the lights are low. Someone from the back of the room asks the attacker whether he is sure he can do it—this is, after all, 128-bit encryption, and he has only 5 minutes to break it. The attacker appears confident, although he is inwardly very nervous. He starts typing. Six boxes in overly large font appear on the screen. As the attacker furiously pounds on the keys to a techno beat, the numbers appear in the boxes, slowly, one by one. Just before the time runs out, ...