Existing infrastructure and conventional planning can fall short when designing a cybersecurity strategy. Instead, clients need to think from a hacker’s perspective and figure out system vulnerabilities before the damage happens. A lot like the Hollywood flick “Minority Report,” where the law catches criminals before the crime is committed. 

That’s exactly how penetration testing works, otherwise known as ethical hacking. However, unlike simulations, a pen test works by attempting to breach the existing defense framework to document real-time loopholes and determine the proper solutions.  

In this post, we look closer at how a pen test works, how often you should do it, the key benefits, pen test types, and a profitable approach. Read on!

Understanding how a penetration test works 

Typically, a pen test uses the same techniques a hacker would use to breach an organization’s cybersecurity system. The most common types of pen tests include : 

• Phishing
• Open-port identifications
• Backdoor 
• Data alterations 
• Adware installations
  
  

Together, such methods work towards pointing out areas that security professionals might have ignored or overlooked during the development stage and can be harder to figure out unless the breach happens. 

Stages involved in Penetration Testing 

At the outset, pen testing has five essential stages: Exploitation, Reconnaissance, Scanning, Reporting, and Vulnerability assessment.

• Reconnaissance: In this phase, the key goal is to collect as much information as possible about the target system.

• Scanning: Here, the penetration tester works on the information collected about employees, contractors, and information systems and expands physical and logical information system structures, like open ports and network traffic.

• Vulnerability assessment: This is the phase where the data gathered in the previous stages identifies potential vulnerabilities.

• Exploitation:  The ethical hacker attempts to access the system and exploit the identified vulnerabilities. 

• Reporting: Finally, the tester prepares a report documenting the test findings, including a detailed outline of unattended vulnerabilities, a business impact assessment, remediation advice, and strategic recommendations.

Types of a penetration test

To choose a suitable provider for ethical hacking, you must be familiar with the types of pen tests, as they vary in focus, depth, and duration.

Common pen test types:

• Internal/external infrastructure
• Wireless, web, and mobile applications
• Build and configuration review
• Social engineering
• Cloud
• Agile penetration testing

Specific information is needed to scope each test, such as the number of IPs, wireless networks, apps, API calls, operating systems, builds, and application servers that should be assessed thoroughly.

Pen Test-How often should organizations do it 

A pen test is needed to be run on a periodic note. As a rule of thumb, organizations should settle for a pen test annually and change up the pen test provider every year. However, if you can’t decide the interval, consider conducting one for the following situations: 

• When there is any major infrastructure or application upgrade
• When applying significant security patches
• When updating or modifying end-user policies 
• When establishing offices in new locations
• When launching digital assets, like cloud services or websites 

Major benefits of conducting a penetration test 

Penetration testing goes beyond vulnerability scans and compliance audits and evaluates the effectiveness of current security measures against a potentially strong hacker. This is important because it allows for patching vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. 

Here are five reasons why penetration testing is essential:

• Identifying vulnerabilities before criminals do: Penetration testing can uncover vulnerabilities that a cybersecurity strategy may not have considered. Unlike how vulnerability scans work, a pen test involves a human attacker to reveal real-time vulnerabilities that can only rise to the surface by combining multiple low-risk vulnerabilities, seemingly impossible to find with automated scans.

• Effective testing of defending abilities of your security network: It is always a wise call to analyze the strength of your existing network for monitoring intruder attacks. Doing so can further determine whether automated intrusion detection programs are working as expected or whether IT professionals have the right set of tools to spot and respond to an attack.
• Assess the potential damage of a successful attack: A successful attack can cause financial damage, disrupt critical processes, damage brand reputation, and result in the loss of crucial business data. Early identification of weak spots can help businesses mitigate hacking attempts and plan for disaster recovery.
• Enhance customer and executive security to customers: Penetration tests can help demonstrate to customers and executives that a company’s security measures are trustworthy. This boosts the company’s reputation by adding a layer of evidence during security assessments before signing vendor deals.
• Reduce remediation costs and network downtime: Addressing vulnerabilities before a breach occurs is less disruptive than scrambling to fix security holes following a breach. Low remediation costs and minimizing network downtime are always preferred. 

How Technology Navigation can help

At Technology Navigation, our mission is to act as an extension of our client’s IT vision.  We have numerous highly regarded cybersecurity firms in our supplier ecosystem.   After reviewing your requirements, we can suggest which security firm to engage with and why.  

Our proprietary process empowers clients to navigate the complex world of IT solutions, thereby gaining maximum leverage via industry-leading insights to attain business goals. Connect with us to learn more.