What is Penetration Testing? Types, Techniques, Benefits & Best Practices

In the cyber world, cyber risks are increasing, and thus, organizations must always be one step in advance concerning any online threat. The application of penetration testing (pen testing), commonly referred to as ethical hacking, is a proactive method to find existing vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can use them.

Such a rich guide will burst the bubble of penetration testing, unfolding its importance, techniques, and tricks with no stone unturned.

What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is a pre-emptive simulated cyber attack by professionals with these skills. They are called ethical hackers or penetration testers. The organization employs them to scrutinize the security of its computer systems, networks, and web applications.

This pen testing aims to evaluate security dynamics and identify any loopholes that cybercriminals could use to gain an undue advantage.

With their criminal approach, pen-testers try everything a true malicious hacker can imagine to get unauthorized access to a system, an application, or data.

Through such a proactive method, companies can move on to anticipate their weaknesses and take action promptly, avoiding data breaches, financial losses, or reputational damage.

What Precisely is the Engagement Between the Following Steps?

Penetration testing is phased from a strategy standpoint, which means that the whole process will be guided to achieve complete and successful penetration testing.

The process typically involves the following stages:

Planning and Scoping: In the first phase, the team involves the organization separately, defining the frame, objectives, and testing rules.
Information Gathering and Reconnaissance: Collect as many statistics about the target system, network, and applications as possible through different techniques, such as open-source intelligence gathering, social engine, and network scanning.
Vulnerability Analysis: Based on what they got, the testers find the potential weaknesses among the targets, including the configuration of the systems, software that is fixed already, and the lack of solid access control procedures.
Exploitation and Pivoting: The masquerading, as attackers profit from the found loopholes, is the next step where penetration testers try to get access to target systems, step up privileges, and move laterally through the network, mimicking the actions of an actual world attacker.
Post-Exploitation and Data Exfiltration: After penetration, testers try to stay on, steal some private information, or intrude on the target system to consider the overall significance of the network breach.
Reporting and Remediation: The team prepares a final report outlining the findings, vulnerabilities, and suitable remediation steps to be followed. This report is an excellent instrument for an organization to enhance its assurance.

Stages of Penetration Testing:

Penetration testing typically involves five distinct stages:

Planning and Reconnaissance:

This milestone includes a collection of data about the given system, network, or application environment in mind and determines the scope and objective of the penetration testing task.

Scanning and Enumeration:

Testers perform the target system scan using various tools and techniques. This includes discovering exposed ports, a lack of configurations, or outdated software editions.

Gaining Access:

The goal is to discover the system’s weaknesses and use the same methods in practical situations. Testers might try to obtain unauthorized access to the system or network, missioning the real-world attack vehicle.

Maintaining Access and Privilege Escalation:

Once access is achieved, testers turn to defenses, continue to escalate their presence and gain higher control over the target environment.

Data Exfiltration and Reporting:

At this stage, testers would try to steal sensitive data or conduct other unlawful acts to determine the consequences of an attack on successful lines.

In addition, they run comprehensive tests and then create a thorough report summarizing their insights and recommendations for eliminating the contamination problem.

Types of Penetration Testing Techniques:

Penetration testing is grouped into several types depending on the accessible environment, the prior knowledge of the testers, and the unique techniques taken.

Some of the common types of pen testing techniques are:

Black Box Testing:

In this testing, the testers are unaware of the targets’ environment, and that is the way to simulate real-world attacker actions when he is facing such an environment with limited resources.

White Box Testing:

This method supplies the testers with intricate information about the target buying environments, such as system architecture, source code, and documentation.

Gray Box Testing:

In this method, testers are exposed to the target environment to some extent at the same place, evading full disclosure; thus, the test can be viewed as a mix of a black-and-white box.

External Testing:

This type evaluates the stability of the organization’s line of defense on the external side, such as web applications, email servers, and public-facing networks.

Internal Testing:

In this regard, a simulated attack is created, which evaluates how much the company’s internal networks and data are protected from that particular attack.

Web Application Testing:

Web Application Testing can be called security testing, which concentrates on exploiting web applications. It aims to pinpoint the vulnerable points of business, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and broken authentication or access control mechanisms.

Wireless Network Testing:

This technique studies wireless network safety using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and others.

Mobile Application Testing:

The vast majority of mobile apps are built and function with the help of mobile devices, including their applications. Thus, this testing aims to discover possible vulnerabilities of mobile apps and the platforms they rely on.

Benefits of Penetration Testing:

Implementing regular penetration testing would offer numerous benefits to organizations, including:

Identifying and Mitigating Vulnerabilities: Business entities can preemptively uncover and fix security problems that attract cybercriminals’ exploitation through pen testing. Thus, they expose their business plans to hackers.
Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: Many industries and regulatory bodies require customers to regularly conduct compliance assessments of their cyber security and data protection systems. Penetration testing is usually used in these circumstances.
Improving Security Posture: By analyzing and handling weaknesses, organizations can improve their security levels, lower the possibility of successful cyber threats, and, consequently, lessen financial and brand damages.
Testing Incident Response Capabilities: Penetration testing can also assess an organization’s incident reaction rate and recovery process, enabling the identification of areas that need work and strong capability for real-world cyber incidents.
Raising Security Awareness: The findings and recommendations based on the penetration testing process can contribute to cyber security education and awareness among employees and stakeholders about cyber threats and the pertinence of best security practices.
Cost Savings: A way of working proactively through penetration testing to discover potential threats and prevent them costs organizations a lot. Data breaches, cyber-attacks, and customers’ lack of trust in an organization’s reputation cause these.

