Last Updated on February 24, 2023 by Ahmad Shahzad
A pentest, short for penetration test, evaluates the security of an organization’s public-facing resources by simulating an attack. With a pentest, you get to simulate the type of attack you will be vulnerable to on the day your systems go live. An essential distinction between penetration testing and other types of cybersecurity audits is that pentesting typically involves actively exploiting vulnerabilities instead of just identifying them. Below are some commonly asked questions about the pentest.
What Does Pentesting Entail?
Pentest as a service is crucial for every business. The Hydraulic profiling tool mimics the vulnerabilities typically targeted by hackers. It can follow several paths. However, they generally provide an opportunity to analyze the security posture of a company’s IT systems and infrastructure to spot weaknesses. In many cases, this includes testing the entire Internet-facing portion of a company’s website from various vectors. A popular way to achieve this is through DDoS attacks. They are especially effective because they can often be traced back to their origin by searching for IP addresses.
What are the Different Types of Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing can be done in several ways depending on the goals of the test. The different types of penetration testing include:
- Network penetration testing.
- Web application penetration testing.
- Wireless network penetration testing.
- Social engineering.
- Physical penetration testing.
Network penetration testing identifies vulnerabilities in an organization’s network infrastructure, such as routers, switches, firewalls, and servers. Web application penetration testing evaluates web-based applications’ security and identifies potential code vulnerabilities. Wireless network penetration testing identifies weaknesses in an organization’s wireless network security, including access points, security protocols, and encryption methods.
Social engineering is a type of penetration testing that evaluates an organization’s employees’ susceptibility to social engineering attacks, such as phishing or pretexting. Physical penetration testing evaluates an organization’s physical security measures, such as access control systems, surveillance cameras, and alarm systems.
What Happens After a Penetration Test?
After a penetration test, a report details the vulnerabilities found during the test and recommendations for addressing them. The report typically includes a list of the vulnerabilities, the severity of each vulnerability, and steps that can be taken to remediate the vulnerabilities.
The report may also include a risk assessment that helps the organization prioritize which vulnerabilities should be addressed first. The risk assessment considers the likelihood of the vulnerability being exploited and the potential impact of a successful exploit.
Once the report is generated, the organization can remediate the vulnerabilities and improve its security posture. Depending on the severity of the vulnerabilities, the organization may need to implement immediate fixes or develop a longer-term plan for addressing them. Retesting after remediation is essential to ensure the vulnerabilities have been successfully addressed.
Why Do You Need to Know How to Define Your Own Security Needs?
The security professionals in your organization will help you with that type of critical thinking. However, you will also want to take over some of that responsibility. One of the things you can do is undertake PTAAS. You need to know what is required for that process to prioritize what resources you should use. In some cases, the scope of a penetration test for an organization can be as simple as the web servers and database servers, especially when it comes to e-commerce sites. In other cases, it will be much more complicated than that. You may even have to get involved if specific critical systems do not clearly define what it is from the pentester’s perspective.
How Do You Know if Your Company Needs a Full Penetration Test?
A full penetration test would typically be required for the full breadth of your business processes. Before you make that decision, it helps to break down your business into its most basic functions to categorize them based on security needs. It would help if you had a web server and a database server. In addition to these two main pieces of infrastructure, you would also want an application server for every instance of their code.
How Can You Know What Services Your Company Requires to Be Secure?
If you are lucky enough to have a security team or organization that can help you with this type of analysis, they will know precisely what is needed. Sometimes it is better to get outside opinions to confirm what is required than rely on nothing but assumptions in the future. This is especially true in startups and small businesses where you may need to make some cuts to your overhead. If you cannot identify the critical services you need, you will need to define your own security needs.
How Can You Do a Pentest and Figure Out Your Infrastructure’s Vulnerabilities?
If a website has an e-commerce aspect, then it is probably necessary to know the full scope of what that entails. If a hacker had managed to compromise your website and try to sell another product, they could potentially be vulnerable. That is not to say that the pentester has been successful if they can get into one part of the site. However, all signs indicate it is a more accessible avenue of attack than someone trying to steal something from a never-ending list of products.
Aptly named, penetration testing deals with penetrates company defenses. It also determines their weaknesses to fix them if necessary. Once appropriately set and made impenetrable again, any future attacker will be limited in what they can do to steal data or disrupt services.
