Finding Your Inner Evildoer

Written by our Vice President of Services, Joe Basirico, this whitepaper covers what it takes to become a great security tester. Using his years of experience examining and training development teams, Joe has come up with three pillars that every security testing foundation must have: 

  • Imagination - Great imagination extends beyond the ability to imagine a system as it could be, but extends to envision the truly interesting bugs and vulnerabilities in a system. You need to be able to ask yourself "what’s really going on here?" and "how would I build this?"

  • Complete Knowledge of the System - A successful security tester has deep knowledge about everything that goes on in a computer system and can quickly identify items that are out of place.
  • Evil Streak - This is the ability to take a potential vulnerability to it's logical end. It's possibly the most important quality in a security tester. Not because it gives you some superhuman ability, but rather because it gives the spark that will drive the other two qualities.