📓4 - Report

Introduction

At the conclusion of the test, a report is developed to describe identified vulnerabilities, present a risk rating, and give guidance on how to mitigate the discovered weaknesses in its efforts to improve its security posture. Furthermore, the report should be structured in a way to clearly communicate what was tested, how it was tested, and the results of the testing.

This section is intended to define the base structure for a penetration test report, although it is highly encouraged to use your own format based on your needs.

Structure

A penetration test report comprises mainly two parts: the executive summary and the technical information.

  • Confidentiality statement: A brief explanation of the document's importance and the consequences of its disclosure.

  • Disclaimer: Statement explaining that you are not responsible for new vulnerabilities that might appear in the future and were not found during the assessment.

  • Executive summary

    • Synopsis: It should be a paragraph or small set of paragraphs for a no tech-savvy person explaining the major weaknesses you have found during the test in general terms.

    • Observed security strengths: Highlight security measures the client should maintain.

    • Risk Rating:

  • Technical report

    • Scope: Should contain the assets the client wanted to test for each hired service, adding any extra information provided for the client such as credentials.

      • Hosts

      • Ports

      • Provided credentials

    • < SERVICE >: Depending on the service contracted by the client, it will have a different structure.

    • < Footprinting >: Show all the information obtained about the company categorised.

      • Company domains and subdomains

      • Public contact information

      • Public files metadata

      • Employees (Names, roles, emails, leaked credentials...)

    • < Pentesting | vulnerability assessment >: The reporting of this type of test has different approaches: explaining all the steps narratively from the enumeration phase to the post-exploitation stage or focusing directly on the vulnerabilities found their exploitation without emphasising the enumeration and situational awareness phases.

      • Hostname - IP

        • Ports (TCP):

        • Ports (UDP):

        • Operating system:

      • Description: Description of what has been exploited.

      • Criticality: To help you better decide which vulnerabilities should be fixed first: (Low, Medium, High)

      • Proof of Concept (PoC): Detailed steps to exploit the vulnerability.

      • Mitigations: Recommendations about how to solve the vulnerability.

    • House cleaning

  • WiFi report: All the steps involving a WIFI penetration test exercise.

  • Appendix

    • Changes during the test: List evidence that appeals to the change in the testing objectives.

    • Meaning severity scale: Explain what is based on the criticality of each vulnerability.

Report Example

The source code and the script to generate the PDF can be found in this GitHub Repositoryarrow-up-right.

Document collage
Pentesting report example

Reporting Tools

As an alternative you can use tools such as PwnDocarrow-up-right or GhostWriterarrow-up-right, where you can manage your clients and project information, register their infrastructure such as servers, domains, etc.,manage vulnerability templates and use report templates, and everything on a multi-user friendly environment.

References

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