Last month I was approached by a professor at Del Mar Community College here in Corpus Christi to participate in the 2008 Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC). The professor wanted me to be a part of the Red Team that performed external assessment and penetration testing against the teams while they tried to maintain a business environment and implement business requests for their mock business. Of course I jumped at the chance. To make up for some lost time associated with some of my tools skills I decided to get a demonstration copy of Core Impact. The guys over at Pauldotcom hooked me up with their contact and before I knew it I was off to the races.
At first I thought that I would just write a quick post about the experience so I started getting some screen shots of Core Impact and writing it all up in a Word document. Six pages into it I realized that it was just going to be a little too much for a blog post. So, I decided to make it a White Paper instead: Core Impact at the 2008 Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.
Although there are no ground breaking findings in this paper, I hope that I have demonstrated the usefulness of Core Impact. It really worked out well in the competition environment and I can now completely understand why people who have used this toolset are impressed by it. Of course, as I mention in my conclusion, there is definitely a need for all the other tools associated with penetration testing, but if you need something for quick and consistent results, Core Impact should be high on your list of considerations.
I would like to thank Core Impact for lending me a time limited version of their tool for this competition. I would also like to thank the professors at Del Mar Community College for putting on such a professional competition. I only hope that I added to the experience. If you get a offer to participate in a CCDC, please do so. You are helping future information technology and security professionals develop and grow.
Go forth and do good things,
Don C. Weber
Security Ripcord, Core Impact, Del Mar Community College, CCDC