The Vilkas Wire

Learn how to evaluate penetration test reports, spot red flags, and ensure your vendor delivers clear, actionable insights, not just scan results.

Default credentials like “admin:admin” still expose organizations in 2025. Learn why they persist, real-world attack stories, and actionable steps to prevent them.

Learn the key differences between a vulnerability scan and a penetration test, and why choosing the right one can make or break your security.

LDAP signing is a critical but often overlooked setting in Active Directory environments. When disabled, attackers can intercept or manipulate LDAP traffic using man-in-the-middle attacks or NTLM relaying. This post explains what LDAP signing is, why enforcing it is essential for AD security, and how to safely configure it using Group Policy—without breaking legacy systems.

Recently, while making some additions to our in-house penetration testing reporting tool, we started looking into metrics. What types of metrics would be useful in-house? To our clients? While reviewing data from prior year pentest reports, we decided to review the most prevalent internal network pentest findings from 2024.

When it comes to securing Active Directory, some of the most dangerous vulnerabilities aren’t flashy zero-days — they’re default settings that most organizations have never changed. One of the most quietly impactful is a setting called ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota.