A Checklist for Developing Defenses

Step	Description
Gather information (see Chapter 14).	Consider the items assessment tools don't do for you like public routing prefix announcements, ISP route filter policy, address block registrar configurations, domain registrations, web searching, name service exploration, search engines, and newsgroups.
Map the theatre of war (see Chapter 14).	Determine your assessment's boundaries as they would in a war movie. Create physical and logical maps and document packet filter and firewall discovery.
Qualify targets.	Use several tools for service discovery, fingerprinting, and identification. Understand the perils of port scanning and plan your time accordingly .
Create attack profiles.	Build attack profiles for all systems (targets) you have found and qualified. Make sure the attack profiles are accurate based on data gathered thus far.
Attack.	Use various VA tools to conduct the attack, but validate VA tool findings through human interpretation and follow-on validation tool usage.
Defend and remedy vulnerabilities.	Prioritize findings for remediation . Use tools to help remediate as well as take a more preventive approach to security.

Recommended Reading

• RFC 793, Transmission Control Protocol

• http://www.iana.org/assignments/icmp-parameters

• http://www.sse-cmm.org/metric/metric.asp

• http://www. insecure .org

• http://www.nessus.org

• http://www.foundstone.com/index.htm?subnav=resources/navigation.htm&subcontent=/resources/freetools.htm

• http://www.hping.org

• http://www.thc.org/

• http://www.cve.mitre.org

• http://www.cert.org

• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid

• http://osvdb.org

• http://oval.mitre.org