The DMZ

6:11 AM

What do you usually use to make secured connections to targets (clients) in pentesting? I'd guess VPNs and SSH but what else? What kind of setup do you use for such jobs?

Also, when you add a backdoor (tmp), how do you obfuscate and hide your backdoors from outsiders?

I haven't done any real pentesting but I'm trying to learn those safety guidelines which I don't see very often so far.

MechMK1

8:44 AM

@JohnZhau Whatever the customer offers.

If the customer says "Here is a client certificate and an OpenVPN config", that's what I'll use for the job

Other customers will use SSH, or some bought-in solution from a vendor for remote access (there are tons)

@JohnZhau I don't add backdoors. The most "malicious" thing I add is a webshell and these are usually called webshell.php or webshell.jsp

@JohnZhau The reason you don't see any is because these are usually not formalized. Some people have a "clean up after yourself" guideline, but I just tell the customer to clean up after me instead

Sometimes, I have only the ability to upload files, but not to delete them, so I can't clean up after myself anyways

John Zhau

9:30 AM

Can you recommend me some good/common guides for these? Having unprotected shells and backdoors for the duration of a job is quite dangerous after all.

MechMK1

@JohnZhau That depends on the situation

If it's an internal host, then I don't worry. if it's a web-facing host, it depends who has access

For example, if it's a file that only my user and an administrator can access, then it's fine

Otherwise, we file it as critical vuln to be fixed immediately

MechMK1

12:29 PM

0

Q: Are there penetration labs for network penetration testing?

I am in search of penetration labs which are designed for network penetration testing or a lab which contains a portion of network pen-testing. Could anyone suggest about me that?

Man, these are the kinds of people who then complain about how StackExchange is unhelpful and elitist

Conor Mancone

1:36 PM

@MechMK1 lol, I like your last comment.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Yeah but it's true

Conor Mancone

Being ridiculous: clearly millennials are all terrible people.

MechMK1

Unironically agree with it though :D

Conor Mancone

Actually I think I might technically be a millennial...

and you're probably not...

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Aren't we all?

Conor Mancone

1:37 PM

(although I don't know how old you actually are)

MechMK1

Not all of them, mind you, but I see this so often with young people asking to having everything done for them

Man I sound like a grumpy old guy

Conor Mancone

Oh no, the millennial generation only recently "ended"

MechMK1

But back when I was young, we had to work for things :D

Conor Mancone

You should meet my oldest son. Luckily I still have plenty of years to beat it out of him

(no, I don't actually beat my children)

MechMK1

I didn't assume so

But I keep thinking of Tom's post regarding why people ask bad questions

He absolutely nails it

Anyways, how's your work going? I'm slowly going insane inside

Conor Mancone

1:48 PM

@MechMK1 What post?

@MechMK1 Yesterday was my official last day for my job (although I'm sending some emails at the moment). Tomorrow I talk with my new boss about goals for my first 6 months, and then Monday I start the new job. Today is lots and lots of unpacking! The last of my stuff arrived at our new house yesterday

Fire Quacker

This one, I think

51

A: Why do people post questions on here they can easily google an answer for?

Google-searching is a rarefying skill. It seems to be a question of generation. Let me put some historical context. In days of my youth (say, 25 years ago, in the late 1980s and early 1990s), when you wanted to learn about something, you went to the public library and looked it up in an encyclop...

MechMK1

@FireQuacker Yes, this one

I couldn't find it fast enough

@ConorMancone Nice. I helped my mom build a PC yesterday

Fire Quacker

@Conor, you could have searched just as easily. Why did you ask instead? ;)

Conor Mancone

@FireQuacker I like making other people do work for me :p

MechMK1

Typical <insert your generation>

Reminds me of Glenn Fricker from SMG:

Guy: "You're the only Boomer I respect"
Glenn: "I'm Gen X you idiot!"

Fire Quacker

1:55 PM

@ConorMancone I hope your new job is remote... A lot of places are starting to go on lockdown these days.

@MechMK1 To be honest, for many years, I assumed that millennials were the kids that were born around the year 2000. I was surprised when I found out I was a millennial.

It was sad because I'd missed so many chances to be offended by people.

MechMK1

I'm probably a millenial too

Early 80s to late 90s?

Fire Quacker

Something like that

MechMK1

You want to tell me someone born in 1982 is a millenial?

Fire Quacker

They'd be... less than 40...

MechMK1

Forgive me for defying Wikipedia, but someone age 38 is not a millenial to me

90s? Sure, that's millenial territory to me.

But certainly not the 80s

Nobody who listened to Can't Touch This as a kid can be a millenial.

Fire Quacker

2:03 PM

I grew up listening to hits from the 60s and 70s because that's what my dad liked...

MechMK1

Yes, but I am talking about contemporary music

Conor Mancone

I was also surprised when I discovered that my wife and I are technically Millenials (I'm '84). I always pictured them as 90s.

Although to be fair, labeling generations has got to be pretty silly. I suppose there are probably some similarities based on nation-wide events that happen when a particular generation are kids, etc... but I'm sure there are a million more important things to determine what someone is "like" before the decade they were born in.

