Penetration Testing: [PEN-TEST] X25, all but forgotten?

[Alfred Huger <ah () SECURITYFOCUS COM>]

Hey folks,

I was sitting around with some friends over my holidays and we were
discussing X25 auditing. For example, does anyone do it anylonger? I know
that a great many companies still maintain connectivity to X25 networks
like Transpac,Datex,Datapac,Tymnet etc. Seems to me it would be an
important part of any network audit given that many X25 backends live in
dusty corners and are rarely secured with serious diligence.

Having said this, I thought I would pose some questions:

1. Is anyone doing this anymore (legally)? If so what X25 networks are you
seeing folks still connected to?

2. Are there any automated tools for this? I remember SALT scripts (and
the like) for Minicom and Telix (anyone remember Telix?) as well as some
dcl and sh programs for this, however I have not seen them for years
(literally).

3. Anyone in commercial scanner land thinking on adding this? It's an idea
we mulled at Secure Networks but discarded it for a number of technical
reasons and an obvious marketing concern - we had no idea if there was a
market for it.


Alfred Huger
VP of Engineering
SecurityFocus.com