10 Burning Questions About PentestLab - Interview with Ross Moore

What are the primary objectives of setting up a pentest lab in 2024, and how have they evolved in recent years?

The progress in set up objectives and technology advancements have developed together. Virtualization options, including online virtual environments, have allowed a lot more people to take advantage of virtualization. This has led to more people being able to provide and use virtual environments for either single purpose labs (e.g., investigating PCAPs with Wireshark) all the way to fully loaded attack and defense distros.

Specific objectives are probably weighted more toward individual education, whether an online platform or being able to install a virtual machine on one's on equipment.

One specific area of change is API testing. APIs are everywhere, and this is a definite focused change in lab work compared to even just a couple years ago.

How do virtualization and containerization technologies play a role in the setup and scalability of pentest labs today?

Those technologies play the primary role. They allow a student to use lower quality/lower cost personal equipment for learning, while also allowing institutions to spend fewer resources to set up environments for multiple students or players. The technological advancements provide companies with plenty of resources (e.g., personnel, money) to provide a wider array of services, e.g., virtual machines for a greater variety of lab use.

What is the recommended network configuration for a pentest lab to simulate real-world networks while....