Cybersecurity companies offer a wide range of services, one of them being penetration testing. However, what exactly is a penetration test? And, what are the different types of penetration testing? We are going to answer all these questions in this article.
Introduction
Starting from 2019, up until June 2020, it was found that a minimum of 16 billion records were exposed around the world. This means the data breaches exposed different types of sensitive information such as phone numbers, credit card details, and more.
This can result in malpractice such as identity theft, misappropriation of funds, and more. Personal information has been hacked through users themselves as well as through hacking into an organization’s servers and stealing their consumer data.
Hacking into a system used to be a time-consuming and difficult process but over time with the increasingly rapid advances in today’s technology, black hat hacking has become extremely commonplace. It has become really easy to hack into servers and systems of different organizations because they usually do not update their security measures for long periods of time.
Over time, due to the level of threats and attacks companies have been facing, they have understood the importance of staying ahead of these threats and managing them before they result in a real attack on the company. This is why companies have started to invest in ethical hacking and penetration testing as a preventative measure to evaluate and improve their existing cybersecurity.
What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing is a way in which companies can assess their networks and check for vulnerabilities in their system based on different types of simulated attacks. Usually, organizations employ third-party professionals known as white hat hackers or ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities by breaching into their networks.
There are multiple parts of an organization that can be vulnerable when it comes to cyber security which is something pen testing covers. This includes all web applications used by the company, its online servers, different networks, and devices of the organization as well as the online components of the physical security of the office.
Ethical hackers launch full-fledged simulated cyber attacks and try to exploit the vulnerabilities to an organization’s servers, systems, and applications, and then leave without a trace.
Importance of Penetration Testing
Out of all the penetration testing done in the 33 organizations that participated in this recent survey, over 92% of them were successful in breaching their systems. This shows the lack of security measures in place to protect companies from the very real and severe threat of a cyber attack.
This gave organizations an accurate estimate of how vulnerable their company’s security was. There are also chances of organizations having proper security measures in place for one part of their IT infrastructure but being completely lacking in the others. Penetration testing helps in evaluating the weaker parts of IT structures and exposing them.
Penetration testing helps with understanding the health and security of all applications and servers in place for an organization. It also finds existing vulnerabilities that are exploited or could be exploited in the company. Once these are identified, penetration testing helps companies prioritization of their risks and address them in an accurate and successful manner.
Types of Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing for Web Applications
Web applications are more targeted towards exploiting vulnerabilities in web applications and browsers and their many components. Web application penetration testing checks for the endpoints of each application that all the users end up interacting with regularly. Some of the components that web application-based penetration testing covers include the following:
- Scriptlets
- Applets
- Plug-ins
- ActiveX
Penetration Testing for Wireless Networks
Wireless network penetration testing includes exploiting the vulnerabilities that are deployed in wireless devices. This includes checking for vulnerabilities in devices that use wireless networks such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Along with checking the devices for exploitable vulnerabilities, wireless network penetration testing includes checking the weak areas in the wireless network itself and searching for access points available in the setup. Ethical hackers conduct these pen tests from the user end to expose vulnerabilities by connecting to the wireless system itself.
Penetration Testing for Network Services
Checking for vulnerabilities and exposing them within the network services of an organization is the most common type of penetration testing that ethical hackers or white hat hackers do. Here they expose all the gaps in security which are present in the network infrastructure.
Penetration tests checking for vulnerabilities in network services have to be done both locally or on-premise as well as remotely. This is because there are two types of access points for in-network services – internal and external.
Penetration testers typically target certain important areas to exploit in their tests for network services, which include the following:
- Penetration testing for firewall configuration
- Penetration testing for bypassing the firewall
- Penetration testing for zone transfers
- Penetration testing for stateful analysis
- Penetration testing based on switching or routing
- IPS deception
- Other attacks on a DNS level
- Penetration testing for software modules which include SQL servers, SSH servers, FTP servers, and SMTP servers
Penetration Testing within the Company
Penetration tests need to be done locally as well. Organizations need to find the vulnerabilities to their systems that they use on-premises and safeguard against them. There may be threats that emerge locally or on-premise where employees could accidentally cause breaches in their organization’s security.
Safeguarding on-premise systems against malware, phishing, and threats similar to these with the help of penetration testing. Any defects in existing software such as Photoshop PowerPoint, web browsers, etc. can easily be exploited as well. Penetration testing finds the vulnerabilities and exposes them so that the organization can take measures to safeguard against them.
Social Engineering Penetration Tests
Penetration testing for social engineering takes the human element of a cyber attack. It helps in safeguarding against attacks that could come up from within the company itself. Employees of an organization can also pose threats to the company. There are two ways in which employees can initiate breaches that the social engineering penetration tests cover. These are remote tests and physical tests.
Remote tests are simulated attacks where employees are tricked into compromising sensitive information to the company using phishing methods. Physical tests are simulated attacks where different tactics are engineered in person to retrieve confidential data from employees, such as phone calls, and dumpster diving.
Final Thoughts
There are three main areas that are vulnerable in any organization. These include human errors and threats to the hardware and software of the company. Penetration testing consists of improving web security against these three main areas of vulnerability. Members of an organization need to have a better understanding of what these threats are and their impact on the company.
Ethical hackers also need to know the basics of IT security, web security, and governance so that they can do their job more efficiently. There are various courses and certifications in IT security available for IT professionals and ethical hackers which can help them with gaining more knowledge and expertise in the world of cyber attacks and cyber security.
To learn about the various strategies and techniques you that can adopt to protect your company against cybercrimes, individuals and enterprise teams should get trained in popular IT Governance Certification Courses from an accredited training provider. Some of the popular cybersecurity certification courses that professionals can take up are:
