Leveraging Generative AI for estimating penetration testing lab costs

The way we design our penetration testing lab environments can have a significant impact on the overall cost of running these labs in the cloud. Certain implementations and variations may require more resources than others, which would lead to increased costs. By carefully considering the architecture of our lab setup, we can identify opportunities to reduce costs without compromising the quality, performance, and stability of our penetration testing lab environment. Estimating the associated costs when running these environments is another crucial aspect as this allows security professionals (and teams) to plan their budget and maintain a sustainable lab setup in the long run.

In Chapter 6, Setting Up Isolated Penetration Testing Lab Environments on AWS, we prepared a lab setup where we can practice network pivoting techniques. In case you’ve forgotten already, here’s a simplified diagram showing...