Social engineering
During this social engineering engagement, it was possible to achieve persistent internal access, exfiltrate confidential and personal information, and compromise the internal segmented infrastructure.
The challenge
The penetration testing team was tasked with segmentation testing for a sample of the customer's private subnet (both CDE, DMZ, and management subnets). The project required onsite testing, which was not possible with the time constraints of the project (approx. 2 days) and quarantine measures in the Customer's country.
The solution
The team created and mailed the customer mobile connect-back jumphosts that was later used to establish initial access, conduct network reconnaissance, and discover network and service-level vulnerabilities that may break segmentation.
A restaurant chain located in a foreign country wanted to ensure the security of its internal network in compliance with the PCI DSS requirements. However, they did not have any IT specialists who could set up a workstation for Security Segmentation Testing. They turned to Tenendo for help.
Tenendo’s specialists provided a solution by installing jumphosts on a micro-computer and fully configuring it to connect to the client’s VPN for scanning. After completing the installation and configuration process, Tenendo sents the mini-computer to the client with clear instructions on turning it on and connecting it to their network.
The client received the mini-computer within three days and could conduct PCI DSS Segmentation Testing without any IT expertise required. Tenendo’s innovative approach allowed the client to meet their security goals and comply with the PCI DSS requirements, ensuring their customers’ data remained secure.
This case example demonstrates Tenendo’s ability to provide effective solutions to clients, regardless of their location and internal IT capabilities. Tenendo’s expertise in cybersecurity allowed the restaurant chain to achieve its security goals, which helped to protect its customers’ data from potential cyber threats.
The Attack Lifecycle
Initial Access
Several mobile jumphosts was created that connected back to our infrastructure over VPN. These were installed in every sampled subnet in scope.
Enumeration
After network access was established, traffic inspection and various types of network scanning were conducted to collect information about the networking setup.
Traffic analysis
Broadcast network traffic was analyzed, and exploitable endpoint and router configurations were identified that could allow for MitM attacks (e.g. NBNS poisoning, DHCPv6 poisoning, or abusing dynamic routing protocols).
Network filter evasion
A tunnel from segmented portions of the network was built to the Internet utilizing various techniques to highlight segmentation errors.
Conclusion
Despite segmentation testing not being that impressive from a technical perspective, this case demonstrates client accommodation and rapid problem solving that Tenendo is known for. When working with us, you can be sure that we come up with an easy solution to any project constraints or specific requirements that you might have. We are very flexible both with scheduling, and our penetration testing approach.
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Reducing high-severity vulnerabilities’ exposure by up to
97%
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30%
About security testing:
Client-Bank application compromise
This case is a very good example why manual penetration tests are valuable – the team achieved compromise without administrator access to the application, not using any known exploits or discovering injection/deserialization/other RCE flaws.
Internal Adversary Simulation Case
The adversary simulation activity helped the client identify and remediate multiple issues with the on-premise infrastructure and vulnerabilities, calculate potential risks, and improve the overall security posture. Each finding also included proposed solutions for applying industry-standard defences.
