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+---- Thread: My First Experience with Real-Life Penetration Testing (/showthread.php?tid=6283024)
My First Experience with Real-Life Penetration Testing - Game - Oct 22, 2024
So, I’ve always been fascinated by cybersecurity, reading articles, watching talks, and running virtual labs, but I never had the chance to apply those skills in a real-world environment. Everything “hacking related” I’ve ever done has always been online, whether it was hacktivism or doxing, account cracking or whatever… Until today.
A friend of mine who runs a small business asked me to check the security of his network after noticing some unusual activity. I figured it would be straightforward, maybe just some outdated software or weak passwords. But as I dug deeper, I realized the network had vulnerabilities that could have easily been exploited by an attacker.
What surprised me the most was how simple it was to access certain parts of the system. I won’t go into too much detail (because, you know, ethics), but it was a wake-up call for me and for him. I patched things up, strengthened his defenses, and gave him a full report.
It felt like a huge responsibility to handle someone’s real network, and it made me appreciate the impact of cybersecurity professionals even more. Anyone else here had a similar “in-the-field” moment?
RE: My First Experience with Real-Life Penetration Testing - InspectorGadget - Oct 22, 2024
Nice work man!
Can you go into detail on some of the fixes you applied? I can't really tell if you stopped his WiFi password being Hello123! or if you implemented Rouge Access Point detection or something else.
(Don't reveal the actual SSID of the WiFi network as that can be used to find the location you are talking about if it's not a common name)
RE: My First Experience with Real-Life Penetration Testing - LeetSpeed - Oct 22, 2024
Awesome job! I do regularly test my network to find vulnerabilities. I tested a acquaintance network last week and found that they had netbios wide open on the net. Someone decided to open that port on the firewall for some reason. I informed them addressed the issue and they quickly closed it.
RE: My First Experience with Real-Life Penetration Testing - Lefty - Oct 22, 2024
I was expecting something else from the title but that's awesome you got some irl training. Congrats dude.