Adversarial Threats on a Penetration Testing Solution

Malicious adversaries are increasingly aiming to bypass security controls. There is a race to “owning” vulnerable machines and it is advantageous to malicious adversaries if the existing vulnerabilities are not patched. The research will be performed on a vulnerability assessment and management platform, specifically designed to assist organizations in identifying and mitigating cyber risks. It is unclear how effective the solution is against malicious insiders. For instance, in an enterprise environment, a malicious insider may circumvent the alerts that the platform may generate if it has taken over that machine. The research will focus on testing exploit techniques that can allow a threat actor to bypass the platform’s detection mechanisms and establish malware and persistence mechanisms within the target. By taking this approach, the project aims to identify the susceptibility of the platform to insider attacks and develop strategies to address them before malicious actors can exploit them. Proactively identifying and mitigating potential cyber threats is critical in today’s digital landscape, and this research can help organizations better understand and address their vulnerabilities.

Faculty Supervisor:

Hassan Khan

Student:

Partner:

Fiera Capital

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Finance and Insurance

University:

University of Guelph

Program: