A penetration test, often known as a pen test, is a simulated cyber attack on your computer system designed to detect exploitable flaws. Penetration testing is widely used to supplement a web application firewall in the context of web application security (WAF).
Pen testing is attempting to penetrate any number of application systems (e.g., application protocol interfaces (APIs), frontend/backend servers) in order to discover vulnerabilities, such as unsanitized inputs that are vulnerable to code injection attacks.
The penetration test results may be used to fine-tune your WAF security rules and address found vulnerabilities.
The following are some of the advantages of conducting testing on a regular basis:
- Identifies vulnerabilities in your application setups and network architecture.
- Protects intellectual property as well as sensitive and private data Highlights actual dangers of a hacker successfully penetrating your defenses
- Assesses your cyberdefense capabilities—your capacity to identify and respond to assaults in a timely way.
- Ensures that your network and activities are functioning smoothly and without interruptions 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- Maintains regulatory and certification compliance, such as PCI or ISO.
- Provides an objective third-party assessment of the effectiveness of your cybersecurity efforts.
Penetration testing can be performed on hardware, software, or firmware components, and physical and technical security controls may be used. It is common for a preliminary study based on the target system to be followed by a pretest identification of possible vulnerabilities based on prior assessments. After that, a pretest may aid in determining the exploitation of the discovered vulnerabilities.
Penetration Tests Come in Three Varieties
A penetration test may be carried out in three ways:
- Black-box test
- White-box test
- Gray-box test
Black-Box Test
External penetration testing, often known as black-box testing, mimics an assault from outside your business.
The pen tester begins on the same footing as a genuine hacker. As a result, they begin with little to no knowledge of the IT architecture and security defenses. They are unaware of the internal workings of:
- The web applications
- The software architecture
- The source code
This type of testing simulates what an outsider would have to do to penetrate your defenses. However, the exam does not end there. There’s still a lot to learn. A tester will also want to see how much harm they can cause once they’re in the system. According to the Infosecurity Institute:
Black-box penetration testing is based on a dynamic study of the target network’s currently running programs and systems. A black-box penetration tester must be conversant with automated scanning technologies as well as human penetration testing approaches. Because no such diagram is supplied to them, black-box penetration testers must also be capable of generating their own map of a target network based on their observations.
Typically, a tester will attempt to overcome the firewall protections by connecting from the internet to the router. This is performed by conducting a full-fledged brute force attack on the IT infrastructure. It employs a trial-and-error technique in which automated systems hunt for exploitable flaws indiscriminately.
A black-box test can take up to six weeks to perform properly, but it could take much longer depending on the scale of the project and the severity of testing.
Types of Black Box Testing
There are several forms of Black Box Testing, however, the following are the most common.
- Functional testing – This sort of black-box testing is connected to a system’s functional requirements and is performed by software testers.
- Non-functional testing — This sort of black-box testing is concerned with non-functional criteria such as performance, scalability, and usability rather than particular functionality.
- Regression testing is performed after code changes, upgrades, or any other system maintenance to ensure that the new code has not affected the current code.
White-Box Test
White Box Testing is a software testing technique in which the internal structure, design, and coding of software are tested to ensure that the input-output flow is correct and to improve design, usability, and security. Because code is visible to testers during white box testing, it is also known as Clear box testing, Open box testing, transparent box testing, Code-based testing, and Glass box testing.
It is one of two components of the Box Testing method of software testing. Blackbox testing, on the other hand, entails testing from the standpoint of an external or end-user. White box testing in software engineering, on the other hand, is centered on the inner workings of an application and centers around internal testing.
Because of the see-through box concept, the term “WhiteBox” was coined. The name “clear box” or “WhiteBox” refers to the ability to look past the exterior shell (or “box”) of the program into its inner workings. Similarly, the “black box” in “Black Box Testing” represents the inability to observe the inner workings of the program, allowing only the end-user experience to be assessed.
Software development testing can be done at the system, integration, and unit levels. One of the primary aims of white-box testing is to validate an application’s working flow. It entails evaluating a sequence of specified inputs against expected or desired outputs so that when a certain input does not result in the intended outcome, a flaw has been discovered.
White box testing entails evaluating software code for the following:
- Internal flaws in security
- Paths in the coding processes that are broken or poorly organized
- The movement of certain inputs via the code
- Expected outcome
- The operation of conditional loops
- Individual testing of each statement, object, and function
Gray-box Testing
Gray-box testing is the next step up from black-box testing. A gray-box tester has the access and knowledge levels of a user, perhaps with higher privileges on a system, whereas a black-box tester examines a system from an outsider’s perspective. Gray-box pen-testers often have some knowledge of a network’s internals, which may include design and architectural documents as well as an internal network account.
