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When developing a mobile app, web solution, or any other type of software, cybersecurity should be at the forefront of your roadmap. While modern technologies allow for the creation of sophisticated security tools, hackers also adopt the newest solutions for their malicious goals. Organizations that wish to stay ahead of attackers and eliminate their security vulnerabilities should strongly consider penetration testing, or pen testing. A pen testing solution simulates real-life attacks allowing developers to identify holes in their security approach.
In this article, we’ll explore penetration testing in cyber security, pinpoint its types and benefits, as well as go over the best practices. Most importantly, we’ll tackle the question, “What is pen testing?”
Let’s begin by answering a crucial question: What is penetration testing? A pen test is a form of ethical hacking that allows developers to simulate real-life cyber attacks to evaluate the system’s cybersecurity posture. Basically, penetration testers attempt to breach the system, including APIs, servers, applications, and more, to identify weak spots.
Using various pen testing tools, from malware to social engineering techniques, pen testers try to penetrate the system from multiple angles. The goal is to uncover all potential vulnerabilities and patch them up before the public launch. Additionally, a pen test also checks the organization’s preparedness for an attack by evaluating the security response plan’s scope, accuracy, and effectiveness.
Much like with most secure software development tests, you can execute them either manually or automatically. Modern practices integrate automated testing solutions providing fast and consistent results and offering tests that check the most common vulnerabilities.
If you’re looking for a more tailored penetration test, consider also running manual assessments. They can uncover additional weaknesses and evaluate business logic. Furthermore, manual testing techniques can also double-check the outcomes of the automated pen testing to ensure their validity. Let’s take a look at some essential pen testing tools:
The process of pen testing comprises four main steps, including planning, scanning, gaining and maintaining access, and analyzing. In this part, we’ll take a closer look at each phase of penetration testing.
The first step of a penetration test is to gather as much intelligence as possible to identify each potential entry point. At this stage, penetration testers examine the company’s systems, sources, network services, and more to study the infrastructure as deeply as they can. The objective of the planning phase is to collect information that will point them in the right direction.
The second stage involves using manual and automated testing tools in an attempt to explore the target system for weaknesses. By relying on both static and dynamic analyses and intelligent code scanning tools, testers can evaluate the application’s code in stagnating and running states. This step allows you to assess how the system responds to a range of attacks and threats.
Based on the vulnerabilities pinpointed in the previous step, now pen testers gain access to the system by exploiting the detected weak spots. This can be done in numerous ways, including injecting malware, cross-site scripting, and social engineering. Your penetration testing crew can steal or delete data, modify privileges, and more.
Aside from gaining access to the company’s infrastructure, the pen testing process includes an attempt to maintain access for as long as possible. The longer an attacker can lurk in your systems, the higher the chances that they can steal sensitive data or misuse functionality. The goal of this stage is to demonstrate what could occur during a persistent attack and what damage it can cause.
Lastly, your penetration testing team should analyze their findings and compile them in a report, including vulnerabilities found and exploited, data accessed and stolen, as well as how long the pen testing expert was able to stay in the system. These insights will help developers strengthen their security practices and work out plans to prevent such attacks in the future.
Now that we know the penetration testing definition, let’s investigate the types of pen tests:
Web Application: Web development requires robust security practices to ensure your applications are safe and protected. A web application pen test is aimed at identifying security vulnerabilities in web applications and APIs.
Network Services: Network penetration testing is also referred to as infrastructure pen testing and checks weaknesses in the network. From servers and workstations to routers and firewalls, network services penetration testing protects organizations from ubiquitous network attacks.
Physical Pen Test: As stated in the name, a physical pen test examines the security of the company’s physical assets. For example, this penetration testing can include an evaluation of the organization’s cameras, sensors, locks, and other elements of physical infrastructure.
Insider Threat: This penetration test checks the business’s ability to protect its assets from internal exploitation. Insider threat penetration testing involves de-authentication, misconfiguration, and social engineering attacks.
Client-side: Client-side attacks are cybersecurity threats that take place on a client device, including cross-site scripting, malware, HTML injections, and others. This type of pen test is meant to identify weaknesses that allow hackers to exploit the company’s systems from the user side.
Mobile Application: In addition to specific web development tests, you can also examine your mobile app security. During mobile development, you should run a mobile application pen test to discover possible vulnerabilities in source code, metadata, etc.
Why invest in penetration testing? In this section, we’ll explore the advantages of running penetration tests.
The most crucial benefit of penetration testing is to demonstrate the system’s vulnerabilities using real-life scenarios. In the abundance of potential security risks that can be exploited by hackers, you need to test your computer system using realistic simulations. From technical errors and misconfiguration to more sophisticated psychological attacks involving social engineering, the goal is to test every nook and cranny.
Through various types of penetration tests, your team can gain a comprehensive overview of the system and patch up the dangerous loopholes and flaws.
No matter how well you bolster your systems, hackers will persist with their attacks, especially if you’re handling sensitive financial or personal data. In addition to eliminating dangerous security flaws, companies should develop a robust response plan to minimize the damage in case of a breach. Penetration testing can also aid in assessing how quickly and effectively your team responds to an attack.
Once an intrusion has been detected, your cybersecurity team should immediately launch an investigation to identify the hacker and remove their access. Moreover, the plan should address how you can minimize the losses, report the breach to authorities, and communicate the event to stakeholders and users when needed.
In addition to your peace of mind, penetration tests can also be mandatory to comply with your industry’s and country’s regulations. Penetration testing is designed to simulate real-life scenarios, allowing organizations to rely on them to ensure compliance with ISO 27001, PCI, and other standards.
Finally, even one major security breach event can severely damage your reputation in the eyes of consumers, stakeholders, and investors. Aside from the financial burden of dealing with an attack, organizations tend to lose customers, which only adds to the monetary losses.
Finally, let’s dive into the best practices that will aid you in performing comprehensive penetration testing.
To approximate a real-life attack, your penetration testing team should perform discovery and gather data from various sources in order to plan an efficient attack. Skipping or neglecting the planning phase will result in an insufficient testing process and leave numerous vulnerabilities undetected. Additionally, make sure to keep detailed documentation regarding this step to ensure the reproducibility of the pen test.
To maximize your coverage, consider developing attacker personas to incorporate various types of threats, techniques, and motivations. This will help you cover all your bases and take into account potential goals and incentives that different perpetrators may have.
Another important consideration is concerning the timeline of pen testing. It’s highly recommended to execute cyber security penetration testing before the application goes live. Despite that fact, many companies neglect to test their systems until they get attacked and lose data.
In conjunction with the pre-production pen test, it’s advised to perform such tests at least once a year and also whenever a major change in infrastructure or regulations occurs. However, it’s important to mention that efficient penetration testing requires a stable system. In other words, you should halt any updates and further changes to the system until the tests are completed. Otherwise, even a small alteration in the testing environment can render the results obsolete.
Although technically penetration testing can be run by your in-house IT team, it’s recommended to hire an impartial tester to ensure the best outcomes. Collaborating with a third-party expert not only gives access to professional cybersecurity consulting but also offers a more realistic approach. In real life, you’ll experience attacks by people who have no prior knowledge of your systems, practices, and infrastructure, which makes hiring an external firm beneficial.
However, you have to do your due diligence to ensure your partner of choice complies with standard regulations and has relevant credentials. Your external pen testers simulate attacks based on real-life scenarios, thus gaining access to your sensitive data. Protect yourself from untrustworthy third-party consultants by reviewing their expertise and checking testimonials.
Finally, draft a careful plan of action after the pen testing process is complete. Begin by perusing the report and discussing the found weak spots with the testing team and your in-house IT specialists. Based on the findings, develop a cybersecurity strategy aimed to bolster your security posture as well as a solid response plan. Additionally, you can rely on the documented tests to run scans in the future and monitor the progress.
Whether you’re looking to strengthen your mobile and web applications, reinforce your backend systems, or improve blockchain security, pen testing is essential. If you’re interested in making your infrastructure immune to malicious attacks, consider getting in touch with NIX. We are a team of software engineers and testing experts with knowledge and experience across domains. Our years-long expertise allows us to guide our clients through the entire software development process and ensure safety and compliance.
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