Benefits of Penetration Testing

Find out Why Penetration Testing Is Important

Article Summary

Penetration testing involves testing a computer system or network to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker. A penetration test is used to find potential exploitable vulnerabilities by malicious users. It is not the job of a system administrator to find weaknesses, but a malicious user. Penetration testing should not be a one-and done activity. It is something that organizations must do regularly. The frequency of these tests will depend on the risk assessment and the organization structure.

Cyberattacks have been on the rise in recent years. It is vital that companies are alert to this threat and can spot vulnerabilities in their systems. Cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and more common. Penetration testing is the best way to lower your cyber-attack risk.

Introduction to Testing

Cyber security testing is becoming more important as attacks become more frequent and more severe. Security testing is a valuable process that can detect vulnerabilities and issues that other IT security tools might not, . But what is penetration test? Why is it so important for businesses and individuals?

Penetration testing is the testing of a computer system or network to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker. A penetration test is used to find potential exploitable vulnerabilities by malicious users.

A pentest is not intended to detect weaknesses that could be exploited by a system administrator, but rather to identify them. Penetration testing does not happen in a single session. It is something that organizations must do regularly. The frequency of these tests will depend on the risk assessment and the organization structure.

Penetration testing has been proven to be an effective method of identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities before hackers and cybercriminals do. This allows your security team discover vulnerabilities in your defenses and fix them before a cyberattack takes place.

Why is Penetration Testing important?

A critical part of any cyber security strategy is penetration testing.

Penetration testing is used to validate the security of an organization’s applications and networks. It’s used to identify security vulnerabilities before criminals. To find security holes, penetration testers (or “pentesters”) use simulated attacks. This helps organizations find and fix security flaws before criminals can exploit them.

Penetration testing is a method to assess the security of the system. It allows organizations to improve their security procedures and security controls.

3 Reasons why penetration Testing is Important

1. Secure Infrastructure

Any organization must have a secure infrastructure. Penetration testing is one of the most popular ways to test security infrastructure.

Penetration testing is a way to find weak points in an application or network that can be exploited easily by a cybercriminal.

2. Customer Trust and Company Reputation

Reputation is everything. It is the heart of every business. Reputation can make or break a business. A simple news story about a data breach can ruin all your reputations that you have earned over the years.

3. Effective Security Measures and Security Awareness

It is vital that the data of an organization be protected. It is also at risk from being attacked by employees who take bribes to leak confidential information, or hackers. So it’s crucial to be prepared. A penetration test can be used to identify security holes before an attack takes place.

What can a data breach cause you to lose your money?

Data breaches can pose a serious problem for companies. The consequences could be severe and impact the entire organization. There can be reputational, financial, and legal consequences. The direct economic consequences of data breaches will include the associated costs and implications.

It is important to calculate the financial consequences of data breaches. However, they are only one part of the overall cost. More serious consequences of data breaches include decreased consumer confidence, loss of business, regulatory fines and penalties, fraud transactions, and other indirect losses.

Data breaches can have many costs. These include costs associated with the investigation, notification and remediation of the data breach. These are costs that the company often has to pay directly. These costs are on the rise, as the IBM Study showed. Data breach cost rose from USD 3.86million to USD 4.24million, which is the highest average total price over the 17-year history. By keeping applications secure, regular penetration tests can reduce the risk of data breaches.

How frequently should you run a pentest.

It is possible that you are wondering how often penetration testing should be performed. It all depends on the company’s risk level. A company that has no sensitive data might only test once per month. An e-commerce site with high-risk information may need to test on a daily or weekly basis. Some security systems are constantly tested.

It is important to determine what works for you and your company. It is a good idea to speak with a security professional if you are uncertain about the risk that your company is exposed.

How can penetration testing aid with Regulations?

When starting a business, regulatory compliance is a key consideration. To be successful, any business must consider the regulatory aspects. Each industry has its own rules and regulations.

Penetration testing, also known as pen testing, is an application security assessment method that identifies vulnerabilities in target applications. It is used by many organizations and businesses to comply with government regulations, such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), HIPAA and FISMA.

Penetration tests can be conducted on many systems and devices including computers, routers, web servers and firewalls. Independent contractors may perform them. Organizations can use them to prove compliance with industry regulations. The report from penetration tests will include a description of the results and recommendations for fixing or minimizing the vulnerabilities.

