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Penetration Testing: The Big Picture

I have another Pluralsight course published. Still focusing on penetration testing, I was asked to create a high level overview course on the subject. Penetration Testing: The Big Picture was published on October 6, 2017 and looks at a wide variety of topics on penetration testing.

The focus in this course is to present information about pen testing that would be useful to those interested in learning more about it as a career option or training direction. It can also be useful for individuals and organizations interested in hiring pen testers or organizations seeking pen testing services.

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By Keith Watson
— October 30, 2017 at 09:15

Kali Linux Changes for the Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit Course

I developed the Pluralsight course Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit using Kali Linux, which is a project from Offensive Security. Kali is a Linux distribution with most of the tools an information security professional would need. It is also a great platform for designing courses around because most, if not all, of the tools needed are installed by default.

The challenge is that Kali changes over time. Most of the times those changes are good and necessary to stay current and relevant. Of course, those changes often negatively impact ancillary products and information resources, including instructional courses. My Metasploit course is no exception. Revising an existing course that is already in use has its own challenges. Instead, I offer this blog post as a “living document” highlighting changes in Kali Linux that impact my Metasploit course. My hope is that if you run into issues with the course due to changes in Kali, you can find the answers here.

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By Keith Watson
— December 30, 2016 at 09:11

Metasploit and Pentest Discussion on Test Talks Podcast

Test TalksJoe Colantonio and I had a conversation about penetration testing and the use of Metasploit on the Test Talks Podcast. That episode is available now.

Joe is a fellow Pluralsight Author and host of the Test Talks Podcast, which is a weekly podcast all about software test automation.

We discussed concepts in penetration testing, Metasploit and its auxiliary modules and OpenVAS for vulnerability scanning, Meterpreter for post-exploitation activities, ethics in the use of tools like Metasploit, and Kali Linux.

Check out this episode and other episodes from Joe Colantonio and the Test Talks Podcast.

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Categories: security, training.

By Keith Watson
— September 21, 2016 at 06:29

Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit

Pluralsight logoAfter many months of effort, my first Pluralsight course, Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit is now available. Here is the official course description:

Metasploit is one of the most widely used tools for penetration testing, providing powerful attack simulations, security assessment management, and more. In this course, Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit, you’ll learn to use Metasploit to enumerate available services, identify potential weaknesses, test vulnerabilities through exploitation, and gather evidence for reporting. First, you’ll see how to install and configure the Metasploit Framework and several supporting tools on Kali Linux. Next, you’ll explore how exploits and payloads work together to gain access to systems. Finally, you’ll look at how Metasploit Framework releases are made available and how to maintain the latest version of the Framework. By the end of this course, you’ll have a better understanding of how to use Metasploit to quickly assess the security posture of systems and networks to reduce risk.

I received terrific support from the Pluralsight team in creating this course. They are very active in communicating, listening, and work with their authors. They have tools and a process for getting courses out the door. I was surprised by this attention to authors and to the details most of all.

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By Keith Watson
— June 18, 2016 at 08:13

ikawnoclast.com, Now with Let’s Encrypt

Let's Encrypt

Let’s Encrypt Logo

I just switched my personal web site (this one) over to HTTPS using Let’s Encrypt. My long-time hosting provider, Dreamhost, added support for it recently (January 20, 2016). Both Let’s Encrypt and Dreamhost’s support for it are still considered Beta, but no issues here so far.

I have always wanted to have encrypted transmissions for my web site but did not want to spend the money to get the certificate and and possibly pay for the static IP. Thanks to Let’s Encrypt and Dreamhost’s support for it, it’s now possible.

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Categories: security.

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By Keith Watson
— January 31, 2016 at 19:25

Network Warrior, Second Edition

Network Warrior, Second Edition book cover

Network Warrior, Second Edition book cover

Network Warrior, Second Edition

Gary A. Donahue

O’Reilly Media

I am an information security guy with a computer science degree. A good portion of my knowledge lies in operating system security and the interactions between systems. In college I took a computer science course in networking in which we delved into network fundamentals (packets, headers, protocols, etc.). However, most of it was focused on building network-enabled applications at the system call library level in the C programming language. We did not get to play with routers and switches, even though we knew how they worked, at least in theory. We assumed those components were there, were properly configured, and worked perfectly.

