Conducting Network Penetration and Espionage in a Global Environment

Chapter 9

Building a Penetration Testing Lab

• Only through practice can someone improve his skills.
• Keep things as simple as possible—don’t unnecessarily complicate.
• Re-creating old exploits is great practice.
• A pen test lab must be completely isolated from any other network.
• Cabled and wireless pen test labs should be isolated from one another.
• Once you break into your wireless, move to your cabled.
• You could put in shielding to have your secure lab not leak wireless signals.
• You must secure the pen test lab from any and all unauthorized access.
• Some of the things a malicious user would like to know is:
  • IP addresses of machines
  • Operating system versions
  • Patch versions
  • Configuration files
  • Login files
  • Start-up scripts
• Be paranoid.
• Change appliance ...