Penetration Testing: Re: Testing the user community

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino <jfernandez () germinus com>]

webmaster () absolutenetworks biz dijo:
> We all know our weak link but how do you identify just how weak they are? I 
> think it's time to pen test my user community and have a couple ideas to gather 
> statistics on just how nonaware they really are. Maybe a simple phishing scam 
> and bogus email with a fake virus attachment that emails me when it's opened so 
> I can track how many folks actually opened it.  Has anyone ever done this 
> before? I can't find any information about it on the web.. thoughts and ideas 
> anybody?
I did this while pentesting for a client (on his request and with their 
written permission):
- find a XSS flaw at their (public) website that could be used to have 
web browsers load the image and provide their session IDs
- setup a webserver with an "blank" gif image
- send a credible e-mail to a set of controlled users (unaware of the 
experiment, but aware of the pentest) that would make them open up the 
company's website and use the XSS flaw
- monitor the logs of the webserver, get the session IDs and reuse them
- profit!

For some other customers I have produced (again on their request) 
plausible phishing scams using XSS flaws at their sites in order to 
recover user credentials. Given that (through separate flaws) the 
pentest team had access to parts of the customer's user's databases 
(including names and e-mails of thousands of users) it was easy to 
convince them of the possible impact of the issues uncovered and the 
need to fix those promptly. We did not, however, test these "live" for 
obvious reasons.
Regards

Javier

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