What is penetration testing and do i need it in my business?
What is penetration testing and do i need it in my business?
It’s common to think about how dangerous something is in terms of what physical damage it could do. A tiger is dangerous because it could assault a person. But what about an attack where nothing physical is touched, let alone destroyed? Information Security breaches can result in hackers making their way into bank accounts, medical records, social media accounts, and more. Without even meeting you, a hacker could leak your private details, fill prescriptions in your name, steal money from your accounts, or even demand payment not to do any of the previous crimes mentioned. When it comes to how dangerous a cyber-attack is, the answer is potentially devastating, and this is why you need Penetration Testing for your company because the danger is real. Penetration testing is an everyday part of the job description for us here at Scorpiones. In fact, it’s our specialty. If you ever asked yourself 'what is penetration testing and do I need it?'
Here’s what you need to know. What Is A Penetration Test?
The penetration test is a comprehensive way of testing an organization’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities. If a hacker was going to target you,
how would they do it and
would they be successful?
Penetration testing — also known as pen testing — views your network, application, device, and/or physical security through the eyes of both a malicious actor and an experienced cybersecurity expert to discover weaknesses and identify areas where your security posture needs improvement.
This testing doesn’t stop at simply discovering ways in which a criminal might gain unauthorized access to sensitive data or even take-over your systems for malicious purposes. It also simulates a real-world attack to determine how any defenses will work and the possible size of a breach.
Comprehensive penetration testing considers several areas:
Web Application Penetration Testing — Identifies application layer flaws such as Cross-Site Request Forgery, Cross-Site Scripting, Injection Flaws, Weak Session Management, Insecure Direct Object References and more.
Network Penetration Testing — Focuses on identifying network and system level flaws including Misconfigurations, Product-specific vulnerabilities, Wireless Network Vulnerabilities, Rogue Services, Weak Passwords, and Protocols.
Physical Penetration Testing — Also known as physical intrusion testing, this testing reveals opportunities to compromise physical barriers such as locks, sensors, cameras, mantraps and more.
IoT/Device Penetration Testing — Aims to uncover hardware and software level flaws with the Internet of Things devices including Weak Passwords, Insecure Protocols, APIS, or Communication Channels, Misconfigurations and more.
All of these risk-based approaches typically involve several steps:
Information Gathering — the stage of reconnaissance against the target.
Threat Modeling — identifying and categorizing assets, threats, and threats communities.
Vulnerability Analysis — discovering flaws in systems and applications using a set of tools, both commercially available tools and internally developed.
Exploitation — simulating a real-world attack to document any vulnerabilities.
Post-Exploitation — determining the value of compromise, considering data or network sensitivity.
Reporting — outlining the findings with suggestions for prioritizing fixes. For us, that means walking through the results with you hand-in-hand.
Penetration testing examines the real-world effectiveness of your existing security controls when a skilled human actively tries to hack in. Regular automated and manual testing can determine infrastructure, software, physical, and even personnel weaknesses and help your business develop strong controls. While the people who put your security program together and maintain and monitor it on a daily basis may not have the objectivity needed to identify security flaws, understand the level of risk for your organization, and help address and fix critical issues. To put it another way, in this ongoing game of cat and mouse, it helps to bring in a new cat.
Penetration testing from Red Team Operations by Scorpiones offers industry-specific threat profiling. Along with comprehensive testing of your business’s technical landscape. Our team of offensive security experts is waiting to hear from you. Schedule a consultation now to learn more about the benefits of penetration testing and to map where it fits into your organization’s security game plan.
