Pen testing simulates real-world attacks to identify security weaknesses. Irregular penetration testing services can leave your organisation exposed to data breaches and malicious attacks.
There are various forms of modern security but one is particularly neglected in 2023. Many business owners and market leaders need to be more proactive with their cyber security by including PTaaS in their security strategy. Many businesses remain vulnerable to malicious cyber attacks which could exploit potential weaknesses.
Utilise vulnerability scanning from one convenient dashboard and ensure remediation tasks are tracked and assigned appropriately to ensure no recurrence of identified vulnerabilities.
Identifying Vulnerabilities
Hackers could exploit any vulnerabilities on your website to access customer and financial data and steal it for their own gain. Penetration testing services help identify vulnerabilities that pose threats to security; these tests simulate attacks to highlight weaknesses that hackers use to gain entry. By understanding what steps need to be taken against potential attacks, this allows for preventative strategies.
Pen testing is an integral part of any organisation’s security strategy. Also known as ethical hacking, pen testing can identify security risks missed by automated tools or vulnerability assessments and uncover any vulnerabilities that might go undetected otherwise. Penetration tests can be carried out either internally or externally on network infrastructure, web applications, remote systems, and more. Expert penetration testers use similar methods as attackers when conducting penetration tests to detect exploitable vulnerabilities that they report back with clear findings that can be easily understood.
There are many penetration testing companies offering various forms of pen testing services; however, not all providers can be considered equal. An ideal provider will pay close attention to your individual requirements, offer an intuitive solution, and have a dedicated support team available to interpret and address identified issues quickly and effectively. They should also help manage results while setting up regular scans.
Aardwolf is a UK-based penetration testing firm that specialises in finding vulnerabilities in physical and electronic systems, from websites and hospitals to healthcare organisations and fintech businesses. Their services include network penetration testing, physical penetration testing, and ethical hacking tests; they even specialise in finding security gaps that automated scanners miss!
Vulnerabilities may be lurking within complex networks or software that is hard to evaluate. By employing an open-scope penetration testing service, it is possible to see how vulnerabilities could be exploited by an attacker who gains entry to your system, providing valuable insights for strengthening defences against cyberattacks and protecting your business from future breaches.
Managing Risk
Many regulations and standards mandate penetration testing as an essential element of your security program. Penetration testing services lets you demonstrate that you’re taking measures to manage risk effectively and limit damage in the event of a breach, while simultaneously saving time and money by prioritising vulnerabilities identified through penetration tests and decreasing their frequency.
Penetration testing is an in-depth procedure designed to simulate real-life attacks against your security systems and find vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to exploit them. A penetration test typically includes both automated and manual probing techniques to assess vulnerability and identify risks, and it provides you with a comprehensive report detailing discovered vulnerabilities as well as recommendations on remediation steps.
A CREST-accredited penetration tester uses industry-standard methodologies to scan your system for vulnerabilities, as well as red team assessments that mimic attackers trying to gain entry. Such assessments cover internet-facing infrastructure and applications, social engineering techniques, and even physical security, so as to determine whether an intruder could sneak through without detection.
At penetration testing services UK, they can offer you an assessment that’s customised specifically to your needs. Choose between black box testing to assess how your system fares against attackers or white box testing to gain an overview of internal infrastructure and application security. They may even perform open-scope penetration tests to explore how vulnerabilities intertwine within larger network environments.
Vulnerability management tools can be helpful for finding and flagging issues, but they do not always give an accurate representation of your security state. Furthermore, these tools often produce overwhelming volumes of data, which require extensive work to manage and prioritise risks. A penetration testing company offers more complete vulnerability management by identifying and prioritising serious threats while outlining how best to address them; additionally, they can provide a report detailing all their findings that can justify any necessary security investments.
Demonstrating due diligence
Recurring penetration tests can significantly decrease the risk of cyberattacks by showing you are taking measures to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, giving you an edge over attackers. They also demonstrate your diligence as you take precautionary steps against potential breaches affecting your organisation, customers, and reputation.
Penetration testing simulates real-world attacks to uncover vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit, documenting these in a report with recommendations and prioritised fixes so you can address them before attackers do, helping protect your organisation against lost revenues, damaged brand reputation, and legal action caused by breaches.
A good penetration testing company should offer an accessible self-service tool that makes remediation tasks straightforward, enabling you to focus on tackling the most critical threats first instead of being bogged down by low-priority issues found by automated scans. They should also offer expert remediation assistance if needed.
At minimum, they should enlist a team of certified ethical hackers either onsite or remotely to provide additional support, ensuring they possess a wide variety of skills and experience that cover any vulnerability discovered and provide adequate response in case of an actual cyber attack. Furthermore, open-scope penetration testing should also be offered, which simulates threats posed by attackers within your internal network.
As an ideal vendor, they should offer comprehensive penetration testing services such as website, firewall, cloud, and mobile app penetration testing—from website security auditing and firewall auditing through to firewall penetration testing, cloud penetration testing, and mobile app penetration testing—that will meet all compliance programme requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS ISO 27001, etc. They should also offer independent cyber due diligence services during mergers and acquisitions, as well as provide security assessment reports that help identify supply chain risks.
Keeping Up With Changes
One of the greatest challenges faced by cyber security teams today is keeping up with ever-evolving threats used by malicious actors to gain entry to sensitive information and systems. Therefore, penetration testing must become an ongoing practice, allowing security personnel to identify issues as soon as they arise, rather than just being used as an annual checkbox exercise.
Penetration tests provide the only real way to understand what would occur if a cyber attack were successful, uncovering vulnerabilities such as exploitable web application weaknesses, misconfigurations, and unauthorised or misused account privileges, as well as security gaps that have arisen following system administration changes or user modifications.
An initial reconnaissance phase, or “recon”, of any penetration test begins by searching for entry points to a target system and gathering information about what’s installed on it, such as software and hardware versions that may be outdated. This initial step is crucial in order to produce accurate penetration testing results, though it is often the longest and most time-consuming part of any pen test.
Penetration tests often reach their climax during this phase, when testers gain access to their target system and begin gathering information and remaining undetected as long as possible, whether that means installing Trojan horses, spyware, or more advanced tools designed to operate invisibly in the background and collect user input such as keyboards and mice.
Once penetration testing is completed, you will have a comprehensive report detailing high-risk areas that must be addressed immediately and those that should be tackled over time. Furthermore, remediation recommendations can be implemented immediately to close any gaps in your defences. Many regulations and standards, such as PCI DSS and ISO 27001, require penetration testing on an ongoing basis or whenever significant changes take place to maintain security.
