The engagement concludes and the team presents the security findings to the RisottoCorp leadership. When it’s time to cover some of the technical details for how the DMZ server was compromised, you stand up to present.
“I identified a DMZ server that was running a web application with a set of weak credentials. I performed a careful brute force against this web application’s login portal and accessed the application’s admin dashboard. There, I used the interactive shell within the application to upload and execute a C2 agent so I could open an authenticated, secure communication channel. All data exfiltration occurred over authenticated, encrypted mTLS. This server was used as the launch point for all other attacks during the engagement. We recommend either decommissioning the application if it is not needed or increasing the strength of the password. Also, please consider using MFA for the application if it is available.”
The leadership asks you a few more questions and you answer them to the best of your capability. Finally, the RisottoCorp CISO has some final words.
“I thank you all for your hard work. We definitely do have some things to work on and a clear idea of what to fix first. I also want to call out the attention and care that your team paid towards keeping our data safe during this operation.”
The engagement is over. It’s time to start prepping for the next one. But…
Something doesn’t sit right with you about the evidence of crime that you witnessed on the DMZ server. Who knows if you’ll have another chance to correct your mistake. For now, the RisottoCorp staff will continue on unaware that someone is stealing data from them.
You wonder if you should have said something.