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The Schellman Blog

Stay up to date with the latest compliance news from the Schellman blog.

Blog Feature

Penetration Testing

Don’t Forget Your Internal Pen Tests

By: KENT BLACKWELL
September 22nd, 2016

Many of the requests that we receive are limited in scope to Internet facing assets. A true understanding of the threats facing your networks requires a complete evaluation of all possible threat vectors. So what kinds of vulnerabilities does an internal test find that an external would miss? Schellman was recently engaged to perform an external and internal penetration test for a software development firm. The external test revealed very little about the company. Strong firewall rules opened only the most necessary of ports (80 and 443) to the Internet. All external facing servers were well patched, running modern operating systems and lacked any exploitable vulnerability. However, the internal assessment told a completely different story. We began the test with no credentials on a “rouge device” that was placed on the internal network. A database server running an automation tool exposed a scripting console that allowed unauthenticated commands to be run on the underlying OS. A VBS script that downloaded an executable was run followed by another VBS script that executed the shell program. With this foothold, we impersonated the token of a database administrator who also happened to be a Domain Administrator. A few commands later, we’d taken over the domain. If our client had only engaged us for an external test, none of this would’ve been found.

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“Schellman” is the brand name under which Schellman & Company, LLC and Schellman Compliance, LLC provide professional services. Schellman & Company, LLC and Schellman Compliance, LLC practice as an alternative practice structure in accordance with the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and applicable law, regulations and professional standards. Schellman & Company, LLC is a licensed certified public accounting firm (Florida license number AD62941) registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) that provides attest services to its clients, and Schellman Compliance, LLC provides nonattest cybersecurity and compliance professional services to its clients. Schellman Compliance, LLC is not a licensed CPA firm. Schellman & Company, LLC and Schellman Compliance, LLC are independently owned and are not liable for the services provided by any other entity providing services under the Schellman brand. Our use of the terms “our firm” and “we” and “us” and terms of similar import, denote the alternative practice structure conducted by Schellman & Company, LLC and Schellman Compliance, LLC.