I compared three single-board computers (SBC) against each other with a specific goal of finding which one would serve best as a “penetration testing drop box”, and maintain an overall price of around $110. Spoiler Alert: At the time I tested these Hardkernel’s ODROID-C2 absolutely destroyed the competition in this space. If you want to skip the SBC comparison and jump right to building your own pentest drop box you can find the instructions below and also here.

A few weeks ago I was scheduled for an upcoming Red Team exercise for a retail organization. In preparation for that assessment I started gathering all the gear I might need to properly infiltrate the organization, and gain access to their network. Social engineering attacks were explicitly removed from the scope for this engagement. This meant I wasn’t going to be able ask any employees to plug in USB devices, let me in certain rooms, or allow me to “check my email” on their terminals (yes this works).

Essentially, what were left at that point were physical attacks. Could I get access to a terminal left unlocked and perform a HID-based (think Rubber Ducky) attack? If the system wasn’t unlocked, perhaps a USB-Ethernet adapter (like the LAN Turtle) could be placed in line with the system to give me a remote shell to work from. Even if I could get physical access, without any prior knowledge of the network’s egress filtering setup, was I going to be able to get a shell out of the network? So this led me down the path of building a pentest drop box that I could place on a network, could command over a wireless adapter, automatically SSH out of a network, and just be an all-around pentesting box.

...Continue reading on the Black Hills Blog here: http://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/?p=5156