2017-06-22 19:48:00
The ecstacy of achieving the OSCP certification didn't last long for me. Sure, I'm very happy and proud that I passed, but not two days later I was already yearning to move on! I wanted to get back to the PWK Labs, to finish the other thirty-odd servers. I wanted to retake the exam a second time. I wanted more challenge! So I set to making a list!
As something inbetween, I've signed up for SecurityTube's SLAE course: they teach you basic x86 assembly programming, to build and analyze Linux shellcode. Sounds very educational! And at only $150 for the course and exam it's a steal! I'll be blogging more about this in the future :)
Signing up for the course went easily and I got all the details within a day. However, actually getting the course files proved to be a struggle! There are three ZIP files, totalling roughly 7GB. They're stored in Amazon S3 buckets, which usually implies great delivery speeds. However, it seems that in this case SecurityTube have opted not to have any edge locations or POPs outside their basic US-WEST location. This means that I was sucking 7GB down a 14kbps straw :( That just won't do! Downloads were horribly slow!
After doublechecking that the issue did not lie with our home network, I attempted to download the files using my private server in the US: speeds were great. However, downloading from my own server wasn't much faster. Darn. Maybe there's another hickup? Two of my colleagues suggested using a VPN like PIA; sure that's an option. But I've been meaning to look into Amazon's AWS service, which allows you to quickly spin up virtual machines across the globe, so I went with that.
I built a basic Ubuntu server in Frankfurt and downloaded the files from the US. Seeing how both the source and destination were on Amazon's network, that went perfectly fine. Grabbing the files from my Frankfurt system also went swimmingly. So after two days of bickering I finally have the course files on my laptop, ready to go :)
kilala.nl tags: work, sysadmin, slae,
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2017-05-25 18:12:00
Here's another question I've had a few times, which came to me again this weekend:
"I'm really surprised you had the confidence to tackle the exam with just 19.
Is this you bread and butter ? Was this simply to formalize existing knowledge for you ?"
To be honest, I was just as surprised that I passed! No, I don't have workexperience in the field of pen-testing; I've only done two or three CTFs.
My original intention with my exam was to consider it a recon missions for my second exam. I was sure that 19 out of 55+ hosts was not enough to be prepared for the exam. I went into the exam fully reconciled with the idea that failing was not just an option, but all but assured. The exam would be a training mission, to learn what to expect.
The day before my exam I had practiced exploiting a known buffer overflow in EasyRMtoMP3Converter (EXE). Here's the CoreLan writeup from 2009. Using the approach I learned during the PWK class and by studying various published exploits, I built my own Python script to exploit the software. After some additional work, the code worked against both Windows 7 and XP.
This extra practice paid off, because I managed to finish the BOF part of the exam within two hours. This was basically the wind in my sails, what got me through the whole exam. After finishing the BOF I dared to hope that I might actually have a chance :) And I did.
kilala.nl tags: work, sysadmin,
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2017-05-23 14:07:00
One of my past colleagues reached out to me today, asking me this:
I'm still OSCP-wannaby, but probably it is too technical for me. I'm still not sure. Could you please share if a pre-exam training is worth its price or what is your practical - cutting of 'try harder' ;-) - advice to pass it?
I'll post my reply here, because I've been telling people this very thing for the past few weeks.
I've always thought OffSec's online PWK training to be well worth the money! $1150 gets you a huge PDF with all the course work, a few hours of videos and 90 days of lab access. It also includes your first exam attempt. For a training of this quality, that's really not a lot of money! You could even opt to pay even less, getting only 30/60 days of lab access.
The classroom variant is something else entirely though. It's a LOT more expensive, at roughly $6000. That's for a week's on-site training, including a CTF event on one night. You also get the same PDF and videos, the included exam, but only 30 days of lab access. For me, it was well worth it because it was five days of non-stop hacking in a room with 30 other students and two top-notch trainers.
Something that saved me time and money: during the classroom training you receive the two most important VMs, which you can use on your OWN laptop. Thanks to that, I didn't have to start my lab access until I'd finished >90% of my exercises. In the online PWK you use lab access to work on your exercises!
