7MS #261: Blind Network Security Assessments

This week I had the fun opportunity to do a "blind" network security assessment - where basically we had to step into a network we'd never seen before and make some security posture recommendations. I've found that the following software/hardware is quite helpful for this type of assessment:

• The PwnPulse helps a ton in scanning wired and wireless networks...and even Bluetooth! I've covered the Pulse in past episodes - check out part 1 and part 2.

• Network Detective will do a ton of helpful Active Directory enumeration and point out potential red flags, such as:

  • Accounts that haven't been logged into for a long time
  • Accounts with passwords that haven't been refreshed in a long time
  • Privileged groups that need review (Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, etc.)

• AD policy issues (*warning: by default Network Detective only pulls back a few policies by default. Check out scripts such as my Environment Check to grab a dump of all GPOs.

• Thycotic Privileged Account Discovery is a free tool that can crawl AD workstations and enumerate the local administrator accounts on each machine. It makes a good case for implementing LAPS.