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Associated Certification: GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
As a cybersecurity professional, you have a unique responsibility to find and understand your organization's vulnerabilities and to work diligently to mitigate them before the bad guys pounce. Are you ready? SEC560, the flagship SANS course for enterprise penetration testing, fully arms you to address this duty head-on.
SEC560 IS THE MUST-HAVE COURSE FOR EVERY WELL-ROUNDED SECURITY PROFESSIONAL
With comprehensive coverage of tools, techniques, and methodologies for network penetration testing, SEC560 truly prepares you to conduct high-value penetration testing projects step by step and end to end. Every organization needs skilled information security personnel who can find vulnerabilities and mitigate their effects, and this entire course is specially designed to get you ready for that role. The course starts with proper planning, scoping and recon, then dives deep into scanning, target exploitation, password attacks, web app manipulation, and attacking the Windows domain, with over 30 detailed hands-on labs throughout. The course is chock full of practical, real-world tips from some of the world's best penetration testers to help you do your job safely, efficiently...and with great skill.
LEARN THE BEST WAYS TO TEST YOUR OWN SYSTEMS BEFORE THE BAD GUYS ATTACK
You'll learn how to perform detailed reconnaissance, studying a target's infrastructure by mining blogs, search engines, social networking sites, and other Internet and intranet infrastructures. Our hands-on labs will equip you to scan target networks using best-of-breed tools. We won't just cover run-of-the-mill options and configurations, we'll also go over the lesser known but super-useful capabilities of the best pen test toolsets available today. After scanning, you'll learn dozens of methods for exploiting target systems to gain access and measure real business risk. You'll dive deep into post-exploitation, password attacks, and web apps, pivoting through the target environment to model the attacks of real-world bad guys to emphasize the importance of defense in depth. Finally, we focus deep on the technological heart of most organizations, the Windows Domain. We'll cover the technical details of Kerberos and Active Directory and use that for Domain Dominance!
EQUIPPING SECURITY ORGANIZATIONS WITH COMPREHENSIVE PENETRATION TESTING AND ETHICAL HACKING KNOW-HOW
SEC560 is designed to get you ready to conduct a full-scale, high-value enterprise penetration test and at the end of the course you'll do just that. After building your skills in comprehensive and challenging labs, the course culminates with a final real-world penetration test scenario. You'll conduct an end-to-end pen test, applying knowledge, tools, and principles from throughout the course as you discover and exploit vulnerabilities in a realistic sample target organization, demonstrating the skills you've gained in this course.
In this course section, you'll develop the skills needed to conduct a best-of-breed, high-value penetration test. We'll go in-depth on how to build a penetration testing infrastructure that includes all the hardware, software, network infrastructure, and tools you will need to conduct great penetration tests, with specific low-cost recommendations for your arsenal. We'll then cover formulating a pen test scope and rules of engagement that will set you up for success, including a role-play exercise. We'll also dig deep into the reconnaissance portion of a penetration test, covering the latest tools and techniques, including hands-on document metadata analysis to pull sensitive information about a target environment, as well as a lab using Recon-ng to plunder a target's DNS infrastructure for information such as which anti-virus tools the target organization uses.
CPE/CMU Credits: 7
This course section focuses on the vital task of mapping the target environment's attack surface by creating a comprehensive inventory of machines, accounts, and potential vulnerabilities. We look at some of the most useful scanning tools freely available today and run them in numerous hands-on labs to help hammer home the most effective way to use each tool. We finish the module covering vital techniques for false-positive reduction, so you can focus your findings on meaningful results and avoid the sting of a false positive. And we examine the best ways to conduct your scans safely and efficiently.
CPE/CMU Credits: 6
In this course section we look at the many kinds of exploits that penetration testers use to compromise target machines, including client-side exploits, service-side exploits, and local privilege escalation. We'll see how these exploits are packaged in frameworks like Metasploit and its mighty Meterpreter. You'll learn in-depth how to leverage Metasploit and the Meterpreter to compromise target environments. You'll also analyze the topic of anti-virus evasion to bypass the target organization's security measures, as well as methods for pivoting through target environments, all with a focus on determining the true business risk of the target organization.
CPE/CMU Credits: 6
Once you've successfully exploited a target environment, penetration testing gets extra exciting as you perform post-exploitation, gathering information from compromised machines and pivoting to other systems in your scope. This course section zooms in on pillaging target environments and building formidable hands-on command line skills. We'll cover Windows command line skills in-depth, including PowerShell's awesome abilities for post-exploitation. We'll see how we can leverage malicious services and the incredible WMIC toolset to access and pivot through a target organization. We'll then turn our attention to password guessing attacks, discussing how to avoid account lockout, as well as numerous options for plundering password hashes from target machines including the great Mimikatz Kiwi tool. Finally, we'll look at Metasploit's fantastic features for pivoting, including the msfconsole route command.