The course is always worth it before taking the exam: submitting a proper report of your coursework may net you 5 bonus points on the exam. Submitting a pen-test report for the labs may net you a further 5 bonus points. On a minimal passing score of 70, those 10 points can really help a lot!
So yeah. Definitely work through all the coursework to get into it and score points. Then play a lot in the labs, for both practice and more points. Then take the exam when your time's up. Always do the exam! Because if you fail your exam and then renew your labs, OffSec will include a "free" retake of your exam with the new lab time! Totally worth it! That way your "failed" exam because a recon mission that teaches you a lot!
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2017-05-11 21:04:00
A few weeks ago, I reopened commenting on this site after having it locked behind logins for years. Since then the amount of spam submissions have been growing steadily. Sucks, so I finally took the time to implement proper spam checking. Enter Google's free project reCaptcha. Of course I realize that, if something's free on the web, it probably means that I'm the product being sold. I'll have to poke around the code to see what it actually does :)
CodexWorld have a great tutorial on getting reCaptcha to work in a basic script. Took me less than an hour to get it all set up! Lovely!
kilala.nl tags: programming,
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2017-05-09 10:24:00
A bit over a year ago I first started working with Microsoft's Active Directory, integrating it with BoKS Access Control. At the time, I was impressed by Windows Server 2012 and 2016 and the ease with which I could set up an AD forest with users.
I'm now learning how to build a two-tier PKI infrastructure, after seeing them in action at various previous clients. I've been on the consuming end of PKI for years now and I thought it was time to really know how the other end works as well! I must say that I love Microsoft's generosity when it comes to documentation! Not only do they provide proper product docs, but they also have online tutorials in the form of TLGs: test lab guides. Using these, you can self-teach the basics of a subject, and then build up from there.
The 2012 Base TLG helps you build a basic AD forest of systems. I can follow it up with the two-tier PKI infrastructure TLG, which helps me set up an offline root CA, and an issuing CA, along with automatically enrolling any new systems in the networkt that need SSL certs. Awesome!
I'm similarly extatic about the performance of my Macbook Air. It's a tiny, super-portable system, but it still doesn't balk at running my usual applications plus four full-fledged Windows Server 2012 hosts. Nice!
EDIT:
Ammar Hasayen also did a nice write-up, which appears to be based upon the two-tier PKI TLG but which adds additional details.
Also, Microsoft also offer a third great resource, their MVA: Microsoft Virtual Academy. They also have a course on two-tier PKI with ADCS.
kilala.nl tags: work, windows,
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2017-05-09 08:54:00
I can't believe such a small, silly thing had me going for ten minutes!
When trying to retrieve a signed certificate from my ADCS rootCA, I kept getting a "file not found" error:
> certreq retrieve 2 .subCA.corp.contoso.com_subCA.crt
: The system cannot find the file specified. 0x80070002 (WIN32: 2)
Googling didn't lead to many results, but then I realized: Windows commands need to discern between variables and values, just like any OS. Doh! Forgot the minus!
> certreq -retrieve 2 .subCA.corp.contoso.com_subCA.crt
Works just fine!
kilala.nl tags: work, windows,
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2017-05-07 14:38:00
It's traditional to do a huge writeup after finishing the OSCP certification, but I'm not going to. People such as Dan Helton and Mike Czumak have done great jobs outlining the whole process of the course, the exercises, the labs and the exam. So I suggest you go and read their reviews. :)
In the mean time, here are the few things I would suggest to anyone undertaking PWK+OSCP.
The day after finishing the exam was one of elation: I couldn't be more happier. But not a day later, I'm already missing the grueling work! I want to go back to the labs, to finish the remaining 30+ servers I hadn't cracked yet. I even want to retake the exam, to get more challenges!
For now, my plan is as follows:
Back in college, René was right: "That guy just doesn't know the meaning of the word 'relaxation'."
kilala.nl tags: work, sysadmin,
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2017-05-04 17:28:00
I just received the official word from OffSec: I made it through my OSCP certification! As Dredd said: "She's a pass."
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.