In my information security work, I have worked with small firewalls, software VPNs, IPS/IDS devices, VLANs and switches, and some other network components. I was able to figure out and configure most of that stuff out based on my fundamental knowledge of networking. However, I still didn’t have any exposure to enterprise-level switching and routing. Now I am a security architect and that is essential knowledge.

I got a free copy of the second edition of Network Warrior by Gary A. Donahue in early January 2016 through my membership to several O’Reilly Media mailing lists. This was a great opportunity to grow my knowledge of an area that I needed. It’s just over 1000 pages and packed full of useful information. It’s mostly about Cisco gear, but there are many chapters that focus on concepts that apply no matter what the vendor.

Here is a mini-review of what I found to be most helpful from an information security perspective.

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By Keith Watson
— January 31, 2016 at 12:38

Exploring ZFS Properties

We have options! (CC BY-ND 2.0 licensed image by Bill Ohl, haynseek on Flickr)

We have options! (CC BY-ND 2.0 licensed image by Bill Ohl, haynseek on Flickr)

Properties are an important part of determining and setting the configuration of ZFS storage systems. They can also be used to review the performance and usage of storage resources. Properties can be set at a top-level and inherited by child components when created. Understanding how ZFS properties are utilized is important to operating an efficient storage system.

In this article, we will explore how to properties work and how to get and set properties.

Learning Objectives

  1. Learn how properties and their inheritance are used in ZFS.
  2. Learn how to set properties to change the configuration of a storage system.
  3. Learn how to get information from properties.

This article is one of a series of articles on ZFS. You can start at the beginning by creating a ZFS playground on which you can play.

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By Keith Watson
— April 30, 2015 at 08:32

Video of My TEDx Talk

Presenting at TEDxLafayette 2014

Presenting at TEDxLafayette 2014

The video of my TEDx talk for TEDxLafayette 2014, “City Full of Unmanned Vehicles” is available on Youtube. Previously, I posted the text of the talk.

In this talk, I lay out my vision for the use of unmanned and autonomous vehicles and their uses within city limits. There are many potential benefits in terms of public safety, disaster response, personal transportation, delivery and logistics. However, a balance is needed between safety and the ability of system developers to experiment and advance the technology in the environments in which these systems will be used. I explore many of these ideas in this TEDx Talk.

What do you think? In light of the proposed FAA regulations regarding unmanned aerial systems (released after my talk), did I present the issue with the right balance? Are unmanned and autonomous systems just too experimental at this point to be used in our cities?

I look forward to your comments.

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Categories: community.

By Keith Watson
— March 8, 2015 at 22:55

Expanding Your ZFS Pool

Now that's a big pool! (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licensed image by Trey Ratcliff, Flickr user stuckincustoms)

Now that’s a big pool! (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licensed image by Trey Ratcliff, Flickr user stuckincustoms)

In addition to data integrity, device redundancy, and performance features, ZFS Storage Pools can also expanded in usable storage size through deduplication and compression of the data stored. In other words by shrinking raw data and removing duplicated parts of data, ZFS Storage Pools can store more data on disk. While there are some memory trade-offs using deduplication, it can provide significant storage savings for some types of stored data. There are also some significant performance benefits to compression.

In this article, we will explore how to configure deduplication and compression for storage pools.

Learning Objectives

  1. Learn about deduplication and configure it on a storage pool.
  2. Learn about compression and configure it on a storage pool.

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By Keith Watson
— February 28, 2015 at 07:36

Mac OS X PF Firewall: Protecting SSH from Brute Force Attacks

Apple-like gate (CC BY-SA 2.0 Licensed image by Dennis Jarvis, Flickr user archer10)

Apple-like gate (CC BY-SA 2.0 Licensed image by Dennis Jarvis, archer10)

The OpenBSD‘s PF provides a great many features for packet filtering and network address translation. Mac OS X includes a version of PF that can be used to protect network services. In an article called “Mac OS X pf: Avoiding known bad guys“, I talk about using the Mac OS X PF firewall to protect against known bad sites. In this article, we explore a technique to protect SSH from attackers trying to gain remote access to your Mac by guessing passwords by brute force.

Most of what I learned about PF was used at the office to protect our network. We built redundant firewalls using FreeBSD and PF rules. I started to experiment with the Mac OS X PF implementation once I learned that it was shipped in Lion (Mac OS X 10.7). I am specifically concerned about my Mac laptop systems. The information in this article can also be applied to Mac server and desktop systems too.

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By Keith Watson
— January 29, 2015 at 10:05