Think full-disk encryption is going to save you? Think again! This often underrepresented attack vector can yield huge gains for attackers. From tricky hardware attacks to next-level network abuse; our laptop testing can drop some jaws.

Laptop Security Testing

Objective:

Laptop Security Testing is designed to identify vulnerabilities and potential security risks in a laptop. This includes both the hardware and software aspects, and is designed to answer the question: “What if an employee lost their corporate laptop, and a world-class computer hacker found it?” It helps to ensure that your laptop (or other mobile device) fleet is pressure-tested against real-world threats.

Scope and Methodology:

The methodology involves a comprehensive analysis of the laptop’s architecture, including its hardware foundation, full-disk encryption capabilities, and susceptibility to external hardware interface tampering, among other aspects. Additionally, it assesses the security of the operating system configuration, evaluating whether it exposes vulnerable services, permits unsafe service interactions, or employs weak authentication mechanisms. The ultimate objective is to take a powered-off laptop and exploit a chain of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities to boot the device, gain access to the operating system, and compromise its trust relationships - including network access to your corporate environment!

Features:

• Hardware Analysis: Examination of the laptop’s hardware components to identify potential vulnerabilities and weak points that could be exploited.

• Full-Disk Encryption Assessment: Evaluation of the effectiveness and implementation of full-disk encryption to ensure data protection even if the device is physically compromised.

• External Interface Security: Inspection of external hardware interfaces, such as USB ports and network connections, to identify potential tampering or unauthorized access points.

• Operating System Configuration Review: Network assessment of the operating system’s configuration to detect exposed services, unsafe service interactions, and weak authentication mechanisms.

• Vulnerability Exploitation Testing: Simulation of real-world attack scenarios to identify and exploit chains of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, demonstrating potential security breaches.

• Login and Authentication Security: Evaluation of login mechanisms and authentication processes to ensure robustness against unauthorized access attempts.

• Trust Relationship Abuse: Analysis of the laptop’s trust relationships with other devices and systems, identifying potential exploitation pathways. This can include abusing wireless configurations, or automatic VPN connections.

• Security Best Practices Verification: Review and verification of adherence to security best practices, ensuring that the device complies with industry standards and guidelines.

Scoping Parameters:

Scoping for Laptop security testing typically involves a work effort for a single laptop image. If multiple hardware types or OS images are desired, scoping can be increased to accommodate. In some cases, differing laptop images are close enough to each other to help make testing more efficient.

A laptop should be configured and provisioned like it would be for an employee. The regular application stack should be installed, and users should log into the laptop at least once to simulate real-world conditions. Credentials may also be provided for testing, so consultants can stage the laptop in different forms: powered off, sleeping, hibernation, etc.

Note: While we take every precaution to avoid damaging the laptop during testing, some damage due to disassembly may occur.