What is Penetration Testing and Vulnerability Assessment different?

There are many misconceptions regarding vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. While both vulnerability scanning and penetration testing are essential components of network security, they serve different purposes. Penetration testing can be used to assess a network’s defenses against real-world attacks. A vulnerability assessment, which is non-invasive scan that finds potential weaknesses in a network, can also be done.

Penetration testing can be done for:

Security strategies should include penetration tests. A team of experts simulates a real-world hacker attack on a company’s system and applications in order to identify the weaknesses of its network.

Penetration testing is a broad term, which can be divided into five categories:

  1. Testing API and web application penetration
  2. Mobile application penetration testing
  3. Cloud penetration testing (AWS/GCP, and Azure).
  4. Testing Blockchain and Smart Contracts for penetration
  5. Network penetration

How do you conduct penetration testing? ?

There are five steps to penetration testing. Let’s take a look at each one in more detail.

STEP 1: Planning, scoping and preparation

There are many things that go into planning a pen-test, but the most important is the scope, timeline and limitations. What are you testing? Who is performing the tests? What assets are involved in testing? What is the time frame for testing? What are the attack surface limits? What are the limitations of this test? What tools will you use for testing?

Planning phase is incomplete without the limitations. Limitations are defined parameters that allow testers to focus on the most important aspects. This could include: What are you not testing What is the scope and purpose of the test? What are the test’s goals? These are the things you need to know before proceeding with your trial.

STEP 2 – Asset Discovery

The penetration testing company will conduct a reconnaissance of target systems at the beginning of the test. The team will identify IP addresses, domain names, as well as other information used by the target system. To determine the type of firewall, the team will also identify which devices are used by the target.

Reconnaissance is a tool that allows the pentest team identify the type and strength of the firewall and the connection between the target and the server. Reconnaissance involves the following steps:

  1. Email reconnaissance
  2. Network reconnaissance
  3. Whois and DNS Recommendations
  4. Application reconnaissance
  5. Social engineering

These are some of the most common tools for performing reconnaissance:

  • Google – Google is a vast information resource. Google dorks is used by pentesters to locate sensitive files or endpoints, such as logs and config files.
  • Shodan is a search engine that can be used to locate various types of servers around the world. Different shodan dorks are used by pentesters to locate origin IP addresses behind load balancers or servers with a specific version.
  • Nmap or Genmap: Nmap scans ports on any host or ip address. Nmap is a CLI-based tool, while Genmap is GUI-based.
  • Aquatone – Aquatone can be used to capture screenshots of hosts. This saves a lot of time. It can take in a list or routable IP addresses and return a screenshot for each host.
  • Nuclei – This tool contains a set templates that scans URLs to find publicly available exploits and CVEs.

STEP 3.

The discovery phase has completed and the penetration testers now have complete knowledge about the target system. The attack simulation and the exploitation phases are where the pentesters simulate real-world attacks. Automatic scanners of various types are now being used to check for vulnerabilities. Manual tests can also be used to detect security risks not detected by automatic scanners. Automated scanners often miss common risks such as Business logic, zero day exploits, and bypasses of issues like SSRF, XSS.

The team uses the information collected during the discovery phase to identify CVE’s and attack the software/application using the technology being used.

STEP 4.

After the penetration testing is completed, the pentest team begins to generate penetration testing reports. A pentest report describes the results and findings of an investigation. A well-written report contains information about all findings, targets and exploits, as well as how to fix or remediate them.

STEP 5.

Although it is an important part of penetration testing, it can also be done in an optional manner. The penetration testers begin testing again after the organization has patched the vulnerabilities. This is called retesting to verify that the issues are properly fixed.

The organization usually skips the patch during the retesting phase.Image: Penetration Testing Methodology

What are the three types of penetration testing methods?

Three main types are available for penetration testing. Black, white, and gray. Not to be confused by the hacker colors black, white, or grey (used for identifying an attacker’s skill level).

1. Black Box Testing

Blackbox testing occurs when the tester does not have any prior knowledge about the environment being tested. This is the most popular type of pen-testing. Information is usually obtained from public resources such as the Internet.

2. White Box Testing

White box testing refers to when the tester has full knowledge of the environment being tested. Access to the network or other confidential resources is a common way to gain information.

