Avertium internal penetration testing reveals how default HVAC credentials and exposed service-account secrets could enable deeper Active Directory attacks.
Industry: Healthcare, senior living
Engagement: Internal penetration test
Introduction: A senior living provider engaged Avertium to assess its internal environment. The security analyst investigated an outdated HVAC management application, uncovering an attack path that could enable internal attacks.
Challenge: Default credentials on an HVAC system created an initial point of access
Discovery: Manual inspection exposed a domain service-account password hidden in the application interface but present in the page source
Business Impact: The account enabled further Active Directory attack techniques and created a path toward domain-level access
Differentiator: The critical finding required human investigation, browser inspection, and attack chaining beyond what automated tools would typically perform
The provider needed to understand whether weaknesses inside its network could be used to move beyond a single system and threaten sensitive business or clinical operations. During the assessment, Avertium identified default credentials on the facility’s HVAC system. Although default or unauthenticated credentials may be detected by automated tools, the exposed system warranted deeper analysis to determine what an attacker could do next.
Avertium’s penetration tester manually investigated the HVAC system’s administrative interface and noticed that a domain user account was sending status updates. The service account’s password appeared masked in the web interface, but browser inspection revealed that the actual credential remained present in the page source—an exposure tied to outdated, poorly designed software.
Because the exposed password belonged to a domain service account, Avertium could validate how the compromise might extend beyond the HVAC application. The tester used the credential to proceed with standard Active Directory attack techniques, demonstrating a chained path from an IoT device to broader access within the internal environment. While portions of the attack sequence could be automated, the pivotal step of extracting the password from the authenticated web application depended on manual analysis.
Avertium gave the provider a clear view of how a seemingly isolated facilities-system weakness could become an enterprise security risk. The findings established practical priorities: replace default credentials, rotate the exposed service-account password, remove unnecessary domain privileges, update or replace the vulnerable HVAC software, isolate IoT and operational systems from sensitive network resources, and review other applications for credentials exposed in client-side code.
This engagement demonstrates the value of human-led penetration testing. An automated tool might identify the default credentials or flag the aging HVAC software, but the critical insight came from examining how the application handled credentials, revealing the masked password in the page source, recognizing its domain significance, and validating the attack path. That expert analysis transformed an overlooked IoT weakness into a prioritized enterprise security finding the customer could address.
Looking to uncover the attack paths automated testing may miss? Contact Avertium to discuss an expert-led web application penetration test.