In this chapter, we will discuss why an essential element of penetration testing is planning, and a key component of this is having a methodology that emulates and matches the threat that we are portraying. We will discuss the following:
- The need for a methodology approach
- Examples of different methodologies available
- How to establish the testing methodology
If you have been performing penetration testing for some time and are very familiar with the methodology and concept of professional security testing, you can skip this chapter, or just skim it; however, you may learn something new or at least a different approach to how you approach penetration testing.
What exactly is a methodology? This is a term that we use often in the Information Technology (IT) world, but what exactly does it mean? As you might expect, there are a number of different interpretations of this term that usually is dependent on whom you ask. If we use the search capability of the Internet, we can possibly get a better idea of what the term means. From the Wikipedia website, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology, we see that the term is defined as a systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to a field of study. This definition is a bit too vague for our purposes, so we will look at another source. The site at http://www.wisegeek.com defines the term as "a set of practices." This term may be used to refer to practices, which are widely used across an industry or scientific discipline, the techniques used in a particular research study, or the techniques used to accomplish a particular project."
This definition is closer to what we are looking for, but as with most definition sources, we will use their information as guidance and define the term in our own words. For the concept of this book, we look at a methodology as a "systematic approach to professional security testing that follows a structured process based on the motives of a potential attacker when targeting an organization."