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ELE8072 Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking - Main Assessment: Penetration Testing, Risk-based Vulnerability Management, App Security Score Calculation, Reachability Analysis and Blast Radius

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QUBELE8072Penetration Testing & Ethical HackingPenetration TestingRisk-based Vulnerability ManagementApp Security Score CalculationReachability Analysis and Blast Radius

Main Assessment
Instructions: Answer THREE Questions in total: ONE from Section A and TWO from Section B. [Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q1, Q2, Q4 or Q1,Q3,Q4]
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Session: 2024/2025
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Cohort: MSc Applied Cyber Security, PGCert Applied Cyber Security Assessment Mode: Coursework CourseNana.COM

Instructions to Candidates
Please read all sections of the instructions before you start answering questions.
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1. Format CourseNana.COM

You can use any word processor to produce your document, but the submission must be PDF. Use a simple document style and format: CourseNana.COM

  • Font: Calibri, Arial, Times, Cambria or similar CourseNana.COM

  • Font size: 11 or 12 CourseNana.COM

  • Your document should be clear, uncomplicated, and professional. CourseNana.COM


    2. Submission CourseNana.COM

    Your work should be submitted as a single PDF file, via the Canvas Assignments page. The document must be named with your student number followed by your name. For example, 12345678_John_Doe. Your pdf file should have sections clearly marked for each question you are answering. CourseNana.COM

    You must submit your document via the TurnItIn interface within Canvas, at the bottom of the Canvas Assignments page. The TurnItIn similarity score for your document must be below 20%.
    For further guidance about submissions via Canvas, see the following links:
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All submissions must be made no later than on the required date. The standard CourseNana.COM

penalties apply for late submission. CourseNana.COM

6. Component Weight CourseNana.COM

• 100% of Module Mark CourseNana.COM

7. Assessment Criteria for Postgraduate Taught Programs
The individual questions will be assessed against the postgraduate conceptual equivalents scale, as
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shown in the following table. CourseNana.COM

Determinator within Mark Band Criteria grade band CourseNana.COM

80-100 CourseNana.COM

• Thorough and systematic knowledge and understanding of module content. CourseNana.COM

• Clear grasp of issues involved, with evidence of innovative and CourseNana.COM

original use of learning resources CourseNana.COM

Originality of Argument. CourseNana.COM


Methodological rigour
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Extent of use of additional or non-core learning resources CourseNana.COM

Understanding of the main issues CourseNana.COM


Relevance of knowledge displayed CourseNana.COM

Question 1 (60%) Penetration Testing & Report Writing
Assessment is made based on reproducible steps and evidence of completion according to the following CourseNana.COM

• Quality of the Report (15%)
Report Flow and Process: Organization, presentation, style, clarity, and quality of writing; use of relevant figures, tables, examples (threats, attacks, mitigations etc.) and purposeful diagrams ((security model, application mapping for tracked testing methodology using vertical and/or horizontal documentation tools like text editors or mind maps, application architecture diagrams etc); clear, concise, and relevant content in the report; relevant sources properly and appropriately cited & listed.
Executive Summary – Analysis (Findings, Business Impact etc.), Recommended Actions (Severity, Urgency etc.)
Recommendations – meaningful conclusions and remediation.
Details, Attack Chains, Metrics and Measures, Risk Rating (Likelihood vs Impact), CourseNana.COM

The different penetration testing techniques used in the report such as Enumeration, Exploitation, Post Enumeration, Privilege Escalation, persistence etc will be assessed based on the reproducibility of the steps, dexterity of tools, quality of exploits (basic/medium/advanced, well-known/recent etc.), methods used in the different penetration testing techniques, demonstratable proofs and appropriate supporting materials, providing context to scanner results, finding vulnerabilities beyond scanners etc CourseNana.COM

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Weakness of argument
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criteria: CourseNana.COM

Findings and Technical Details – Methodology, Objectives, Scope of Work, CourseNana.COM

Security Posture, Traceability Matrix. CourseNana.COM

Appendices: Relevant supporting output, screenshots, and documentation that CourseNana.COM

demonstrates proof of actions and potential impact of attack path. CourseNana.COM

Rigour of Penetration Testing Techniques (45%) CourseNana.COM

Identification of the paths to get users and escalate the privileges with the login CourseNana.COM

credentials. CourseNana.COM

Clear evidence of complex problem-solving, with creative and imaginative skills being adopted in the research.
A critical account of the tools and methods used and the way in which they were selected. CourseNana.COM

Question 2 (20%)Evaluating Research-Informed Penetration Testing Tools CourseNana.COM

Assessment is made against the following criteria: CourseNana.COM

  • Clear criteria for evaluation CourseNana.COM

  • Well-defined metrics for achieving the criteria CourseNana.COM

  • Consideration of state-of-the-art benchmarks for evaluating research-informed penetration testing and ethical hacking tools. CourseNana.COM

