Everyones favourite topic....

Several recent reports (ISC and El Reg) are indicating what many of us have come to suspect; the window between patch release and exploit is getting smaller. In the days of change control, patch management and multiple regulatory bodies stating that all patches (or any change to a production system) must be tested.

Does anyone from the front lines have any tips, systems or anecdotes for dealing with this increasing issue?

(Highlighting is mine)

Who decides what is 'responsibly'? If it is still Microsoft then the goalposts haven't changed at all.

Agreed though, scary 

I'm starting to guess that the recent 'stupid' posts are fictious. So what you weally need is a life

P.S. if serious, take BillV's advice...

Oh dear Oh dear

Some how rap and geeks can work though, try this

I really hope so....

on the other hand if this is real, I might be ready to sit the C|EH exam after all

Depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve.

If you are trying to automate routines and tool usage, go for something like shell or perl.

If you want to code exploits or tools from scratch go the C route.

This topic has been covered extensively in these forums previously so I'd recommend the search box for more analysis.

I would definitely recommend learning to program though as it can difficult to use/fix/modify existing tools without the base knowledge.

Vijay2,

nice article, thanks for the link. As I've just left academia seemed right on the money to me.

SynJunkie,

nice tips and article, think I'll take a closer look at you site

cyeudoxus

are you sure that's the link you intended?

I haven't come across Wi-Spy before, what functionality to you require?

Slackram,

looks like a Grub issue 

try booting off a live CD (like the Backtrack CD you've dropped on the harddrive) and edit the Grub configuration (Google is your friend).

Alternatively try the install again, I've come a across this before and a second install fixed it without issue, don't know why.

Bojan,

do you have any specifics in mind?
How do you want to fool the firewall?

• Spoofed source?
• connect through port tunnel?
• ...?

for testing firewall configs try firewalk[er?] or create the required packets for using hping[2].

What exactly are you trying to achieve?

alien8predator,

good advice when starting out is to read everything you can get your hads on. This site can be a good starting point, with links off to various other good sources.

Unless your Linux skills are great to start with you may want to download BackTrack to get some working tools. De-ice.net also have some nice virtual machines that you can use as target machines when starting to get your feet wet.

Welcome to EH-net, happy hunting

Don,

thanks for providing the interview. As I'm currently undecided which cert to aim for it's nice to be able to get a feel for where one of the potential certs are heading.

I was glad that the stance of the C|EH was questioned, particularly the focus on specific tools and the certification path between EC-Council's various certs. From this I am starting to feel that the C|EH possibly isn't the cert for me; from my experience the the policy issues and methodologies form are an important aspect of allowing a security professional to add value to a business rather than just exploit vulnerable systems.

Thanks again for the insight.

Thanks oleDB,

another book to add to my wish-list.

My bad 

Any chance of some instructions for pulling this off for the uninitiated? Might make for a good tutorial...