A penetration test, also known as cyber-attack analysis on your computer system, looks for flaws that get into your computer system. In terms of web application security, penetration testing is often used to help with a web application firewall (WAF).

Penetration testing can be done on application systems, such as APIs, frontend/backend servers, and so on, to look for flaws, such as unclean inputs for code injection attacks. Insights from the penetration test can help you change your WAF security policies and fix found flaws.

Benefits Of Penetration Testing

Reveal the flaws:

Penetration testing looks for flaws in your system or application settings and network infrastructure. As part of the penetration tests, even the actions and habits of your employees that could lead to data breaches and malicious infiltration are being looked into, too. 

A report tells you about your security flaws to know what software and hardware change you need to make or what recommendations and policies would make the whole thing more secure.

Show the real risks:

Penetration testers try to take advantage of flaws that have been found. Put another way, you can see what an attacker could do in the “real world.” They might be able to get into private data and run operating system commands. 

But they might also say that a vulnerability that is thought to be very risky isn’t that risky because it is so hard to get. To do that kind of analysis, only a professional can do it.

Defend yourself against cyberattacks:

To be safe, you should be able to tell when someone is trying to attack you, and you should be able to respond quickly and effectively. When you notice an intrusion, you should look into it, find out who the intruders are, and block them. 

Whether they are malicious or experts who want to see how well your protection strategy works. When you want to make sure your business is running all the time, there must be network availability, 24/7 communication, and access to resources.

Each time your business is interrupted, it will harm it. Penetration tests show possible threats and help ensure that your business doesn’t suffer from downtime or a loss of access. In this way, a penetration test is a lot like a business continuity review.

Give you a different point of view:

When someone in your company finds a problem, your management may not be willing to act or react. A report from a third-party expert can have a more significant impact on how you run your business, leading to more money being spent.

Regulations and certifications should be obeyed.

In some cases, the level of penetration testing required by your industry and by law may be limited. It’s a good idea to think about ISO 27001 or PCI regulations. All managers and system owners must have regular penetration tests and security reviews done by skilled testers. That’s because penetration testing looks at what happens in the real world.

How Much Access IS Given To Penetration Testers

Tests that are done outside. In an outside penetration test, the web application, the company website, and email and domain name servers are all looked at (DNS). The goal is to get into and get valuable data.

Internal tests

Inside the company, a tester who has access to an application behind the company’s firewall tries to make it look like a malicious insider tried to get in. It isn’t necessarily a way to act out a rogue employee. 

Blind tests

In a blind test, the tester only knows the company’s name that’s being hit. It gives security people a real-time look at how an actual attack on an application would work.

Double-blind testing

Security personnel doesn’t know about the simulated attack before the trial in a double-blind test. It won’t have time to fix defenses before someone tries to break into the real world.

Targeted testing

It’s a good idea for both the tester and the security person to work together and keep each other updated on their movements. As part of a valuable training exercise, hackers can give their point of view to security teams in real-time.

What Are The Phases Of Penetration Testing?

penetration testing, penetration testing tools, penetration testing tutorial, what is penetration testing, penetration testing cyber security, penetration test, pen testing, penetration testing types, penetration testing linux, how to do penetration testing, types of penetration testing, security penetration testing, penetration testing explained, penetration tester, Penetration testing live, web app penetration testing,

Phase 1: Planning and taking a look around

The first step in penetration is to plan how to make a malicious attack. The attack is designed in a way that helps to get as much information about the system as possible.

It could be one of the most time-consuming parts of the process, as ethical hackers look at the system, look for flaws, and see how the organization’s tech stack responds to system breaches. It includes things like the names and emails of employees at the company, the network topology, etc. 

Note that the type of information or how much investigation will depend on the goals set for the audit, so this should be a good thing to remember. Social engineering, dumpster diving, network scanning, and domain registration information retrieval are some ways to get information.

Phase 2: Scan

Based on what they learned in the planning phase, penetration testers use scanning tools to look for system and network flaws. This phase of the pen test identifies the system flaws for targeted attacks. It is essential to get this information right to determine how well the following steps will go.

Phase 3: Getting into the system

Pen testers then try to get into the infrastructure by exploiting security flaws. Next, they try to get even more power to show how far they can get in the target environments.

Phase 4: Having access to your account all the time:

This step in a pen test helps you figure out how a vulnerability exploit could affect your system by taking advantage of your access rights. Once they get a foothold in a system, penetration testers should keep their access and the simulated attack going long enough to make it look like malicious hackers did it. 

It’s also essential to determine which data and services are available to us during this phase of the pentest to get the most privileges, network information, and access to as many systems as possible.