CPE/CMU Credits: 6
In this course section, we'll zoom in on typical AD (Active Directory) lateral movement strategies. You'll obtain an in-depth understanding of how Kerberos works and what possible attack vectors are available. You'll look at typical local privilege escalation techniques and UAC (User Account Control) bypasses. We map the internal domain structure using BloodHound to identify feasible attack paths. We'll use Mimikatz to perform domain dominance attacks where domain replication is used to fully compromise the domain. We then turn our attention to web application pen testing, covering the most powerful and common web app attack techniques, including hands-on labs for every topic we address. We'll cover finding and exploiting command injection and SQL injection flaws in applications such as online banking, blog sites, and more.
CPE/CMU Credits: 6
This lively session represents the culmination of the network penetration testing and ethical hacking course. You'll apply all of the skills mastered in the course in a comprehensive, hands-on workshop during which you'll conduct an actual penetration test of a sample target environment. We'll provide the scope and rules of engagement, and you'll need to achieve your goal of finding out whether the target organization's Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is at risk. As a final step in preparing you for conducting penetration tests, you'll make recommendations about remediating the risks you identify.
CPE/CMU Credits: 6
Important! Bring your own system configured according to these instructions!
A properly configured system is required to fully participate in this course. If you do not carefully read and follow these instructions, you will likely leave the class unsatisfied because you will not be able to participate in hands-on exercises that are essential to this course. Therefore, we strongly urge you to arrive with a system meeting all the requirements specified for the course.
It is critical that you back-up your system before class. it is also strongly advised that you do not bring a system storing any sensitive data.
Baseline Hardware Requirements
CPU
BIOS
USB
RAM
Hard Drive Free Space
Operating System
Additional Hardware Requirements
The requirements below are in addition to baseline requirements provided above. Prior to the start of class, you must install virtualization software and meet additional hardware and software requirements as described below. If you do not carefully read and follow these instructions, you will leave the class unsatisfied because you will not be able to participate in hands-on exercises that are essential to this course.
Network, Wired Connection
A wired connection is required in class. A wired network adapter is one that you plug a cable into. They are typically on the back or the side of your system. If your system supports only wireless, you can purchase a USB wired Ethernet adapter. This will allow you to plug the adapter into a USB Laptop Requirements for SEC560 port on your system and plug the network cable into the adapter.
VMware Player
Install VMware Player 15, VMware Fusion 11, or VMware Workstation 15. Older Versions will not work for this course. Choose the version compatible with your host OS. If you do not own a licensed copy of VMware Workstation or Fusion, you can download a free 30-day trial copy from VMware. VMware will send you a time-limited serial number if you register for the trial at their Web site. VMware Workstation Player is a free download that does not need a commercial license but has fewer features than Workstation. THIS IS CRITICAL: Other virtualization products, such as Hyper-V and VirtualBox, are not supported and will not work with the course material.
Credential Guard
If your host computer is running Windows, Credential Guard may interfere with the ability to run VMs. It is important that you start up VMWare prior to class and confirm that virtual machines can run. It is required that Credential Guard is turned off prior to coming to class.
System Configuration Settings
Disable VPN
Enterprise VPN clients may interfere with the network configuration required to participate in the class. To avoid any frustration in class, uninstall or disable your enterprise VPN client for the duration of the class. If you keep it installed, make sure that you have the access to disable or uninstall it at class.
If you have additional questions about the laptop specifications, please contact laptop_prep@sans.org.
Use this sample training request letter, or elements of it, to justify the time and budget required to complete SANS training to your manager. Simply copy and paste text into an email to your manager, then make any necessary adjustments to personalize the information.
SEC560 is the flagship penetration test course offered by the SANS Institute. Attendees are expected to have a working knowledge of TCP/IP, understand the differences between cryptographic routines such as DES, AES, and MD5, and have a basic knowledge of the Windows and Linux command lines before they come to class. While SEC560 is technically in-depth, it is important to note that programming knowledge is NOT required for the course. For more information on the differences between SEC560 and SEC504, see the SEC560 and SEC504 FAQS.
This SANS course differs from other penetration testing and ethical hacking courses in several important ways:
Student Testimonials:
Student Reviews:
"A key requirement for top security people is to understand the mind of the attacker. Both offense (red) and defense (blue) need to understand the tools and techniques used by real world attackers. A defender needs to understand attacks and how they work to properly design defenses and, just as importantly, configure detections. Offense needs to understand the tools, as well as the process, to deliver a high-value penetration test, focusing on the risks of the target. This course walks you through the process of a penetration test which is invaluable for penetration testers, those working with penetration testers, and those designing, implementing, and monitoring the defenses. This is a unique course, focusing holistically on penetration testing, not just the tools. I love sharing my passion for offense and sharing my experiences in this field. I hope to see you in class!"
- Tim Medin
"A thorough understanding of security assessment / penetration testing techniques is a key asset for any cyber security professional. In order to become a better defender, you must understand offense. Likewise, the course provides fundamental skills for people who want to establish themselves as penetration testers. Throughout my 10+ years of penetration testing experience, I am very proud to further develop and maintain SANS SEC560 as SANS' flagship penetration testing course. The class provides a balanced mix between lecture and hands-on activities, to make sure students go home, equipped to immediately put their skills to use. I personally enjoy modeling the lecture and labs towards real-life scenarios that I have encountered, and I look forward sharing my stories with you!"
- Erik Van Buggenhout