What You Get After a Penetration Test?

After a comprehensive penetration testing engagement, organizations typically receive a detailed report that includes:

Executive Summary: A summary, on a high level, that covers the test scope, objectives, and critical points that are mainly focused on the interested executive and management communities.
Findings and Vulnerabilities: A comprehensive list of high and low-severity vulnerabilities, estimated impacts, suggested remedies, and described security measures.
Exploitation Details: The technical showcasing of the exploit tools, steps taken to gain access successfully, and the possible consequences of the execution of the attack successfully.
Remediation Recommendations: To that end, specific guidelines for the uncovered issues, such as software upgrades, configurations, and security control measures, should also be considered.
Risk Assessment: Risk Assessment involves surveying and identifying the key risks uncovered during the survey. This allows an organization to allocate resources and run a program appropriately.
Compliance Analysis: An analysis of the organization’s compliance with applicable regulations, standards, and good practices within their industry.
Strategic Recommendations: Instructions and recommendations for integrating future security measures. Specific examples are exploitation of secure coding techniques, implementation of staff security cognizance education, and adoption of an overall security-oriented attitude in the organization.

Penetration Testing Best Practices:

To maximize the effectiveness and value of penetration testing, organizations should follow these best practices:

Establish Clear Objectives:

State the goals and the scope of the pen test for the contract and define it to comply with the organization’s security priorities and objectives.

Engage Reputable Providers:

Work with a professional and credible hacking supplier with experience who is recognized in the industry and who follows both methodology and interdict norms (no ethics).

Conduct Regular Testing:

Conduct regular testing, with pen testing crucial, as vulnerabilities and threats rapidly get new exposures in today’s dynamic cyberspace. Completing penetration testing of high-level security once a year is recommended, considering targeted testing or periodical reviews as needed.

Prioritize Remediation:

Create a holistic mitigation plan based on the latest penetration testing results. Start with the most critical vulnerabilities because they are the first to be handled.

Involve Stakeholders:

Ensure that relevant stakeholder groups, such as IT, security, and business, know the tests. It is up to them to collaborate openly and decide on any issue that might arise.

Maintain Confidentiality:

Establish a firm confidentiality policy to ensure the privacy of all data involved in the entire pen testing engagement and negotiation.

Continuously Improve:

The knowledge gained from this process should steadily increase the organization’s security situational awareness, necessary government and policy modifications, and improved staff training and awareness.

Integrate with Other Security Measures:

Penetration testing aims to integrate it into an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. Hence, penetration testing should create a holistic system with other security measures like vulnerability management, firewall configuration, or data access control.

Document and Track Findings:

Keep the full documentation of the pen test findings, remedy actions done so far, and security update with up-to-date data. This documentation can assist as an essential guide for the system in complying with industry standards and regulations.

With this measure, you can protect your digital fortress and continue to run your business based on reputation.

Conclusion

Proactively, Certera knows the potential risk of exposure to Cybersecurity. We can assist you with thorough testing performed by our seasoned penetration testers and ethical hackers through penetration testing services fully customized to your organization’s specific needs.

Our cyber security team of experts applies the most advanced methods and industry best practices to identify and isolate vulnerabilities that we later compile in a report for your digital arsenal. Contact us for a consultation today, and we will safeguard your organization by improving its security posture.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Penetration Testing Legal?

Yes, legal pen testing is based on appropriate permissions and adherence to ethics. Nonetheless, unauthorized pen testing might be considered illegal, and it may go to the ones responsible for the consequences of a severe character.

How often should Organizations conduct Penetration Testing?

The frequency of penetration testing depends on various factors, including whether the organization is in a particular industry, the compliance requirements, and the level of business risk.

It is certain that a trustworthy and promising way to check penetration, avoiding possible situations that may lead to system failure or data loss, is the way to be successful. Nevertheless, there may likely be a certain amount of disruption during the test period because of the behind-the-scenes process, thus calling for proper planning and outreach to all the stakeholders involved.

Are all Vulnerabilities exploited during Penetration Testing?

It is wrong for reliable or professional penetration testers not to stop using the problems found in all the vulnerabilities exploited, and the damage or loss of data was a very considerable threat.

Also Read: What Is Vulnerability Management? Process, Assessment, and Best Practices

Rather than developing patches that deal with current issues, their work involves giving detailed reports and recommendations for remediation, enabling organizations to fix open vulnerabilities using a safe and organized approach.

How long does a Typical Penetration Testing Engagement take?

The duration of a penetration testing assignment can vary depending on the range/scope, complexity, and size of the system panoply. While detailed analysis could take a few weeks or even months, fast-performing screenings and specific assessments may be possible in a few days or weeks.

Can Penetration Testing guarantee 100% security?

Pen testing cannot promise 100% security because the attack vectors and attack scenarios grow over time. Nonetheless, this remediation effort ensures that any known exploitable weaknesses discovered are appropriately attended to, thus reducing the risk and improving an organization’s overall security.

What types of Penetration Testing Services are available?

The areas of penetration testing services might include the following: vulnerability assessment of websites through web application testing, network penetration testing, wireless network assessment, testing of mobile apps, and others, to name a few. Organizations have to choose between the different number of services that will fit their unique needs and the appropriate situation that they are working in.

How does Penetration Testing differ from Vulnerability Scanning?

Vulnerability scanning, on the other hand, is an automated process that detects system weaknesses. At the same time, penetration testing is a more detailed and emotionally challenging process that an expert performs to exploit those weaknesses, simulating actual attacks.

Consult our professional cybersecurity expert to protect your organization from risks or hacks.