  • Technical communication of the main ideas presented in the tool. CourseNana.COM

  • An in-depth systematic and critical analysis that demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the tool and offers comprehensive independent insight. CourseNana.COM

• Use of relevant and appropriate references CourseNana.COM

Question 3 (20%)Risk-based Vulnerability Management I (Severity and Standards)– CWE, OWASP Top 10, OWASP MASVS etc CourseNana.COM

Assessment is made against the following criteria: CourseNana.COM

  • Attack surface analysis for mobile applications CourseNana.COM

  • Proposal of a consistent risk scoring system based on MobSF's current severity and standards. CourseNana.COM

  • Additional insights into risk scoring factors beyond what is available in MobSF. CourseNana.COM

  • Clear evidence of independence of thought and significant originality CourseNana.COM

  • Comparative evaluation of the existing app security scoring system with the new proposed scoring system. CourseNana.COM

• Use of relevant and appropriate references CourseNana.COM

Question 4 (20%)Risk-based Vulnerability Management II – Reachability Analysis and Blast Radius CourseNana.COM

Assessment is made against the following criteria: CourseNana.COM

  • Sound methodology for addressing blast radius in reachability analysis. CourseNana.COM

  • Well-argued approach for blast radius calculation. CourseNana.COM

  • Use of relevant and appropriate sample data CourseNana.COM

  • Results and Evaluation of the different components of the blast radius analysis CourseNana.COM

  • A critical analysis using a case-based scenario to demonstrate how reachability score and blast radius can complement risk-based vulnerability management. CourseNana.COM

• Use of relevant and appropriate references CourseNana.COM

[ End Of Instructions] CourseNana.COM

Section A – Practical Component (60%) Question 1: Penetration Testing & Report Writing CourseNana.COM

The Scenario CourseNana.COM

CyberColony is a cybersecurity start-up company. Before using their services, a potential client has asked for an internal penetration testing report of the CyberColony network environment as part of their due diligence. CyberColony has tasked you with assessing the security of its internal infrastructure and producing a penetration testing report. However, to eliminate the risk of downtime due to penetration testing and to allow for easier reproduction of the found exploits without compromising data, CyberColony has made available a virtual machine for penetration testing. The report should present the result of the penetration testing and vulnerability assessment of the virtual machine and its underlying services that encompasses common penetration techniques such as port scanning, service enumeration, exploitation, post-enumeration, privilege escalation, persistence etc. Amongst other requirements of a penetration testing report, your report should be clear about i) the paths to get users and paths to escalate the privileges ii) how the exploits were conducted iii) steps to reproduce iv) impact/severity of the exploit v) remediation for discovered issues (patching, configuration changes etc.). The CyberColony VM can be accessed here: CyberColony.ova CourseNana.COM

MUST NOT EXCEED 35 pages CourseNana.COM

This is what should appear when you power on the CyberColony VM CourseNana.COM

[NOTE: The length of the penetration testing report CourseNana.COM

references excluded] CourseNana.COM

– Title pages, and CourseNana.COM

Section B – Theoretical Component (40%) CourseNana.COM

Question 2: CourseNana.COM

Evaluating Research-Informed Penetration Testing Tools CourseNana.COM

References CourseNana.COM

  1. Awesome Large Language Model Tools for Cybersecurity Research: CourseNana.COM

    https://github.com/tenable/awesome-llm-cybersecurity-tools CourseNana.COM

  2. Awesome GPTs (Agents) for Cybersecurity: https://github.com/fr0gger/Awesome-GPT-Agents CourseNana.COM

  3. Deng, G., Liu, Y., Mayoral-Vilches, V., Liu, P., Li, Y., Xu, Y., Zhang, T., Liu, Y., Pinzger, M. and Rass, CourseNana.COM

    S., 2024, August. PentestGPT: Evaluating and Harnessing Large Language Models for Automated Penetration Testing. In 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24). USENIX Association. CourseNana.COM

  4. A GPT-empowered penetration testing tool: https://github.com/GreyDGL/PentestGPT CourseNana.COM

  5. Chris Madden (2024). Language Models for Cybersecurity – An Applied Guide: CourseNana.COM

    https://cybersecai.github.io/ CourseNana.COM

Question 3Risk-based Vulnerability Management I (Severity and Standards)– CWE, OWASP Top 10, OWASP MASVS etc CourseNana.COM

The Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) [1] is a research platform for mobile applications in Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. MobSF can be used for various purposes such as mobile application security, penetration testing, malware analysis, and privacy analysis using static and dynamic analysis. Additionally, MobSF generates a detailed static analysis report that includes findings from the application evaluation, such as the app security score and grade, CWE, OWASP Top 10, OWASP MASVS tags from the code analysis report, and more. MobSF uses "High," "Warning," and "Secure" severity findings to calculate an app security score. Below is the historical logic used for calculating the app security score. CourseNana.COM