Gray-box pen testing is intended to give a more targeted and efficient examination of a network’s security than black-box testing. Using a network’s design documentation, pen testers may focus their assessment efforts from the outset on the systems with the most risk and value, rather than wasting time determining this information on their own. An internal account on the system also enables testing of security within the fortified perimeter and simulates an attacker with longer-term network access.
A gray-box test is commonly used for the following scenarios:
- The hacker has access to user or admin accounts via which they may log in.
- The hacker is well-versed in the data flow and architecture of the program.
- Parts of the source code are accessible to the hacker.
Some belief it to be the best ROI for your time and resources because it combines both techniques. It provides many of the advantages of both internal and external testing. However, a gray-box test only covers a subset of the application and source code. To make matters worse, the exams are difficult to develop.
The 5 Top 5 Penetration Testing
Now that we’ve covered the fundamentals of penetration testing, we can move on to the most popular types of tests. The majority of them will employ a hybrid of white-box and black-box testing approaches. They are as follows:
1- Web Application Penetration Testing
Because of the growth of online apps, more internet resources must be spent on building software and configuring the applications to operate effectively. However, because certain online apps include sensitive data, this poses a huge new attack channel for hackers.
Web application penetration testing is to collect information about the target system, identify vulnerabilities, and exploit them. The ultimate objective is to compromise the web application totally.
Web Application Penetration Testing is another term for this (WAPT). It can run tests for the following scenarios:
- Cross-Site Scripting
- SQL Injection
- Broken authentication and session management
- File Upload flaws
- Caching Servers Attacks
- Security Misconfigurations
- Cross-Site Request Forgery
- Password Cracking
- A list of these vulnerabilities can be found on the ZOFIXER
A WAPT is far more extensive and detailed than a “deeper dive” test, especially when it comes to discovering vulnerabilities or flaws in web-based applications. As a result, a large amount of time and resources must be committed to testing the complete online application.
2- Network Service Penetration Testing
A network penetration test is performed to uncover exploitable flaws in your network:
- Networks
- Systems
- Hosts
- Network devices
Your job is to locate and then close any vulnerabilities before a hacker can exploit them. When done correctly, it can show real-world vulnerabilities that a hacker might exploit to obtain access to sensitive data or take control of the system. The discovery method enables your team to uncover better ways to secure sensitive data and avoid system takeovers.
Network penetration testing is a security service that discovers security flaws in networks, systems, hosts, and devices by purposely testing the network’s security responses.
The goal of network penetration testing is to detect security flaws that might expose your company to a data breach before hackers find and exploit them.
Simply said, it is a service that businesses pay for in order to identify their weakest links. As a result, they enable ethical hackers to attempt to get into their network using whatever methods are required.
Specifically, by employing approaches that a genuine hacker would do. Aside from a cyber security audit, which should be completed prior to a network penetration test, network penetration testing gives one of the greatest levels of security assurance a company can have.
Following a vulnerability assessment or cyber security audit, businesses should conduct a network penetration test.
Assessments reveal surface-level vulnerabilities, whereas network penetration testing go deeper into your network to detect harder-to-find exploits.
It demonstrates to clients, customers, management, and staff that your network’s security policies and processes are successful.
Most penetration tests will adhere to the seven phases outlined in the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES):
- Pre-engagement interactions – The internal team and security partner meet to discuss and define the scope of the engagement.
- Intelligence gathering – In order to gather as much information as possible, the testers aim to find all available systems and their numerous functions.
- Threat modeling – Manual testing and automated scanning are used by the tester to identify exploitable flaws in the system.
- Vulnerability analysis – The tester documents and analyzes the most obvious vulnerabilities in order to build an attack strategy.
- Exploitation – The tester really runs tests in an attempt to exploit flaws.
- Post exploitation – The tester tries to determine the worth of the hacked system and keep control of it so that it may be utilized later.
- Reporting – The tester gathers results, ranks and prioritizes vulnerabilities, provides proof, and recommends corrective actions.
3- Wireless Penetration Testing
Wireless penetration testing entails detecting and inspecting the connections between all devices linked to the company’s wifi. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, and another internet of things (IoT) devices are examples of these gadgets.
Wireless penetration testing is often done on the client’s premises since the pen tester must be within range of the wireless signal in order to access it.
The Purposes of a Wireless Pen Test
Every legitimate penetration test should concentrate on the vulnerabilities that are most readily exploited.