@FireQuacker Most of the US employees are based out of Massachusetts, but I was actually hired as a remote employee (it's an international company and most of the people I'll be working with are in Spain, so they didn't require a local for this job). However, their entire work force is currently remote because of Covid19 anyway.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone I mean, there is some indication

For example, the reason why Boomers have gotten so much attention is because they are such an exceptionally large cohort

Meaning that they, in comparison to smaller cohorts, have more influence.

Conor Mancone

2:18 PM

@MechMK1 Yes, but that only matters so far as they have a coherent "opinion". They are still a very diverse group of people. Their only clearly uniting factor is their age. So, for instance, the opinions of boomers might matter as you discuss changes to nationwide retirement policies. However everytime I see articles about how millennials "feel" about some topic I'm always super dubious

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Yes, that is true. Statements like "Every Boomer thinks like ..." are stupid

But what boomers did do is to create systems that disproportionally benefit boomers more than other generations

In the UK, for example, there were so called fixed-benefit retirement plans for boomers, which means you are guaranteed to get a specific amount of money every month for the rest of your life.

These retirement plans were partially government supported, and partially paid for by the employers. The problem is, that people live a lot longer these days than was anticipated. So as a result, a company that thought they'd have to pay monthly for 15 years on average may now have to pay for 20-25 years average.

What happened? Younger workforce doesn't have access to these fixed-benefit plans anymore, and instead gets fixed-contribution plans. Meaning that at the end of their employment, they get one lump sum and that has to hold for the rest of their lives

Funnily enough, this amount is less than what they would have gotten just saving up as much money on their own. Why? Because those fixed-contribution plans are used to pay for the expensive fixed-benefit plans

If you have some time to spare, I highly recommend this video:

Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts

►

Conor Mancone

2:36 PM

@MechMK1 Works out great if you make sure and die "young"!

Yeah, the situation is pretty much the same in the US

MechMK1

Yeah. In the interest of the economy, people will be executed as soon as they retire.

Conor Mancone

And of course no one is happy with any of the possible solutions, but fortunately for boomers they will largely be gone before things get really bad

This is my retrospective excuse for having a bunch of kids. I'm just doing my part to make the upcoming demographic shift as painless as possible for everyone. Underfunded retirements will become even more of an issue with a shrinking population.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Pretty much. because who cares about younger generations, right? Doesn't matter that they are pushed into an academia system that takes fortunes and pays nothing for so many people, because we got some sweet dollar bills out of it

> Sure, we fucked the environment, but would you look at all that juicy profit we made in the process!

Conor Mancone

@MechMK1 If we just made sure the population continued to double every generation, then it would be very easy to fund everyone's retirement. Clearly this is the best solution - sustained population growth.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Sure, because expecting continuous accelerated growth worked so well for the economy

It's not enough that you make money. It's not enough that you make more money than last year. It's not enough that you grow faster than you did last year. You need to increase your growth rate every year or else you are a failing business.

Conor Mancone

2:43 PM

@MechMK1 lol, you just described most corporations

MechMK1

We all live in a paper-thin economy where only money breeds money, and so little of real value is done. And all of this will crumble down under the slightest stress. We consider ourselves generalists, but we are the most highly specialized species on earth and we fight tooth and nail to not lose our environment to which we specialized ourselves to.

@ConorMancone Just put another Δ infront of it

And you have a new decade worth of investment

Anonymous

Afternoon.

Anonymous

I'm pen-testing an AEM instance and I want to take my own eyeballs out with a fish hook.

Conor Mancone

@MechMK1 My brother-in-law was working for a company which (IMO) that describes perfectly. It was a "startup" working on a pizza delivery system where the car had a special oven built into it that would automatically cook the pizza while enroute. it has become my quintessential example of the useless stuff that "silicon valley" likes to create - especially because this wasn't a small startup. They had hundreds of millions of dollars in investment money.

MechMK1

@J.J That seems pretty normal

Conor Mancone

2:56 PM

All I can think is, "does anyone really think this is worth it? What does it actually add to the world that has any value?". I personally suspect it creates more logistical problems than it solves

Anonymous

AEM is fucking awful, awful.

Conor Mancone

Don't get me wrong - some companies have made some genuinely awesome things, but we've also wasted a ton of money on complete garbage. I guess that's just how capitalism works out...

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Silicon Valley is so fucked up. They have their head so far up their own assholes that they don't even know real life anymore

Anonymous

Sadly Mech, I think it's the people that "don't even know real life anymore" are also the people that end up creating some amazing things which really advance technology.

Anonymous

/shrug

Conor Mancone

2:58 PM

@J.J I had to google AEM. There are exactly zero adobe products that I've been impressed by. I can feel your pain from here.

MechMK1

Every two months Silicon Valley "re-invents" some stupid shit that already exists, like the bus or toilet paper, then they slap Bluetooth or NFC on it and think they're being revolutionary

Fuck Adobe

Anonymous

@ConorMancone AEM is the WORST CMS ever made, ever, ever.

MechMK1

Obligatory XKCD:

ALERT: Some pending mandatory software updates require version 21.1.2 of the Oracle/Sun Java(tm) JDK(tm) Update Manager Runtime Environment Meta-Updater, which is not available for your platform.

