Everything You Need To Know About Penetration Testing

No matter how secure an organization’s infrastructure is, attackers would somehow come up with ways to break into the system. All they need is just a single loophole or a vulnerable area that would make their job easy. Cyber-attacks have been happening all over the world to a significant extent, even today, and this just makes us wonder whether the current security levels that organizations have are foolproof or not.

Some cybersecurity tools do exist to help protect the infrastructure from unwanted attacks such as firewalls or anti-virus software, but one thing that people aren’t much familiar with is penetration testing, which is an excellent way to assess the cybersecurity risks in a system.

Also Read: The Impact of Covid-19 on Cyber Security

In this blog post, we will learn what penetration testing is, how is it performed, why is it performed, the different types of penetration testing, the testing methods, and more.

What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing (also referred to as Pen testing) is a type of testing done to discover or determine the security threats in an organization’s IT infrastructure or software application by safely trying to exploit vulnerabilities. The goal of performing a penetration test is to find out how secure your system, applications, or networks are in case a cyber attack takes place. Using several tools and techniques, organizations simulate cyber attacks to track the weakest links in the system and find out in what ways can a hacker cause damage to the infrastructure despite the company’s security measures and protocols.

Put simply, penetration testing lets you know what are the possibilities of a system being attacked, and what steps you need to take to prevent those attacks or secure your network.

How is Penetration testing performed?

During a pen test, the associated expert (a penetration tester) tries to break into the application network and system through various means. He/she would try to find out and collate all the security weaknesses that the system possesses, and based on his findings, create a report that encompasses the potential risks. A pen test expert would perform a number of tests such as internal tests, external tests, wireless tests, and web application tests to cover every possible area that the attacker can look for to break into the system. They have different scripts created for specific environments. In addition, they also provide recommendations as to how those security risks can be eliminated or minimized.

Once the threats have been addressed, the pen test expert would test again to check for any further vulnerabilities, and ensure that the system is completely secure.

Why is Pen testing done?

Though this would have been pretty much clear to you by now, there are two major reasons why penetration testing is performed, and why you should do the same.

The primary reason for doing penetration testing is to make your system secure enough to prevent any breakdown or third-party attacks. In other words- to make sure that any unauthorized person cannot break into your system. The second major reason to do a pen test is to assess which particular areas need to be addressed more and which areas can be kept on low priority.

Though the app owners or the organization would want to keep the security level intact, however, they might not want to spend millions of dollars on setting up all the security systems and safety measures. Thus, the focus is primarily on the essential measures that need to be taken.

Once the system is assessed and the vulnerabilities are identified, the pen test expert would reveal the critical issues as well as the ones that may not cause any major damage to the system. This way, the organization would know where do they need to spend more, which areas they need to cover, and which can be put on hold for that time.

Types of Penetration Tests

Pen testing generally involves two types of testing- White box testing and Black box testing.

1. White box testing

In white-box penetration testing, the testing expert is provided all the information regarding the system and its configuration, beforehand. They have access to the source code and the network architecture. Using that information, the tester searches for the loopholes and tries to break into the system to check its security level.

2. Black box testing

In black-box testing, the associated tester isn’t provided any inside information but only limited details or public information like the website name, URL, company name, etc. Based on whatever information the testing expert has, they use that information to gain some deeper insights and obtain other information to break into the application.

There is also something called Grey box testing which is a combination of black box and white box testing. Here, the internal information is partially known to the tester.

Pen Test Methods

There are two types of Penetration testing methods- Manual Penetration Testing and Automated Penetration Testing. The purpose is the same in both methods; the only difference is the way they are conducted.

1. Manual Penetration Testing

As the name suggests, this type of testing is performed manually, with maximum human involvement. In manual pen testing, the testing engineer himself tests the vulnerabilities and risks associated with a system.

2. Automated Penetration Testing

This testing method automatically tests the associated risks and vulnerabilities and is much faster, reliable, and efficient. This requires no or minimal involvement/supervision of a testing expert as tools do that job quite effectively. There are different automated tools such as Nessus, Metasploit, and OpenVAs that significantly improve the overall efficiency of penetration testing.

Both manual and automated pen-testing have their own advantages and disadvantages. For instance, the expert can do a better analysis in the former and assess the system from the hacker’s perspective to figure out what all areas he can target. Automated testing, on the other hand, cannot analyze the situation as better as a real person can. But it is more time-saving.

How is Pen Testing different from Vulnerability Scanning?

Vulnerability scanning and Penetration may seem similar, however, they are not the same. The former scans an organization’s networks and looks for weaknesses. Once the scan is completed, those weaknesses are listed based on priority. The IT department uses this list to determine which vulnerabilities to address first. They are routinely assessed and performed automatically.

The latter is performed by testing engineers or cybersecurity experts. They mimic a hacker’s behavior and simulate a similar environment to find loopholes in their system infrastructure. This eventually helps them strengthen their cybersecurity challenges.

Final Thoughts

Although penetration testing focuses primarily on cybersecurity, the benefits are not limited to this and go beyond just a cyberattack. Apart from improving or strengthening the security infrastructure, pen testing helps mitigate financial losses due to data breaches, saves the organization’s reputation, protects clients and partners, and helps comply with the standard compliances.