Every business has risks and weak spots. No matter how robust the digital infrastructure is or how strict the cybersecurity procedures are, there will always be some risk.
Because of this, many businesses include penetration testing in their risk analysis and security programs. Security professionals run penetration tests like a hacker trying past cyber defenses to learn about an organization’s infrastructure and find possible risks and holes. That is why there are many types of penetration testing to ensure no weak spots are left untouched.
The goal of penetration testing, also called “pen testing” is to find places where security is weak. The company can then improve its security and stop other bad people from exploiting the same flaws.
The goal of vulnerability testing is the same as penetration testing: to find weak spots in an enterprise ecosystem. The main difference is that vulnerability testing is done as a preliminary check and looks for security flaws from a more high-level perspective. Pen testing is more tactical and “on the ground.”
Automated vulnerability scans help get a basic idea of the security holes in an organization. Pen tests, which are an essential part of a program to manage vulnerabilities, are done by people.
What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing uses different strategies and techniques to test the security of a network, computer system, app, or other IT asset. Penetration testing is a way to see how resistant something is to simple and complex attacks. It helps find all the possible security holes and weaknesses that hackers could use.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Zoom, and Twitter have had data leaks recently. Data breaches can happen with mobile apps, blockchain apps, cloud apps, and web apps. Cybercriminals and hackers can get into anything. Application security is in higher demand than ever before. Read below to know more about the types of penetration testing.
Types of Penetration Testing by methodology
You can put penetration tests into different groups based on the information available and the target to test. Depending on how much information is available, there are three different types of penetration testing: Black Box Penetration Testing, White Box Penetration Testing, and Gray Box Penetration Testing
Black Box Penetration Testing
Black box penetration testing aims to give the tester as little information as possible about the IT system to test. The goal is to act like a cyberattack where the attacker doesn’t know how to protect the infrastructure.
Gray Box Penetration Testing
In this case, the company that hires the tester knows something about its internal network or has access. The tester looks at how well the organization’s internal security measures keep out people who shouldn’t be there.
White Box Penetration Testing
This term refers to pen tests in which the tester has full access to all the data about the tested infrastructure. This is also called “clear box testing.” It plans to thoroughly audit its IT infrastructure, source code, and operating system.
There are different types of penetration testing, each with its purpose and testing goals:
1. Network Penetration Testing
Network penetration testing is a type of security audit to evaluate the safety of a network if you are interested in the technical side of security audits.
Penetration testing, also called network security testing, is a way to determine how easy it would be to break into a computer network. A bug in a computer program or an attack by a lousy hacker could cause this weakness. A penetration test acts like an attack from a bad hacker to find the network’s weak spots and figure out how likely an actual attack would work.
This testing looks for flaws in the system that could be used against it by someone else. Network penetration testing is done on the network infrastructure, also called the network’s backbone.
2. Mobile Penetration Testing
A mobile app for testing security holes Penetration testing is testing a mobile app for security flaws. Penetration testing aims to find security flaws in mobile apps and let the developers know about them.
There are different kinds of testing, such as functional and security testing. Penetration testing has greatly changed, and mobile users and devices have grown. You can see this by testing Android and iOS for security holes.
Mobile application penetration testing aims to get private information or stop the app from working. A penetration test intends to show that a system has flaws.
3. Web Application Penetration Testing
Web application penetration testing figures out how likely a hacker or group of hackers will be able to get into your web app. It shows you where your online application is weak and protects you from data breaches, identity theft, financial loss, and other nasty things.
The penetration tester usually looks for flaws like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and cross-site request forgery to break the web application. The tester then finds the defects and checks to see if they can get data or control the online app.
4. Internal Network Pen Testing
This type of penetration testing is done with the assumption that hacker attacks come from inside the network. When you do a pen test, you pretend to be a malicious person with (more or less) authorized access to the internal network.
One way to do this is by analyzing the effects of confidential information that was accidentally shared, changed, misused, or deleted.
5. External Network Pen Testing
In this case, the attack is made to look like it came from somewhere outside the network. The testers will try to enter the system by taking advantage of flaws on the outside that could give them access to data and systems on the inside.
Pen testing checks for the following network security risks:
- Wrongly set up firewalls
- Tests for routing
- Testing a proxy server
- Port scanning with open Community databases for DNS forensics
- Postal service
4 Biggest Benefits of Penetration Testing
1. Analysis of IT infrastructure
A pen test looks at your IT infrastructure and how well it protects users, endpoints, networks, applications, and systems from inside and outside attempts to steal data, mess up operations, and compromise protected assets.
2. Taking care of Finances
Your company could lose a lot of money if security is broken. Security flaws can make your network, applications, and services less functional, costing your company a lot of money. You could lose customers and your good name or get fined.
Costs and attacks on IT infrastructure go down when penetration testing is done often. Even though it costs money, proactive security maintenance is better than big losses to your brand and money.
3. Guards Clients and Business Relationships
Security holes can hurt your business, clients, business partners, and others. But data and system security measures, as well as frequent penetration tests, can help build trust.
4. Guards the Company’s Reputation
A long-term commitment, investment, and consistency make a great company and a good name in the public eye. All your hard work can be lost instantly if there is a security breach. The breach can hurt your reputation, trust, and confidence, no matter how much it costs or how quickly it is fixed.
It could take years and a lot of money to fix these problems. This can be avoided with regular penetration tests and other security measures. Remember that bad people and hackers always look for ways to get into a company’s IT system.
When getting a penetration testing contract, there are four things to consider
A penetration testing contract is a pact between the customer and the penetration tester who does the penetration testing on the required application or network. Penetration testing is a tricky process. During testing, you need several steps to keep the actual product or application from being affected.
When getting a contract for penetration testing, you should think about the following four things:
1. Make sure your plan and scope are the right ones
To do penetration, you need to have a good plan. This pentest blueprint is given to the team of penetration testers before they do a pentest. Usually, the plan says when you can use the automation scanner, how much load testing you can conduct, which servers you can scan, and so on.
2. Protection of data
There’s a good chance you don’t want the penetration testers to look at sensitive information about your clients or customers. A good data security policy can help you do this. The data security policy talks about how to test sensitive data, how to test databases, what to do if sensitive information gets out, and other things.
3. Where the vendor stands
When it comes to its services, a company’s reputation is critical. It gives the company confidence that its penetration test will work. If a business for pen testing has a high rating, it will provide you with the highest quality professional services. Several online discussion boards make it easy to determine how a company is rated.
4. Penetration testers with a lot of skill and experience
The pen testers are what make the pen test teamwork. They find the weak spots, determine the risks, and carry out the attacks. The attackers must know how to carry out the attacks and be skilled enough to do so, and the pen testers must have first-hand experience with the vulnerabilities to test. When making your choice, it’s helpful to find a pen test company that hires skilled and knowledgeable pen testers.
Why do the pen testing services from Beyond Key make the best choice?
One of the best ways to do a penetration test is to hire a company with a lot of experience in the field. Beyond Key has a team of highly trained security experts whose only job is to keep hackers out of your app.
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At Beyond Key, penetration testing goes beyond using automated scanners to look at programs by hand to ensure no security holes are missed. Protect your organization today.
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