What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing or pen testing, is the process of testing various aspects of your IT infrastructure for vulnerabilities. Unlike conventional vulnerability testing, it goes a step further by exploiting any weaknesses found, in order to expose all legitimate threats. Penetration testing can be performed on websites, software programs, or even a flock of mobile devices. Efforts are made to determine exactly how an attacker can harm your organization.
The objective of penetration testing is uncovering weaknesses that when addressed, will significantly improve the security of your application, system, or organization as a whole. And because no system is infallible, most tests should yield some sort of findings that can be used to bolster security.
Some Reasons why penetration testing is important
1. Secure Infrastructure
Secure infrastructure is extremely important for any organization. There are many ways to test a security infrastructure and one of the most common ways is Penetration testing.
Penetration testing helps in finding out the weak spots in the application or the network which can be easily exploited by a cyber bad actor.
2. Customer Trust and Company Reputation
Reputation is everything. It’s what makes the world go around, and it’s the main focus of most businesses. A business’s reputation can make or break it. Simple news about a company’s data leak can destroy all the positive reputations you have built.
3. Efficient Security Measures and Security Awareness
The security of the organization’s data is of paramount importance. However, it is at risk of being attacked, whether by an employee who leaks confidential information or by bad actors, so it’s important to be prepared. A penetration test is a non-destructive way to map out potential security gaps before an attack occurs.
Review, Remediate, and Mitigate – Then Begin Again
Once all the testing and scanning is complete, the most important task is to review the results with senior management of the organization.
No matter how plain the language of the report may seem, it is important to restate it in language for a non-technical audience. The report should be converted into a grid that shows the finding, severity, remediation steps, mitigation steps, task owner, and deadline. This is where collaboration with the Goliath Cyber project management team becomes important to success.
One of the most important columns to include in the grid is one that indicates a testing date after the initial correction of the problem, and a periodic retesting schedule. This serves two purposes. First, it decreases the likelihood of the problem recurring, and it acts as evidence of a repeatable and managed security approach.
Most industry guidance, and many regulations either suggest or prescribe security scanning and testing. Whether your organization follows the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Controls, NIST guidance, or if it must adhere to any of the enacted cybersecurity and privacy regulations, the need to continually evaluate security is ever-present. Make sure that penetration testing and vulnerability scanning are a regular part of your organization’s security practice.
What is the average cost of a pentest ?
Cost of a penetration test depends on a lot of factors. Some of the following factors include:
- Scope of work
- Size of organization
- Type of penetration test to be performed
- Approach of pentest
- Experience of Pentesters
- Consultation and Remediation
The Goliath Cyber team can tailor our security and assessment services engagements to your unique security needs in order to assess and strengthen your organization’s security posture.
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