Anyone claiming that their pen test, vuln assessment, or security audit
consists merely of running nessus and or nmap and producing a reporrt and
final results is a charleton, and does the security industry a
dis-service. Yet, I have seen, in practice, both outside consultants,
hired guns from the outside and supposedly 'trained' professionls <CISSP!>
within the corporate sector do merely this and stamp "certified secure"
across organizations. A "test, assessment, or audit" are more akin to
remodeling, then ne home building and remodeling, having done lots of it
over time, I can safely state, is -=dirty work=-. When you rip open a
wall, one is sometimes amazed, as well as disenheartened at what they find
behind the sheetrock and plaster.

Thanks,

Ron DuFresne

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Todd Ransom wrote:

> > A good estimate of time for a "Once Over" breaks down like this:
> >
> > Vulnerability Assessment:
> > 20 minutes per host
> >
> > Penetration Test:
> > 1 Hour per host
>
> What is the difference between vuln assessment and pen test?
>
> I have not done either but this seems like a highly subjective area to me.
> Are you really going to do a vuln assess on a dynamic web site - with all
> its custom scripts and database connectivity and possibly middleware - in 20
> minutes? It sounds like a vuln assess consists of running Nessus or
> something similar, searching bugtraq archives and possibly throwing in a
> google search for extra credit.
>
> Even on a workstation it seems like you couldn't get much done in 20
> minutes. I don't even see how you could reliably enumerate all the
> installed software in less than 20 minutes.
>
> TR
>
>
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