3. Gray Box Testing

Gray box test is a mix of black and white box testing. Information is usually gained by partial knowledge of the environment.

What is Internal and External Penetration testing?

External Penetration Testing

External Penetration Testing can be used to test for vulnerabilities against non-production targets such as business partners and service providers. It also tests against infrastructure and networks outside the organization. External penetration testing aims to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access into the internal network.

External penetration testing is used to test your business partners and suppliers. It can also be used to help identify weaknesses in your defenses that could allow an attacker to gain access into your internal network. This is often referred to as Outside In testing.

Internal Penetration Testing

An internal penetration test is an excellent way to make sure that your organization is safe from insider threats. This is because the tester can gain the same access level as an insider. The tester has the same access rights as an insider. This gives the tester the ability to use the same tools and privileges as the insider.

Penetration testers can travel around the network the same as insiders. In essence, the tester becomes an insider. External testing makes this impossible. Although external testing can be very useful in detecting vulnerabilities, it doesn’t allow testers to freely move around the network.

What is the difference between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing?

There are many misconceptions regarding vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. While both vulnerability scanning and penetration testing are important components of network security, they serve different purposes. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Penetration testing is used to evaluate a network’s defenses against an actual-world attack. IT professionals or security consultants are the most common to perform penetration tests. A penetration test is used to assess the security of a system. Penetration testing can be a great way to validate the security of your system. This is a great way for security holes to be discovered before they can be exploited. Penetration testing differs from vulnerability scanning which is a method to identify known vulnerabilities. These are three examples of penetration testing methods.

Vulnerability scanning, on the other hand is a tool for network security analysis that scans a system, network, or application to find vulnerabilities. Vulnerability scanning can also be used to refer to vulnerability management. Vulnerability Scanning can be done on a single or a group of network/applications.

Vulnerability scanners look for weaknesses in a system’s defenses. A vulnerability scan is most commonly used to detect vulnerabilities in a network or system.

What’s the average cost for a pentest?

The cost of a penetration test is affected by many factors. Among these factors are:

  • Scope of work
  • Organization size
  • Type of penetration test to perform
  • Pentest approach
  • Pentesters with experience
  • Consultation and remediation

Why should you use Pentest Suite?

EcomServicesSummit is a security company that has been providing security services to businesses of all sizes for more than 6 years. EcomServicesSummit employs a team professional security engineers who are dedicated to keeping your company secure.

EcomServicesSummit understands that security is our only goal and will provide the best service to our clients. We don’t want to take up too much of your time with lengthy meetings or other activities that are not value-based. EcomServicesSummit includes a user-friendly dashboard that offers collaborative support, easy to read reports, and many other features.

EcomServicesSummt Pentest offers the best penetration testing solutions on the market. EcomServicesSummit provides penetration testing in many fields, including API, Web and Mobile, Blockchain, Network, and more.

EcomServicesSummit’s penetration testing suite includes the following:

1. Collaborative Dashboard

There’s no need to exchange emails in long, rambling messages. EcomServicesSummit’s vulnerability management dashboard provides a clear view of your VAPT progress.

2. Analyse Payment Hack

EcomServicesSummit checks your checkout flow to make sure hackers can’t steal credit card information, or purchase products for free.

3. Server Infrastructure Testing

EcomServicesSummit scanners inspect your server configuration to make sure that it is protected from any server-level attack.

4. VAPT Security Certificate

After fixing the vulnerabilities, you can obtain a safe-to host certificate. To show how secure your applications really are, share the certificate with your customers.

5. Consultation Call

Call your account manager or EcomServicesSummit security specialists for a detailed consultation about the security of your application.

Conclusion

Penetration Testing is one of the most difficult and complex cyber challenges. Penetration Testing allows you to attack a company’s infrastructure and systems in order to determine its security and vulnerability. Penetration testing can be a great way to verify the security of your website. EcomServicesSummit is the best place to find an ethical hacker that can assist you in this endeavor. Our team includes highly skilled security professionals who can assist you with any penetration testing requirements.

FAQs

1. What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is the process of analyzing a system’s security by exploiting any vulnerabilities.

2. What is Penetration Testing?

Some compliance regulations require penetration testing. To strengthen your cybersecurity measures, it is important to conduct frequent pentests.

3. What is the average price of a pentest?

Pentesting web apps costs on average between $99 to $399 per month.

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