Overview

The client is a technology-driven provider of environmental monitoring solutions, focused on developing analytical tools used in industrial settings. Their product portfolio includes both mobile and stationary devices designed to support complex operational environments, such as renewable energy facilities, water treatment systems, and other infrastructure-intensive industries. With a strong commitment to innovation and system reliability, protecting their digital infrastructure is essential to maintaining customer confidence and meeting regulatory obligations.

Scope of Engagement

The client engaged our team to conduct a comprehensive penetration test targeting a line of business web and mobile applications and  associated infrastructure. The environment included:

1. Production and QA application servers
2. Administrative systems
3. A cloud SQL Server instance
   ● Web and mobile applications interfacing with the same environment

This application is a service offering intended for deployment in operationally sensitive environments.

Findings

Our assessment uncovered several critical vulnerabilities across both the application layer and infrastructure. Notably, we identified and exploited a chain of issues which testers  combined to achieve full compromise of the production web server. The key concern: this exploit could be executed externally by any registered user.

The vulnerabilities included:

Remediation and Retesting

Upon delivery of our report, the client moved quickly to address the identified issues. Within two weeks, they implemented a series of mitigations, including:

We were re-engaged shortly thereafter to validate the remediation efforts. Our retesting confirmed that the previously exploitable vulnerabilities had been fully addressed, and no new issues were introduced as a result of the changes.

Outcome

Thanks to proactive engagement and rapid remediation, the client was able to avoid what could have been a major security incident. They are now positioned to present a clean security assessment to vendor management teams and customers, enhancing confidence in the solution’s integrity.

This engagement not only helped strengthen the client’s security posture but also reinforced the importance of routine security assessments as part of their software development lifecycle.