App Security Score Calculation CourseNana.COM

Version #1 CourseNana.COM

avg_cvss = round(sum(cvss_scores) / len(cvss_scores), 1) app_score = int((10 - avg_cvss) * 10) CourseNana.COM

Version #2 CourseNana.COM

Every app is given an ideal score of 100 to begin with.
For every finding with severity 
high we reduce 15 from the score.
For every finding with severity 
warning, we reduce 10 from the score.
For every finding with severity 
good we add 5 to the score.
If the calculated score is greater than 100, then the app security score is considered as 100. And if the calculated score is less than 0, then the app security score is considered as 10. 
Risk Calculation CourseNana.COM

APP SECURITY SCORE RISK CourseNana.COM

0-15 CRITICAL 16-40 HIGH 41-70 MEDIUM CourseNana.COM

The emergence of LLM has led to the development of various cybersecurity applications that utilize this technology for different tasks [5]. Some repositories have curated these tools for cybersecurity research [1,2], including tools for penetration testing. One notable tool is PentestGPT, which is an automated penetration testing tool powered by GPT. Details about the tool are outlined in a research paper published in USENIX Security 2024 [3], and the code repository is hosted on GitHub [4]. You are tasked with conducting an independent study of the research paper and the tool to present an evidence-based critical analysis of PentestGPT, using relevant criteria and metrics for evaluating penetration testing CourseNana.COM

71-100 LOW
Some discussion on the App Security Score inconsistencies can be found here [2.3]. CourseNana.COM

# Current Logic CourseNana.COM

App Score Logic[4] CourseNana.COM

    high = len(findings.get('high'))
    warn = len(findings.get('warning'))
    sec = len(findings.get('secure'))
    total = high + warn + sec
    score = 0
    if total > 0:

score = int(100 - (((high * 1) + (warn * .5) - (sec * .2)) / total) * 100) CourseNana.COM

    if score > 100:
        score = 100
   findings['security_score'] = score

MobSF also grades an application based on its risk level [5]. CourseNana.COM

APP SECURITY SCORE GRADE CourseNana.COM

0-29 30-39 40-59 60+ A CourseNana.COM

Design an app security scoring system that accurately measures the risk posed by vulnerabilities in mobile applications, utilizing the MobSF static analysis report and vulnerability risk scores assessment. Compare and contrast your system with the app security score and grade currently used by MobSF, while justifying your proposed app security scoring system. CourseNana.COM

References CourseNana.COM

  1. Mobile Security Framework (MobSF): https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security- CourseNana.COM

    Framework-MobSF CourseNana.COM

  2. [FEATURE] Improve security scoring of apps: https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security- CourseNana.COM

    Framework-MobSF/issues/1069 CourseNana.COM

  3. App Security Score inconsistencies: https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security-Framework- CourseNana.COM

    MobSF/issues/1940 CourseNana.COM

  4. appsec.py: https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security-Framework- CourseNana.COM

    MobSF/blob/master/mobsf/StaticAnalyzer/views/common/appsec.py CourseNana.COM

  5. appsec_dashboard.html: https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security-Framework- CourseNana.COM

    MobSF/blob/master/mobsf/templates/static_analysis/appsec_dashboard.html CourseNana.COM

Question 4Risk-based Vulnerability Management II – Reachability Analysis and Blast Radius CourseNana.COM

As a penetration tester, you have been tasked with analyzing and adapting a graph theory-based network reachability [3] analysis solution for prioritizing vulnerability remediation prioritization as part of your organization’s maturity model. CourseNana.COM

Description: The solution uses in-degree centrality in graph theory to develop a reachability metric for vulnerability remediation prioritization. The implementation uses the Networkx library to calculate the reachability of network-based vulnerabilities on IT assets, using sample data from firewall (management) solutions, vulnerability management solutions and DHCP servers, and trust values for different zones/subnets. Additional details about the description [1] and implementation [2] of the solution have been provided. The starting code in Python and the output have also been provided as part of the assessment files. CourseNana.COM

Tasks: Adapt the code to determine the ‘blast radius’ of an exploited vulnerability. Take reachability from the same zone/subnet into account. You can apply exploit chaining (https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/exploit-chain/) or any other relevant methodology to address this task. You are also permitted to generate additional appropriate sample data for your analysis. Using an evidence- based scenario, discuss the integration of the reachability score and blast radius of an exploited vulnerability into risk-based vulnerability management CourseNana.COM

Deliverables: Updated Code, Example result (table or graph) of the reachability analysis that includes the blast radius, visited nodes, exploitable links and any other relevant output, and the discussion of streamlining reachability score and blast radius with existing vulnerability prioritization metrics. This information should be appended to the pdf document. CourseNana.COM

Note: This question requires the ability to understand and write code in Python, Basic TCP/IP knowledge, graph theory and relevant design of the IT network. CourseNana.COM

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