When you think of penetration testing, you may think of hackers breaking into computers.
A penetration test is a type of vulnerability assessment performed by IT professionals. They look for network weaknesses. These tests help companies find vulnerabilities and fix them before they become threats to their systems.
In this article, you’ll learn about the ins and outs of a penetration test and the testing method. So, Stay with us till the end.
What is a penetration test?
Penetration testing is sometimes known as “pen testing.” It is a type of security exercise in which a trained cybersecurity professional tries to uncover and exploit flaws in a computer system. This simulated attack aims to find security flaws in the system that malicious users could control.
Who Conducts this test?
When conducting a pen test, it’s preferable to have someone who doesn’t know much about the system. This is because they may find vulnerabilities that the engineers who developed the system didn’t see. Since this is the case, hiring third-party vendors to do the necessary evaluations is standard practice. These freelancers are often referred to as “ethical hackers.” They are hired to break into a system with the owner’s knowledge and consent to improve security.
Many “white hat” hackers have years of development experience, a graduate degree, and a pen testing certification. However, some of the best ethical hackers have never had formal training. Besides, many penetration testing companies offer both automated and manual penetration tests.
Varieties of Pen Testing
Blackbox testing and Whitebox testing are the two main categories of penetration testing.
For black box testing, testers pretend to be outsiders without prior knowledge of the network and attempt to break in from that vantage point. Many people choose this route because it is the most popular alternative.
On the other hand, white box penetration testing takes an insider’s view of the network, such as that of an IT professional or another authorized user. In most cases, these come after black box testing has been completed.
Both types of penetration testing are typically performed on businesses that employ penetration testers to ensure security.
Another type of testing is called Gray Box penetration testing. This type of penetration testing requires the tester to have prior familiarity with the system being tested. This may include a map of the underlying network or an application’s logic flowcharts in addition to lower-level credentials. Many cybercriminals won’t even try to start an attack if they don’t know anything about the target environment, therefore the test will still give highly realistic results. Because this method goes straight from the identification of high-risk systems to the pen test itself, it saves time and effort and allows more attention to be paid to the systems that truly need it.
How Penetration Testing Works
Conducting a thorough penetration test can be broken down into four distinct parts. Among these are:
- The enumeration of a network is the step in testing when information about the network is. This includes hosts and linked devices. The first step in the testing process is to get a bird’s-eye view of the network and what it comprises.
- The vulnerability assessment is a battery of tests to expose specific and unusual entry points into the system. During this phase, the tester determines which areas of the network to “penetrate” and try to take advantage of.
- Next, the tester will try to exploit the flaws they’ve found after learning about the various components of the network. To put it plainly, the tester will try to “hack” the network despite numerous layers of protection.
- The final step of a penetration test, reporting, and repair. This summarizes the findings of the exploitation and gives an in-depth analysis of the security holes. Penetration testers will provide recommendations for fixing these security flaws and preventing such attacks.
Why Run a Penetration Test?
Most people conduct penetration tests for two primary reasons:
To pinpoint and repair individual weak points in the network’s cybersecurity architecture, including the incident response strategy.
The goal is to raise consciousness about cybersecurity challenges at the highest levels of management. This can lead to more money being set aside for cybersecurity. Also including new defenses and security education, training, and consciousness-raising campaigns.
Benefits of Penetration Testing
A perfect world is one in which vulnerabilities in software and systems are not introduced. A pen test can reveal how well that objective was met. Organizations can benefit from conducting penetration tests below:
- Determine where systems are failing.
- Find out how reliable the controls are
- Assistance with meeting data privacy and security standards
- Give some hard numbers to back up the security measures in place and the spending priorities of the organization.
How long does it take to do a penetration test?
There are several elements, such as network size and complexity, that affect how long it takes to carry out a penetration test, therefore it’s impossible to give a precise estimate. However, in most cases, an exploration can be completed in a matter of a week to a couple of weeks. It’s important to remember that testing, analyzing, and reporting on a network with several vulnerabilities will take significantly more time than testing, analyzing, and reporting on a network with only one or two flaws. If your company is thinking about getting a penetration test done, you need to factor in a lot of time to identify and repair vulnerabilities.
Now that you understand the value of penetration testing and what it comprises, it is prudent to arrange for one to be performed on your company’s network. By finding weaknesses you aren’t aware of, you can prevent catastrophic security breaches from occurring.
Conclusion
Companies utilize cutting-edge methods to assess your network infrastructure. And identify security holes that could compromise your sensitive data and crucial programs.
Now that you understand the value of penetration testing and what it entails, it is time to book one for your company’s network. You can prevent security breaches by finding weaknesses.