Penetration Test Assistance

Tue Jun 5 16:41:38 UTC 2012

Not discounting the need for network diagrams, there are also differing approaches to pen testing.  One alternative is a sort of black-box approach where the pen testers are given little or no advanced knowledge of the network. It is up to them to 'discover' what they can through open source means and commence their attacks from what they glean from their intelligence gathering.  This way they are realistically mimicking the hacker methodology. 

Ron Baklarz C|CISO, CISSP, CISA, CISM, NSA-IAM/IEM 
Chief Information Security Officer
Export Control Compliance Officer
National Passenger Railroad Corporation (AMTRAK)
10 G Street, NE  Office 6E606 
Washington, DC 20002   
BaklarR at Amtrak.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Green, Timothy [mailto:Timothy.Green at ManTech.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 10:53 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Penetration Test Assistance

Howdy all,

I'm a Security Manager of a large network, we are conducting a Pentest next month and the testers are demanding a complete network diagram of the entire network.  We don't have a "complete" network diagram that shows everything and everywhere we are.  At most we have a bunch of network diagrams that show what we have in various areas throughout the country. I've been asking the network engineers for over a month and they seem to be too lazy to put it together or they have no idea where everything is.

I've never been in this situation before.  Should I be honest to the testers and tell them here is what we have, we aren't sure if it's accurate;  find everything else?  How would they access those areas that we haven't identified?   How can I give them access to stuff that I didn't know existed?

What do you all do with your large networks?  One huge network diagram, a bunch of network diagrams separated by region, or both?  Any pentest horror stories?

Thanks,

Tim

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