Penetration testing (also known as pen testing or ethical hacking) is a security procedure that involves analyzing your computer system’s software for vulnerabilities and susceptibility to attacks such as hacking and cyber-attacks. Software faults, design errors, and configuration problems are all examples of vulnerabilities.
To ensure that Information Technology (IT) infrastructure remains powerful and well-protected, companies should conduct penetration tests on a regular basis – at least once per year.
What is Penetration Testing?
Pen tests can be done on IP address ranges, particular programs, or even on the name of a company. Using a simulated attack to find weak areas in a system’s security could help companies understand the various ways hackers might gain unauthorized access to confidential and/or personal details or engage in other malicious activity that can result in a data breach. Data breaches become more costly for organizations.
Targeted testing, internal testing, external testing, blind testing, and double-blind testing are the five primary methods of Penetration Testing.
Importance of Penetration Testing
Ponemon Institute published research on the cost of data breaches in 2015, in which 350 companies from 11 different countries were surveyed. Nearly half of the breaches (47%) were caused by malicious attacks, while the remaining ones were caused by system weaknesses and human mistakes.
Getting Ready for An Attack
Penetration testing is essential for a company’s protection since that trains staff on how to deal with any kind of malicious break-in. Pen-test methods are used to test whether a company’s security practices are truly effective.
Reduce the number of errors
Pentest reports might also assist the developer in making fewer mistakes. When developers understand how a criminal entity used an app, operating system, or other pieces of software they helped design to launch an attack, they’ll be more dedicated to understanding further about safety and much less likely to produce identical errors in the future.
It’s also important to note that penetration testing is especially important if your company:
- Has recently made some big updates or even other improvements towards its IT system or apps?
- Has just moved to a new location.
- Has security patches been installed; or
- End-user policies have been altered.
Risk Identification
Pen testing can also show which networks in your company or software are the most insecure, and therefore what additional security technologies or methods you should invest in. This approach may reveal several major system problems you had not even considered before.
Our Managed Penetration Testing
BST provides penetration testing services as a one-off assessment, or on an ongoing service. Our Pen testers have security certifications like CISSP, GIAC, CISA, CISM & CEH, etc and all our testers are periodically background checked. Our Crest (Council for Registered Ethical Security Testers) certified engineer can identify weaknesses in your business’s information systems. Upon discovering the vulnerability, we validate the findings and confirm the actual threat to your organization to eliminate false positives.
Penetration testing (also known as pen testing or ethical hacking) is a security procedure that involves analyzing your computer system’s software for vulnerabilities and susceptibility to attacks such as hacking and cyber-attacks.