Anonymous

It's absolutely awful. Not only is it awful but it's a minefield of vulnerabilities.

Anonymous

It's so, so bad.

MechMK1

2:59 PM

stanforddaily.com/2018/04/09/…

Same with the idea of "co-living"

Like yeah, that already exists. It's called roommates

Anonymous

cough wework.

Anonymous

I don't know if wework actually came out of Silicon Valley.

Anonymous

Let's also not talk about the fact that their founder is a nut case.

MechMK1

The biggest startup bullshit I saw recently was Juicero

Like, imagine paying 500 USD for a fucking juicer, and then having to pay 5-7 USD PER GLASS

Anonymous

lmfao, that's insane.

MechMK1

3:04 PM

And do you want to know the funniest thing!?

This shit had DRM

A fucking juicer had D R M

Conor Mancone

@J.J I don't know, "Worst CMS" will always have a lot of competition from Wordpress

Anonymous

WordPress is actually not THAT bad.

Anonymous

It's the plugins which are a massive problem.

Anonymous

AEM however, is a CMS designed badly, created badly, maintained badly.

MechMK1

And even worse, you didn't even need the juicer. You could just squeeze the thing by hand and get basically the same yield

Conor Mancone

3:05 PM

@MechMK1 Is that the one that went out of business, and then it turned out that the juice packets were pretty much pre-juiced, so the machine wasn't actually doing anything?

MechMK1

@J.J You know software is bad when you want to have the developers executed for war crimes.

Anonymous

When I say AEM is "overcomplicated", that word does not even begin to explain how overcomplicated it actually is.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Well, it was just fruit mash

Conor Mancone

@MechMK1 WTF?

MechMK1

They did go out of business, but not because their product was a scam

Conor Mancone

3:06 PM

@MechMK1 Ah yes, I just hadn't read far enough down yet

MechMK1

It did what it advertised it'd do

It was just not at all financially feasible

Anonymous

@ConorMancone Tell me this isn't overcomplicated.

Anonymous

Anonymous

^ there's a diagram which breaks this down even more.

MechMK1

@J.J what the fuck m8

Anonymous

3:07 PM

So yeah, WordPress is bad.

Anonymous

But nothing is worse than AEM.

Conor Mancone

@J.J I hate that it is still fully procedural. Wordpress will always be a crap shoot though because of their plugins (as you mentioned). When we had to support some wordpress sites at a previous job, we kept them all on separate servers because they were the only websites that ever got compromised

Anonymous

It is terrible and for some fucking reason it's used by 90% of the world.

MechMK1

If I go to amazon and just search for "Fruit Juicer", I can find stuff ranging from 20 to 120 USD

Conor Mancone

@J.J You lost me at Java. I'm not really convinced that was ever a good choice for building web applications

Anonymous

3:08 PM

Hahaha, yeah it's an utter mess (and Java back-end which just makes the performance absolutely horrible).

Conor Mancone

@MechMK1 Yeah but what if I want a Premium Fruit Juicer? Those are clearly too cheap. Besides, we bought our juicer for $10 at a garage sale. A good fruit juicer obviously needs to cost at least a few hundred dollars.

Anonymous

And, I would agree to be honest.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone If you'd buy a "premium" juicer for 120 USD, that's fine

The funny thing is, juicero wasn't actually a juicer. It was just a press

And everything was in the "fruit bags" you could only buy if you had bought a Juicero

And the fact that you had to scan each pack before the press would press it would ensure you couldn't use cheaper third-party packs either, in case it would catch on

Conor Mancone

Seriously though - what was the DRM protecting?

MechMK1

As I just said, you have to scan the QR code on each pack before the machine would press it. That way the manufacturer could ensure that you always bought fruit bags from them and never from third parties

And if you didn't have internet connection, you couldn't juice

It's more a complicated form of vendor lock-in to make sure all money of the ecosystem goes to them

Conor Mancone

3:14 PM

I had heard of that one in passing, but with some more details now it's quite clear: possibly one of the worst executions of an otherwise simple idea ever.

MechMK1

Yeah, if the numbers would have matched, I'm sure you could have gotten people on-board with the whole convenience and "it's so healthy" factor

But as I said, $7 per glass is just retarded

I feel bad when I pay 3.5€ for 0.5L of coffee in the morning

But at least it's done from fresh coffee beans, in a professional machine

And if I wanted fresh juice, I could just buy a bucket of oranges and squeeze them myself. After doing that for a week or two I just say fuck it and buy a bottle of regular orange juice

reed

5:59 PM

Wordpress sucks, but other CMS's suck too, for one reason or another. But at least Wordpress is popular enough that finding support and documentation is easy. The core is pretty stable AFAIK. Plugins are a big problem, but that's also true for every other CMS.

MechMK1

7:15 PM

Wordpress plugins are a gamble, and even worse are pirated plugins

Sure, run untrusted code as root, what could go wrong?

MechMK1

7:39 PM

0

Q: How did you learn hacking?

How did you learn hacking? Note: don't tell me "learn programming first or learn Kali" because I've learned everything about them but I'm stuck.