# Penetration Testing Methodologies

Stages of Penetration Testing

| Stage                 | Description                                                                                                                                               |
| --------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Information Gathering | Gathering as much publically accessible information as possible  (OSINT and research)                                                                     |
| Enumeration/Scanning  | Discovering what services and applications are running on the system                                                                                      |
| Exploitation          | Leveraging vulnerabilities that were discoverd on a system using either public exploits or exploiting application logic                                   |
| Privilege Escalation  | Excalating privileges horizontally (another account of the same privilege) or vertically (administrator accounts)                                         |
| Post-Exploitation     | Contains substages: Pivoting (what other hosts can be targeted), what additional information we can gather from the host, covering your tracks, reporting |

OSSTMM (The Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual) - provides a detailed framework of testing strategies and is the best for telecommunications, wired networks, wireless communications. 

OWASP (Open Web Applicatoin Security Project) - framework used solely to test the security of web applications and services


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