Recently, Core Security released the 2024 Penetration Testing Report, which shares the results from an annual survey of cybersecurity professionals on their experiences with offensive security strategies and solutions. In this series, we’ll take a deeper dive into some of the most noteworthy findings from the survey, with expert insights from Fortra’s CISO, Chris Reffkin, and Lead Product Manager for Infrastructure Protection, Pablo Zurro.

Recently, Core Security released the 2024 Penetration Testing Report, which shares the results from an annual survey of cybersecurity professionals on their experiences with offensive security strategies and solutions.

Core Impact Updates

New UI and Usability Improvements for Reports 

The Core Impact Reports have been modernized, with data reviewed to improve its actionability and user friendliness.

Cybersecurity budgets are beginning to get cut across the country, and organizations are faced with tough choices about what should stay and what should go. As security budgets face extra scrutiny and potential cuts, it’s critical to evaluate the cost and benefits of each security practice. It can be difficult to define the value of proactive security solutions like pen testing, as a precise ROI is hard to determine. After all, how does one quantify attacks that were prevented?

Core Impact Updates

SMB NTLM Information Dumper 

This module improves the reconnaissance step for Active Directory testing, specifically gathering NTLM information using SMB/RPC protocols to prepare NTLMrelayx Man-in-the-middle attacks. Among other information, it retrieves: 

A common tactic of attackers trying to breach an environment is to use an exploit against a known vulnerability in an application or device present in a targeted infrastructure. Exploiting a vulnerability can provide an attacker with privileges or capabilities they would not normally be granted.

We sat down with John Stahmann, CISSP and Director of Sales Engineering for Offensive Security and Infrastructure Protection at Fortra, and asked him what he had learned after more than 20 years in the industry about the pitfalls, hacks, and little-known facts of offensive security.