IOT Penetration Testing

What is penetration testing?

A penetration test, pen test, also known as ethical hacking, is a simulated cyber attack against your computer system to check for exploitable vulnerabilities. In other words, a penetration test is a process in which methodologies and techniques are used in an attempt to identify security weaknesses and flaws that could allow a malicious attacker to cause harm or gain unauthorized access to, the resources located in the targeted system (such as databases, credit card information, sensitive personal data, etc.). Once the security flaws are identified, an analysis of the potential risks and vulnerability impact is provided alongside remediation measures.

Security testing will never be an exact science where a complete list of all possible issues that should be tested can be defined. Indeed, security testing is only an appropriate technique for testing the security under certain circumstances. Our penetration test team will push your system to its limits in a barrage of simulated cyber attacks, discovering every possible vulnerability so that your organization gets the complete picture and 100% of your data is safe.

Why is IOT Penetration Testing important?

The need for IOT penetration testing is mostly driven by the change in the security landscape. With more and more vulnerabilities being discovered in web-related products and services every year, organizations and vendors are required to keep their knowledge bases and IT infrastructures as up-to-date as possible to prevent their security status from falling behind.

The numbers don’t lie: in 2017 the total amount of registered vulnerabilities has more than doubled its numbers on 2016, according to the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, skyrocketing from 6,447 registered vulnerabilities in 2016 to 14,712 in 2017:

KiK Security vulneralities statistic by year

his is truer than ever for web applications. As the development and availability of new technologies such as APIs, IoT devices increased, the amount of potential risks and threats grows consequently. The total amount of published Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the CVE database increased by 304.83%; from 497 registered in 2016 to 1,151 in 2017:

KiK Security vulneralities by type and year

  • In 2018, 26% of organizations experienced a data breach specifically because of unsecured IoT devices or applications.
  • 65% of consumers are concerned with the way connected devices collect and use personal data.
  • 73% of organizations had been hit by at least an attack against connected devices in 2018.

IoT security is a major challenge, with the development of smart homes, smart cities, connected health care systems and the 4.0 industry.

The security of connected objects is a complex subject, due to the range of technologies and the number of possible points of attack.

The objective of a connected object pen test is to identify the flaws present in the different layers in order to secure the object’s entire environment. In this case, the audit targets the hardware (electronics), the software (embedded software, communication protocol) as well as APIs, Web and mobile interfaces (servers, web applications, mobile applications). However, it is also possible to focus the audit on a limited technical area depending on the security issues previously identified.

Therefore, the scope of an IoT security audit is to be defined according to the client’s priorities:

  • Should we pentest the entire IoT ecosystem or only certain parts?
  • What is the desired level of detail: a rapid analysis or in-depth research work?
  • What is the level of public exposure of the solution, and what are the consequences if hacking occurs? (in order to choose between a black box penetration test or a grey box penetration test)
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What Is Our Testing Methodology?

Passive Testing

It is a penetration testing technique where attackers extract information related to the target without interacting with the target. That means no request has been sent directly to the target. Generally, the public resource is used to gather information. Аlso this information can be useful in active testing.

 

Active Testing

During active testing, a tester begins to use the methodologies described in the follow sections:

  1. Configuration and Deployment Management Testing
    • Test Network Infrastructure Configuration
    • Test Application Platform Configuration
    • File Extensions Handling for Sensitive Information
    • Review Old Backup and Unreferenced Files for Sensitive Information
    • Enumerate Infrastructure and Application Admin Interfaces
    • HTTP Methods
    • HTTP Strict Transport Security
    • RIA Cross Domain Policy
    • File Permission
    • Subdomain Takeover
    • Cloud Storage
    • Test for Content Security Policy
  2. Identity Management Testing
    • Role Definitions
    • User Registration Process
    • Account Provisioning Process
    • Testing for Account Enumeration and Guessable User Account
    • Testing for Weak or Unenforced Username Policy
  3. Authentication Testing
    • Testing for Credentials Transported over an Encrypted Channel
    • Default Credentials
    • Weak Lock Out Mechanism
    • Bypassing Authentication Schema
    • Vulnerable Remember Password
    • Browser Cache Weaknesses
    • Weak Password Policy
    • Weak Security Question Answer
    • Weak Password Change or Reset Functionalities
    • Weaker Authentication in Alternative Channel
  4. Authorization Testing
    • Directory Traversal File Include
    • Bypassing Authorization Schema
    • Privilege Escalation
    • Insecure Direct Object References
  5. Session Management Testing
    • Testing for Session Management Schema
    • Cookies Attributes
    • Session Fixation
    • Exposed Session Variables
    • Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
    • Logout Functionality
    • Session Timeout
    • Session Puzzling
    • Session Hijacking
    • JSON Web Tokens
  6. Input Validation Testing
    • Testing for Reflected Cross Site Scripting (reflected XSS)
    • Stored Cross Site Scripting (Stored XSS)
    • HTTP Verb Tampering
    • HTTP Parameter Pollution
    • SQL Injection (Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MS Access, NoSQL Injection)
    • ORM Injection
    • Client-side
    • LDAP Injection
    • XML Injection
    • SSI Injection
    • XPath Injection
    • IMAP SMTP Injection
    • Code Injection
    • File Inclusion
    • Command Injection
    • Format String Injection
    • Incubated Vulnerability
    • HTTP Splitting Smuggling
    • HTTP Incoming Requests
    • Host Header Injection
    • Server-side Template Injection
    • Server-Side Request Forgery
    • Mass Assignment
  7. Testing for Error Handling
    • Improper Error Handling
    • Stack Traces
  8. Testing for Weak Cryptography
    • Weak Transport Layer Security
    • Padding Oracle
    • Sensitive Information Sent via Unencrypted Channels
    • Weak Encryption
  9. Business Logic Testing
    • Introduction to Business Logic
    • Business Logic Data Validation
    • Ability to Forge Requests
    • Integrity Checks
    • Process Timing
    • Number of Times a Function Can Be Used Limits
    • Circumvention of Work Flows
    • Defenses Against Application Misuse
    • Upload of Unexpected File Types
    • Upload of Malicious Files
  10. Client-side Testing
    • Testing for DOM-Based Cross Site Scripting
    • Self DOM Based Cross-Site Scripting
    • JavaScript Execution
    • HTML Injection
    • Client-side URL Redirect
    • CSS Injection
    • Client-side Resource Manipulation
    • Cross Origin Resource Sharing
    • Cross Site Flashing
    • Clickjacking
    • WebSockets
    • Web Messaging
    • Browser Storage
    • Cross Site Script Inclusion
  11. API Testing
    • Testing GraphQL
  12. Specific Network Testing
    • VLAN Hopping
    • ARP Cache Poisoning
    • Man In The Middle
    • Sniffing
    • Switch Architecture Weaknesses
    • WI-FI Poisoning
    • Wi-FI Cracking
    • WI-FI, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-wave, Thread, LORA and other Wireless Technologies Weaknesses
    • IP Redirections
    • Session Hijacking
    • Session Replay
    • Operating System Network Attacks
    • Network Hash Passing
    • DHCP and DNS Weaknesses
    • Various OS Weaknesses
    • Advanced Layer 2-7 Attacks
    • Protocol Fuzzing
    • Cryptographic Weaknesses
  13. Hardware Related
    • Reverse engineering of elements extracted from the hardware equipment studied
    • Memory dumps
    • Cryptographic analysis
  14. Firmware Related
    • Detection of communication ports that are open and badly protected
    • Buffer overflow
    • Breaking passwords
    • Reverse engineering
    • Cryptographic analysis
    • Modifications of firmware
    • Debugging
    • Detection of configuration interfaces or backdoors
  15. Other Attack Vectors
    • Buffer Overflow
    • Zero-day
    • Phishing
    • Rootkits

What Are the Stages of Pen Testing?

Through penetration testing, you can proactively identify the most exploitable security weaknesses before someone else does. However, there’s a lot more to it than the actual act of infiltration. Pen testing is a thorough, well thought out project that consists of several phases:

1

Planning and Preparation

Before a pen test begins, the testers and their clients need to be aligned on the goals of the test, so it’s scoped and executed properly. They’ll need to know what types of tests they should be running, who will be aware that the test is running, how much information and access the testers will have to start out with, and other important details that will ensure the test is a success.

2

Discovery

In this phase, teams perform different types of reconnaissance on their target. On the technical side, information like IP addresses can help determine information about firewalls and other connections. On the personal side, data as simple as names, job titles, and email addresses can hold great value.

3

Penetration Attempt and Exploitation

Now informed about their target, penetration experts can begin to attempt to infiltrate the environment, exploiting security weaknesses and demonstrating just how deep they can go.

4

Analysis and Reporting

Pen testers should create a report that includes details on every step of the process, highlighting what was used to successfully penetrate the web application, what security weaknesses were found, other pertinent information discovered, and recommendations for remediation.

5

Clean Up and Remediation

Pen testers should leave no trace, and need to go back through systems and remove any artifacts used during the test, since they could be leveraged by a real attacker in the future. From there, and organization can begin to make the necessary fixes to close these holes in their security infrastructure.

6

Retest

The best way to ensure an organization’s remediations are effective is to test again. Additionally, IT environments, and the methods used to attack them, are constantly evolving, so it is to be expected that new weaknesses will emerge.

What are the different types of penetration tests?

BLACK BOX TEST
BLACK BOX TEST

Аlso known as a blind test. Requires zero knowledge of the company’s assets. Penetration testers perform a complete reconnaissance phase to uncover the company’s assets and get to pick their own path around security controls as well as executing a strategy of their own.

GRAY BOX TEST
GRAY BOX TEST

In this type of tests,  penetration tester knows the role of the system and of its functionalities, and also knows (though not extensively) its internal mechanisms (especially the internal data structure and the algorithms used). However, he or she does not have access to the source code!

WHITE BOX TEST
WHITE BOX TEST

Consist in reviewing the functioning of an application and its internal structure, its processes, rather than its functionalities. Here, all the internal components of the software or application are tested through the source code, main work base of the tester.

Our Advantages

Our cyber security team will push your system to its limits in a barrage of simulated cyber attacks, discovering every possible vulnerability so that your organization gets the complete picture and 100% of your data is safe.

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