Project Report

on

Project by - Nutan Kumar Panda

Technology Evangelist ISEH
R&D - ATL Guwahati

An Introduction
Penetration tests are a great way to identify vulnerabilities that exists in a
system or network that has an existing security measures in place. A
penetration test usually involves the use of attacking methods conducted by
trusted individuals that are similarly used by hostile intruders or hackers.
Depending on the type of test that is conducted, this may involve a simple
scan of an IP addresses to identify machines that are offering services with
known vulnerabilities or even exploiting known vulnerabilities that exists in
an unpatched operating system. The results of these tests or attacks are
then documented and presented as report to the owner of the system and
the vulnerabilities identified can then be resolved. Bear in mind that a
penetration test does not last forever. Depending on the organization
conducting the tests, the time frame to conduct each test varies. A
penetration test is basically an attempt to breach the security of a network
or system and is not a full security audit. This means that it is no more than
a view of a systems security at a single moment in time. At this time, the
known vulnerabilities, weaknesses or misconfigured systems have not
changed within the time frame the penetration test is conducted.
Penetration testing is often done for two reasons. This is either to increase
upper management awareness of security issues or to test intrusion
detection and response capabilities. It also helps in assisting the higher
management in decision-making processes. The management of an
organization might not want to address all the vulnerabilities that are found
in a vulnerability assessment but might want to address its system
weaknesses that are found through a penetration test. This can happen as
addressing all the weaknesses that are found in a vulnerability assessment
can be costly and most organizations might not be able allocate the budget
to do this.
Penetration tests can have serious consequences for the network on which
they are run. If it is being badly conducted it can cause congestion and
systems crashing. In the worst case scenario, it can result in the exactly the
thing it is intended to prevent. This is the compromise of the systems by
unauthorized intruders. It is therefore vital to have consent from the
management of an organization before conducting a penetration test on its
systems or network.

TITLE OF THE PROJECT

Penetration Testing Using Backtrack:
BackTrack is the worlds leading penetration testing and information security
auditing distribution. With hundreds of tools preinstalled and configured to run out
of the box, BackTrack 4 provides a solid Penetration testing platform from Web
application Hacking to RFID auditing its all working in once place.

What is Penetration Testing?

Much of the confusion surrounding penetration testing stems from the fact it is a relatively recent
and rapidly evolving field. Additionally, many organizations will have their own internal
terminology (one man's penetration test is another's vulnerability audit or technical risk
assessment).
At its simplest, a penetration-test (actually, we prefer the term security assessment) is the process
of actively evaluating your information security measures. Note the emphasis on 'active'
assessment; the information systems will be tested to find any security issues, as opposed to a
solely theoretical or paper-based audit.
The results of the assessment will then be documented in a report, which should be presented at a
debriefing session, where questions can be answered and corrective strategies can be freely
discussed.

Objective and Scope

Why Conduct A Penetration Testing?
From a business perspective, penetration testing helps safeguard your organization against
failure, through:

Preventing financial loss through fraud (hackers, extortionists and disgruntled employees)
or through lost revenue due to unreliable business systems and processes.

Proving due diligence and compliance to your industry regulators, customers and
shareholders. Non-compliance can result in your organization losing business, receiving heavy
fines, gathering bad PR or ultimately failing. At a personal level it can also mean the loss of
your job, prosecution and sometimes even imprisonment.

Protecting your brand by avoiding loss of consumer confidence and business reputation.
From an operational perspective, penetration testing helps shape information security strategy
through:

Identifying vulnerabilities and quantifying their impact and likelihood so that they can be
managed proactively; budget can be allocated and corrective measures implemented.

What can be tested?

All parts of the way that your organization captures, stores and processes information can be
assessed; the systems that the information is stored in, the transmission channels that transport it,
and the processes and personnel that manage it. Examples of areas that are commonly tested are:

Off-the-shelf products (operating systems, applications, databases, networking equipment

etc.)

Bespoke development (dynamic web sites, in-house applications etc.)

Telephony (war-dialing, remote access etc.)

Wireless (WIFI, Bluetooth, IR, GSM, RFID etc.)

Personnel (screening process, social engineering etc.)

Physical (access controls, dumpster diving etc.)

What should be tested?

Ideally, your organization should have already conducted a risk assessment, so will be aware of
the main threats (such as communications failure, e-commerce failure, loss of confidential
information etc.), and can now use a security assessment to identify any vulnerabilities that are
related to these threats. If you haven't conducted a risk assessment, then it is common to start
with the areas of greatest exposure, such as the public facing systems; web sites, email gateways,
remote access platforms etc.
Sometimes the 'what' of the process may be dictated by the standards that your organization is
required to comply with? For example, a credit-card handling standard (like PCI) may require
that all the components that store or process card-holder data are assessed.

Feasibility Study
In this section the assessment is done over the service that can
be implemented or not. It refers to feasibility study of the
Backtrack in terms of outcome, operation ability, technical
support. The studies done according to some criteria like:
Economic Feasibility, Operational Feasibility & Technical
feasibility.

Eonomic Feasibility:
Its the study of output of Penetration testing done by backtrack.
This product is economicaly feasible as this is freeware. This also
provide the following benefits to the org.

Reduce processing time

Reduce work load
Administration is effective
One System monitoring and working

Operational Feasibility:
This study refers to if the product is operational or not & this is
operational for any kind of organization small network (single pc)
or a large network.

Technical feasibility:
This system has its prominent parts for which online support is
there in their respective websites. So nothing to bother about the
technical feasibility.