Why Your Company Needs Penetration Testing?
Planning and appraising existing infrastructure can only do so much when it comes to developing cybersecurity strategies. To create an unassailable security plan, you have to take a look at things from a hacker’s perspective. That’s where penetration testing comes in.
It is much better to find the vulnerabilities in your systems or software before a hacker can attack and exploit them. When you have spent time working on your company’s defenses, you want to make sure they work.
A properly conducted penetration test can reveal insights into the weaknesses of your company’s cyber defenses and can help develop better systems. This is why companies should opt for pen-testing services.
What is Penetration Testing?
A penetration test, which is also known as ethical hacking, is a real-time cyber attack performed in secure conditions with permission from the company. A pentest aims to breach defences to discover real-time weaknesses or assess a network’s strength to figure out where a hacker might be able to attack from. It can also reveal gaps in the system, applications, and network, test the strength of web application security, and detect loopholes and vulnerabilities that may be exploited.
Generally, penetration tests are included in security audits and are a way to gain a real sense of a company’s cyber security defenses. This is why organisations should get themselves pentested. Pentesters use the same techniques as hackers when attempting to breach all or part of the system. They may use attacks like phishing, creating backdoors, etc.
Another reason that organisations should get themselves pentested is that it may help identify areas that have been overlooked by security professionals during development and draw attention to vulnerabilities that need a different perspective to be found. External testing, blind testing, targeted testing, internal testing, and double-blind testing are the five main types of penetration testing.
Reasons You Need Penetration Testing
Pen-tests allow companies to evaluate their IT infrastructure’s security and find out which areas need better security protocols. Successful cyber security attacks cost companies greatly, which is why no company should wait for a real attack to occur before updating its security. Using penetration testing tools can help unveil holes in the security layer of a company and allow security experts and ethical hackers to work on any shortcomings before they become liabilities.
Some reasons to invest in penetration testing are as follows:
Risk Assessment:
- Pen-testing allows you to manage risks by putting up measures against vulnerabilities and warding off threats that have the potential to become actual security events. These need to be addressed before cybercriminals have time to exploit the weaknesses of your application. Pen testing is essential especially if you are using third-party applications, cloud-based services, or outsourced services. Penetration testing exposes endpoints in your computer system that are the easiest to target for adversaries.
Reputation:
- A single security incident can cause customers to lose trust in your company, which is why it is necessary to pentest. It will help guard your company’s reputation and hold onto your customer base. Breaches in security can also affect employee morale, especially as these incidents are generally publicly reported and addressed. A company with a tainted reputation loses its customer trust really quickly, but one that has a sound security system, as well as systems strategy in place, can go on to get projects and grow without losing its customer base. Companies that routinely perform penetration tests can also go on to seek cybersecurity accreditations as routine pen-tests are usually a requirement for these accreditations and certifications.
Regulations and Compliance:
- Regulatory standards laid down in GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, SOC2, and many others require organisations to do mandatory testing and audits of their security systems from time to time. When an organisation fails to do so, it could be charged with heavy fines as punishment. It is also possible that you may lose your licence to operate or get jail time. As data privacy is a cause for concern, many countries around the world are implementing stringent data privacy laws to protect their citizens. Singapore’s PDPA, the EU’s GDPR, and Indonesia’s PDP bill are examples of data privacy regulations. Though pen-testing does not directly address the issue of data privacy, it does help reduce the risk of data breaches from vulnerabilities in software.
Saving Costs:
- Along with monetary costs, such as remediation and recovery costs, a breach also causes losses from downtime, loss of image and reputation, loyalty, poor network performance, and most importantly, customers. A thorough pen-testing will help the longevity of your company by preventing breaches that damage businesses in the long term. A well-planned, thorough pen test performed by a professional pentester will be hassle-free, smooth, and inexpensive and will ensure the sustainability of your business.
The Benefits of Penetration Testing
Penetration tests are generally performed by establishments charged with protecting the private information of citizens. Even the top IT departments might not have the equitability required to find flaws in security that could leave an organisation exposed to attacks from hackers. These tasks should be performed by a penetration tester who can conduct white box testing, black-box testing, as well as other security evaluations from the outside.
If someone who is not a part of the business conducts intrusion tests, they can provide valuable insights in the following ways:
- Allows for the determination of the feasibility of security holding up against different types of attacks.
- Demonstrate how the exploitation of low-risk vulnerabilities could cause great damage at higher levels.
- Reveal difficult-to-find risks through the use of the automated application and network scans.
- Evaluate the success of network defences when faced with an attack.
- Help quell future attacks by executing and authenticating upgraded security controls.
- Judge and quantify the possible impacts on business and operational functions.
- Appraise the need for a more substantial investment in security technology and staff.
Final Thoughts
Penetration testing should not be confined to a one-time effort. It should be a segment of ongoing vigilance to help companies stay safe through different types of security testing. Security patches, updates, and new components that are used in a company website can create new risks that allow hackers to attack. This is the reason why organisations need to regularly schedule pen-tests to uncover new weaknesses in security, thus preventing any opportunity to exploit these weaknesses.
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