This is commonly referred to as going for the “low-hanging fruit,” because the detected vulnerabilities provide the most dangerous and are the easiest to attack.
In the context of wifi networks, these flaws are most commonly encountered in access points.
Inadequate Network Access Controls and a lack of MAC filtering are two prominent causes of this.
If these security controls are not employed to properly strengthen the security of a WiFi network, malevolent hackers get a major advantage and can use different strategies and WiFi hacking tools to obtain unauthorized access to the network.
What are the procedures?
- Wireless reconnaissance – Information is acquired by wardriving, which is driving about the actual place to detect if wifi signals appear.
- Identify wireless networks — Using packet capture and wireless card monitoring, the tester scans and detects wireless networks.
- Vulnerability research – After locating wifi access points, the tester attempts to uncover vulnerabilities on those access points.
- Exploitation – The tester tries to exploit the flaws in one of three ways:
- De-authenticating a valid client
- Obtaining a first four-way handshake
- An offline dictionary attack on a capture key is carried out.
- Reporting — The tester records each stage of the process, including comprehensive findings and mitigation suggestions.
4- Physical Penetration Testing
Physical penetration testing is a simulated incursion attempt used to uncover flaws in your company’s physical security. This is apart from our other sorts of testing in that the objective is not a cyber one but rather your actual location.
Successful and partially successful efforts to get into your premises will expose flaws in your physical security that thieves might exploit. This is critical information for strengthening your security.
What Are the Advantages of Penetration Testing?
As a business, you have numerous precious assets that must be safeguarded. If a criminal is able to breach the security of your business, they may be able to steal these assets, which could include valuable data.
The main advantage of Physical Penetration Testing is that it may discover security flaws and help you fix them so that they don’t give you problems in the future. It can also be used to assess your physical security controls and staff security awareness, identifying areas for improvement.
What Will a Physical Penetration Test Reveal?
As part of the evaluation, we will produce a report describing security flaws as well as suggestions to address these flaws. Using the weaknesses identified and the solutions offered, you can tighten your security so that actual criminals cannot get entry to your premises in the same way that our experts did in our simulated physical penetration test.
Once within your premises, our specialists will try to breach your security and get access to the site’s computer network. Again, this is done to find exploitable holes so that they may be addressed before real criminals can use them.
5- Social Engineering Penetration Testing
Social engineering penetration testing focuses on people and processes, as well as the risks they entail. These pen tests often involve an ethical hacker doing various social engineering attacks, such as phishing, USB drops, or impersonation, that a person could encounter while at work. The purpose of this test is to detect flaws in a person, group of people, or process, as well as vulnerabilities with a clear route to resolution.
What Exactly Is a Social Engineering Attack?
The most prevalent types of social engineering assaults include phishing, vishing, smishing, impersonation, dumpster diving, USB drops, and tailgating.
Phishing
Phishing is a technique that uses email to deceive users into disclosing personal information or opening a malicious file that might infect their system.
Vishing
Vishing is similar to phishing, however, it takes place over the phone. These phone calls try to dupe the consumer into disclosing critical information.
Smishing
Smishing is comparable to phishing, however, it takes place using SMS text messages. These SMS messages serve the same purpose as phishing emails.
Impersonation
Impersonation is a technique in which the assailant attempts to deceive the victim into thinking they are someone else.
An attacker, for example, may impersonate an executive in order to persuade workers to make financial payments to phony suppliers or to allow access to secret information.
An impersonation attack might potentially be directed toward a user in order to acquire access to their account. This might be performed by requesting a password reset without first validating their identity with the administrator.
Pretending to be a delivery person is another example of this type of assault. In certain circumstances, delivery staff have few limitations and have unrestricted access to guarded places.
Dumpster Diving
Dumpster diving is a technique in which an attacker searches through trash as well as materials in plain sight, such as sticky notes and calendars, to obtain important information on a person or organization.
USB Drops
USB drops are malicious USBs that are dropped in popular spots across the workforce. When plugged in, the USBs often include malware that installs malicious software that can give a backdoor into a system or transfers data with popular file extensions.
Tailgating
Tailgating is a means of evading physical security measures. This approach is commonly utilized in facilities that need a person to scan a key fob to obtain entry.
Why Conduct A Social Engineering Test?
When it comes to security, users are usually referred to as the “weakest link,” yet they still have more than the essential rights to accomplish their duties.
So it stands to reason that such users should be subjected to pen-testing. These pen tests can reveal who within a corporation is vulnerable to the previously mentioned attacks, among other things.
Pen tests for social engineering are often conducted in a hybrid approach, including on-site and off-site tests.
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