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What Kind Of Penetration Test Is The Right Fit For Your Business?

You might have heard your IT vendor or a regulatory examiner say the words “pen test” and how your organization might want to get one done, but what exactly is a pen test?

Penetration Tests:

Penetration tests, or pen tests, are simulated cybersecurity attacks to assess any vulnerabilities present at that time. They allow IT and security professionals to understand how well security controls work, to identify response systems, and if it can detect intruders and weaknesses.

The pen test is performed to discover vulnerabilities without harming your network or exposing your data. For the layman, it is a form of ethical hacking that helps improve your web security.

Objectives of Penetration Testing:

Penetration tests are performed to find potential breach sites and vulnerabilities, simulate cybersecurity attacks by penetrating weak systems, applications, and services with various tools, and to discover how much data can be accessed with a prolonged simulated attack.

Types of Penetration testing:

There are many different kinds of penetration tests, with each having a different method and scope. As the customer, you should understand what each type of test does to determine the best one for your business.

Some common types include:

External Network Penetration Test:

This is a black-box test that uses footprint analysis to find information about the network and organization available publicly, such as its IP addresses, ranges, and important personal information.

These are used to find potential vulnerabilities in the system.

Internal Network Penetration Test:

This uses a white or grey box designed to mimic how the user’s account is hacked.

Selecting the Right Penetration Test:

Penetration tests can be customized to search for vulnerabilities in mobile and web apps and wireless networks. Before choosing a penetration testing service provider, figure out which approach suits your organization best.

The tests can be customized in the following ways:

Black Box Tests:

Black box tests are objective security assessments performed without any knowledge of the tested network system, as seen by third parties. These test software security operations, instead of its structure, without damaging the network.

White box tests:

These are performed after a full understanding of the internal system and structural design to be tested and tests software for gaps in code and security.

Grey Box Tests:

As indicated by the name, grey box tests combine both black and white box testing features to evaluate the level of security from the perspective of an actual account user.

These tests allow deeper access into the software or product and give more information about the internal system from an outside and insider’s perspective.

Clearly, selecting the right testing approach is crucial for organizational success. Lean Security can help you understand your organizational testing needs and provide AI-powered web and mobile application testing services with state of the art technologies.

To find out more about penetration testing, contact us here or call us at +61 (2) 8078 6952 to book a consultation with our experts.

The Basics of Web Application Pen Testing

A penetration test (aka a pen test) is a cyber-attack performed on your computer system in a simulated environment to check for possible vulnerabilities. In the world of web application security, a pen test is used to augment a web application firewall (WAF).

What Does A Penetration Test Do?

Penetration testing involves attempting to breach multiple application systems like the application protocol interfaces (APIs) and frontend/backend servers to find vulnerabilities in the system, like incomplete inputs that are an easy target for code injection attacks.

The resulting insights from a penetration test can be used to improve your WAF security policies and fix any detected weaknesses.

Stages of Penetration Testing:

A pen test is performed in five stages. These are:

Planning and reconnaissance:

In the first stage, the testing aims and goals are defined, along with the systems that will be tested and the testing methods to be used. We also try to gather the information to help us understand how a target works and its potential weaknesses.

Scanning:

The next step involves understanding how a target application will react against different attack attempts. This can be done with:

·         Static analysis: Inspecting an application’s code to predict how it will behave while running, using tools to scan the entire code in one pass.

·         Dynamic analysis: Inspecting how an application’s code behaves while running in real-time.

Gaining Access:

This is when the attack is performed using web application attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting to find the target website’s vulnerabilities.

These vulnerabilities are then exploited by stealing data, stopping traffic, and more, finding out the damage they cause.

Maintaining Access:

In this phase, exploitation is prolonged to understand if the vulnerability allows the attack to gain deeper access. This is done to mimic advanced persistent threats that often stay in a system for months in an attempt to steal a business’ sensitive data.

Analysis:

Lastly, the test results are organized into a report that expands on specific vulnerabilities exploited and the sensitive data that testers gained access to. It also details the amount of time the pen tester could stay in the system without being detected.

This information helps security personnel to reconfigure the organization’s WAF settings and other security solutions to fix any vulnerabilities and protect against possible future threats.

Methods of Penetration testing:

Penetration testing can be done either externally, internally, targeted, blind, or double-blind.

To understand more about the significance of penetration testing, contact Lean Security. Our AI-powered web application penetration testing service helps uncover potential risks to security by using advanced methods. You can book a pen test for your organization by calling us at +61 (2) 8078 6952.

Remember, with web security; it’s better to be safe now than sorry tomorrow.

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