How Does Penetration Testing Aid In The Security Of Your Organization?

Planning and reviewing current infrastructure only goes so far when it comes to building cybersecurity plans. Organizations must be proactive in identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in order to avoid attacks that can result in system downtime, data loss, and tarnished reputation.

Always consider your firm from the standpoint of an attacker while creating a security plan. If you’ve invested time creating your organization’s defenses, you should double-check that they’re effective. A penetration test serves this purpose.

Penetration Testing

A pen-test mimics a cyber attack on your organization in order to uncover vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers. Pen-testing also involves breaking into a variety of applications, such as web applications and APIs to check for flaws such as unsanitized inputs that might be exploited by code injection attacks.

Need Of Penetration Testing 

Penetration tests have become an important part of staying proactive in terms of discovering and proving the impact of security flaws before they are found and exploited by a threat actor.

Businesses can no longer afford data leaks in today’s society. Maintaining a secure system necessitates the ability to discover vulnerabilities and address possible risk areas before attackers do.

Regardless of the size of your organization, now is the moment to take proactive actions to safeguard yourself and your assets. Pen-testing can not only show you where your infrastructure’s weaknesses are, but it can also help you with other things like how to improve your current security posture.

5 Stages Of Penetration Testing

Reasons To Perform A Pen-Test

Pen-tests are used to evaluate the effectiveness of current security controls in the real world scenario against a competent attacker who may use several attack methods to exploit a flaw. This is advantageous since it allows you to fix any vulnerabilities before an attacker discovers them.

Reveals Hidden Vulnerabilities

A penetration test evaluates your system’s ability to withstand cyber attacks. It simulates the behaviors of a prospective intruder by attempting to exploit flaws in the code, software problems, unsecured settings, service configuration faults, and operational flaws. The main difference between a penetration test and a real hacking experience is that a penetration test is conducted in a safe and controlled environment.

Reduces Network Downtime And Costs

The average cost of a data breach among the firms examined was $4.24 million per incident in 2021, the highest level in 17 years, according to a recent report released in 2021. 

To save remediation costs and reduce network downtime a pen-test is conducted. A penetration test identifies the biggest areas of weakness in your infrastructure. Therefore, there is a definite need to perform frequent penetration tests at least once or twice a year. 

Improve Organization’s Image And Client Loyalty

Pen-testing can help you assess your infrastructure’s vulnerabilities and potential breach points. It helps you avoid costly security breaches that affect your organization’s reputation and client loyalty. 

If the system demands more scope, a pen-test may develop in length and complexity. It can be used in conjunction with vulnerability scanning to give you even more information about vulnerabilities.

Assists Organizations In Adhering To Industry Security Standards

A penetration test can help your organization uncover the gaps that are preventing your firm from achieving compliance certification, whether it’s for PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, GLBA, FFEIC, or other compliance and regulation requirements. To be precise, a pen-test report highlights specific deliverables that can be improved according to industry security requirements.

Prioritize Risk With Respect To Level

Your security vulnerabilities are classified by the Pen-test team. Following the testing, you may determine which vulnerabilities should be addressed first and which will consume the most time and resources for the organization. Once you’ve identified the vulnerabilities, your security team may focus on avoiding the most hazardous ones first.

According to the latest survey,

Most Typical Flaws That A Pen Test Can Reveal

Insecure Network, Host, And Device Setup Or Configuration

Open ports, insecure user passwords, and unpatched software are all examples of vulnerabilities that an attacker could use to get access to your systems. As criminals’ approaches become more sophisticated, human pen testers are providing crucial information on how to maintain their infrastructure securely.

Encryption & Authentication Flaws

Encrypting data is a widespread strategy used by most organizations to ensure the security of their communications. In some circumstances, attackers intercept communications to see through the authentication mechanisms that are supposed to validate the sender’s digital identity, which can launch a so-called man-in-the-middle attack. Therefore, to avoid these scenarios, penetration testing determines the security of your communications and data storage systems.

Command/Code Injections

Vulnerabilities in software development or application are the most efficient ways for threat actors to target online applications. This entails the execution of malicious instructions aimed at instructing or querying backend databases for data. They utilize this method to steal personally identifiable information and credit card information. To avoid these scenarios, organizations address the vulnerability and avoid potential calamity by enlisting the help of penetration testers.

Managing Sessions

Web applications utilize session management measures such as identifying tokens or cookies. Nevertheless, these restrictions can be exploited by threat actors looking to hijack sessions and gain greater privileges.

Here comes the need for session management testing. It can assist you in determining if tokens and cookies are generated in a safe manner that is resistant to manipulation.

Benefits Of Penetration Testing

• Analyze how well the infrastructure can withstand various sorts of cyberattacks.
• Demonstrate how exploiting low-risk vulnerabilities can cause a lot of damage at a higher level.
• Evaluate and quantify the probable consequences for operational and business functions.
• Determine the requirement for increased security technology and manpower investment.
• Implement and validate updated security controls to help thwart future attacks.

In Short,

Threats are growing more sophisticated and experienced at circumventing security controls with increased success, resulting in higher ransom demands. Therefore, penetration testing is now becoming an important aspect of an organization’s overall security strategy. It can also assist you in meeting compliance obligations. A penetration test employs the exact approaches that a real criminal would use to penetrate your defenses, unlike other vulnerability detection methods.

Now is the time to focus on your business; pen testers are ready to help as your cyber saviors!

Rewterz provides top-notch Penetration Testing services for small to large organizations. Our Penetration testing services assess whether a cyber attacker can obtain access to important assets while also providing thorough information on the entire business impact of a cyber-attack.