Identify Network Security Weaknesses
The state of information security evolves as quickly as the technology it’s built on. For network penetration testing that goes far beyond an automated vulnerability scanner, you need experts in the industry that posess deep experience. You need White Knight Labs.
White Knight Labs’ methodology for network pentesting exceeds standard vulnerability analysis. With decades of combined security experience, our engineering team will identify, exploit, and document the most subtle of network vulnerabilities. When you’re concerned about your network security, you want only the best cyber consultancy on the job.
Why Do You Need a Network Penetration Test?
A network penetration test provides your organization with a unique perspective of your network security defenses. Newer companies may not yet have a handle on their network security. Conversely, more mature companies often have large, multi-faceted networks that contain easily overlooked elements—particularly as more organizations transition from on-premises hardware to cloud-based systems and IoT. Both of these scenarios leave the potential for catastrophic breaches.
In either case, your company will be made aware of security flaws before attackers can exploit them. With this powerful insight, business leaders will be prepared to make risk-based, impact-focused decisions regarding their enterprise’s security. In demonstrating your newly hardened security posture, your clients, partners, and investors will feel confident in your ability to protect their assets.
Manual vs Automated Network Testing
The trouble with using automated scanners is that these prodcust only provide a shallow look at a network’s attack surface. Very often, these scanners miss subtle security risks — it takes an experienced individual to understand the application context and how logic could be abused. Many vulnerabilities simply are not found in these automated vulnerability scanners due to the inability to string multiple vulnerabilties together.
White Knight Labs’ expert cyber operators will employ the help of vulnerability scanners in the preliminary stages of an assessment to get a ‘first look’ before performing a deep dive. With granular understanding of the application and its context, we can tailor assessments to your clientele and individual security needs.
Our Services
External Network Assessment
Your perimeter network is being attacked every single day. Seemingly insignificant vulnerabilities can be extremely damaging. External network penetration testing identifies vulnerabilities on infrastructure, devices, and servers accessible from the internet.
External penetration testing assesses the security posture of the routers, firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and other security appliances which filter malicious traffic from the internet.
Internal Network Assessment
White Knight Labs’ engineers emulate a malicous insider’s approach to attacking the local area network. We hunt for information pertaining to the company’s competitive advantage and other sensitive assets. This involves incorporating a variety of tools, uncovering and reusing user credentials, and attempting to compromise both virtual and physical machines present in the network environment.
The benefit of an internal assessment is ensuring a breach of your external perimeter will not lead to a breach of your critical assets.
Wireless Network Pentesting
Wireless (WiFi) networks may be susceptible to a myriad of attacks, depending on the wireless clients, access points, and wireless configurations. New exploitations against WiFi networks are being developed every day, such as the recent KRACK vulnerability which allowed malicious actors to break the encryption protocol between most routers and connected devices.
Wifi is a hotly pursued target, as a compromise of the wireless network is generally the fastest means to the internal network. Poor configuration and weak protections could leave your internal information exposed to anyone in range with a laptop or smartphone. As such, White knight tests the range of the network in addition to the range of potential vulnerabilities. This includes testing for ‘Wireless Bleeding,’ where we identify the distance at which a potential attacker can pick up your wireless signal.
Our Network Pentest Methodology
1 – Network Scope
Effective communication with the client organization is emphasized here to create an operating environment comfortable to both parties. During this phase, we accomplish all of the following:
- Outline which assets of the organization are open to be scanned and tested.
- Discuss exclusions from the assessment, such as specific IP addresses or services.
- Confirm the official testing period and timezones, if relevant
2 – Information Gathering
White Knight Labs ’ pentester collect as much information as they can on the target, employing a myriad of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) tools and techniques. The gathered data will help us to understand the operating conditions of the organization, which allows us to assess risk accurately as the engagement progresses. Targeted intelligence might include
- External network IP Addresses and Hosting Providers Known credential leaks
- Domains in use by the organization
- Misconfigured web-servers and leaked data
- IoT systems in use by the organization
3 – Enumeration and Vulnerability Scanning
In this phase, we utilize a variety of automated tools and scripts among other methods of advanced information gathering. We also take the time to closely examine all possible attack vectors. In the next stage, this gathering and planning will be the basis for our exploitation attempts.
- Enumerating subdomains and directories
- Open ports or services
- Checking possible misconfigurations against cloud services
- Correlating publicly and proprietary vulnerabilities with applications on the network
4 – Attack and Penetration
After careful preparation, focus turns to exploiting the discovered network vulnerabilities. White Knight engineers begin working to prove the existence of conceptual attack vectors while preserving the integrity of the network. At this point in the engagement, we begin the following tasks:
- Compromising sandboxes and test environments
- Using breached credentials or brute force to access privileged information
- Combining attack vectors to pivot across the network or escalate our position in it
5 – Reporting and Documentation
Reporting is critical to the success of the assessment, as it provides the lasting documentation to share with management and vendors. Each report is customized to the specific scope of the assessment and risk based on the individual organization. The reports are intuitive to read, but thorough in the findings. In addition, each vulnerability includes a detailed remediation strategy. Some of the elements that you will find in our reports include:
- An executive summary for strategic direction
- A walkthrough of technical risks
- Multiple options for vulnerability remediation
- The potential impact of each vulnerability
6 – Remediation Testing
As an additional service, White Knight Labs will revisit an assessment after an organization has had some time to patch vulnerabilities. We will retrace our steps from the engagement to ensure changes were implemented properly. Our engineers will also search for new vulnerabilities associated with the updates, such as misconfigurations in the network or flaws in a new software implementation. At this point, we will update our previous assessment to reflect the new state of the system.