It is when we have to show the customer what this security breach could mean for them. There is a big difference between getting into an old computer that is not even part of the domain and getting passwords or other data that has been stolen.

Phase 5: Analyzing and reporting:

In this case, we did a penetration test. As part of the last step, the security team makes a detailed report about the whole process. The following is some of the information or detail that should show up. The seriousness of the risks that come from the flaws found. The tools that can get into the system and work.

Those flaws that need to be fixed and how to keep them from happening again (remediation recommendations) This phase may be the most important for both of them. As this report is likely to be read by both IT staff and non-technical managers, it is best to break it into the executive and the technical information.

What Are The Types Of Penetration Testing?

It’s important to know what kinds of penetration tests there are.

Before choosing a provider, it’s essential to know about the different types of available pen tests. Engagements vary in focus, depth, and length. Joint ethical hacking projects include:

1. Internal/External Infrastructure Penetration Testing:

 On assets inside the company’s network. Infrastructure that connects to the internet. You can get the idea of how big the network subnet is and how many different sites there are. You’ll need to figure out the scope of the test.2Testing for Wireless Penetration:

A test that focuses on an organization’s WLAN (wireless local area network) and wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Z-Wave is called a WLAN test. Testers will need to know how many wireless and guest networks, where they are, and what unique SSIDs.

2. Web applications are tested:

An examination of websites and custom applications delivered over the web, looking for coding, design, and development flaws used to harm people. First, it’s essential to figure out the number of apps that need to be tested and how many of each type of page and input field needs to be checked.

3. Mobile App Testing:

They are testing mobile apps on Android and iOS to look for authentication, authorization, data leakage, and session handling problems. Providers will need to know what operating system types and versions they want an app to be tested on, how many API calls it needs to make, and what kind of root and jailbreaking detection it needs to be able to do.

4. Build and configure review:

It looks at how network builds and configurations are set up to look for problems with web and app servers, routers, and firewalls—the number of builds, operating systems, and application servers. It is significant to figure out how much this project will cost during testing.

What Are The Types Of Penetration Testing Tools?

Some of the types of penetration testing:

Network services web application client-side wifi Social engineering is a way to get people to do “physical penetration testing.” Each type of penetration test requires a certain amount of knowledge, methods, and tools. They should also be done in a way that fits with a specific business goal.

These goals could raise awareness of social engineering attacks across the company, use secure code development to find flaws in software code in real-time, or meet regulatory or compliance requirements.

Penetration Testing of Network Service Of different types of penetration tests, the one the most common is called “network service testing.”

Web App Penetration Testing:

Web application penetration testing is used to find problems or security flaws in web-based apps. It uses many different techniques and attacks to get into the web app itself.

When a web application is being penetrated, it usually includes web-based applications and browsers and their parts like ActiveX and plugins, Silverlight, scriptlets, and applets. These parts are called “components.”

As a result, these tests are thought to be more difficult. Identifying the endpoints of every web-based application that regularly interacts with the user is necessary to ensure that the test goes well.

Penetration testing on the client-side:

Client-side penetration testing finds bugs or security flaws in client-side applications. These could be programs or apps like Putty, email clients, web browsers (like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and so on), Macromedia Flash, and more. Also, programs like Adobe Photoshop and the Microsoft Office Suite have to be checked out.

Testing for Wireless Penetration

Wireless penetration testing is finding and looking at the connections between all the devices connected to the business’s wifi. Among them are laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other devices connected to the internet (IoT).

Wireless penetration tests are usually done on-site because the pen tester needs to be in the wireless signal range to get to it.

Penetration Testing for Social Engineering:

Social engineering penetration testing is when an evil person tries to get people to give them essential information, like their username and password.

Physical penetration testing:

Physical penetration testing is like a real-world threat, where a pentester tries to break through physical barriers to get into a business’s infrastructure, buildings, systems, or employees.

How Does Penetration Testing Differ From Automated Testing?

It’s the only thing that makes them different. People who are good at this kind of thing do manual penetration testing, and machines do automated penetration testing on their own, so the names match.

Manual penetration testing is the best way to determine how a vulnerability exploit will affect your computer. It’s called “automated penetration testing” or “vulnerability scanning.” Penetration testing tools are used to do this.

Pros:

  • You need to know many things about the GDPR’s security testing requirements and how to do it, and how much money you have to spend on it.
  • Identify and fix problems with the computer system.
  • It’s essential to learn about your digital systems.
  • Become a trusted source of information for your clients.

Cons:

  • A mistake could end up costing you a lot of money.
  • Determine the conditions for the test
  • Testing could be wrong.