What is Penetration Testing?

What is Penetration Testing?

Any organization with an online presence is vulnerable to a breach of its network. These intrusions can happen in one of several ways. Given the ever-expanding threat landscape, advisory services are offered by security companies to help others strengthen their overall security posture. One such service is penetration testing, an exercise by cybersecurity professionals to safely assess the weak spots in an IT environment and reveal the possibility of how an intrusion from adversaries might occur.

Given that cybersecurity attacks are happening more frequently and with increasing devastation, it is vital for all organizations, particularly those holding sensitive data online, to pinpoint the security gaps prior to an attack. Penetration testing targets servers, endpoints, web applications, wireless networks, and other vulnerable access points.

Types of Penetration Testing

External Security Penetration Testing

External security testing assesses the external security control by simulating cyberattacks from the public internet. The simulation identifies vulnerabilities allowing cybersecurity firms access to the company’s internal environment from the outside. Cybersecurity firms will not only probe for vulnerabilities but validate them using advanced penetration testing methods.

Internal Security Penetration Testing

An internal security test is designed to identify how many different machines can be infected and what critical data and systems are vulnerable to a breach. Cybersecurity firms will simulate cyberattacks from an internal perspective on the local network and simulate a threat actor’s behavior inside a network. This allows companies to test their internal security controls to mitigate potential damage resulting from an internal system compromise.

Wireless Security Penetration Testing

Wireless security testing involves gathering information on existing wireless local area networks, testing safeguards for unauthorized access, and reviewing existing organizational wireless policies. Cybersecurity firms will identify security vulnerabilities, and performance issues with wireless networks, and provide detailed findings including site survey maps, and remediation steps to improve or secure the wireless network.

Web Application Security Penetration Testing

A web application test assesses a website for application-related vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity firms conduct the testing from an external, unauthenticated threat operator and identify numerous vulnerabilities with the code, code libraries, and web application software. Once the findings are documented, cybersecurity firms will take remediation steps for IT to reduce or eliminate the risk involving the discovered vulnerabilities.

Social Engineering Penetration Testing

Cybersecurity firms will exploit the fact that humans are susceptible to persuasion and manipulation; the levels of human suggestibility within an organization are tested via social engineering. Employees have access to the public internet from corporate technology and can cause harm by becoming victims of social engineering attacks, such as phishing or tailgating. It’s critical that companies know how to detect, educate, and respond to the scenarios.

The SpearTip Benefit

The only real way to test your readiness for a cyberattack is to let SpearTip’s cyber experts assess the security of your networks during penetration testing. We’ll compromise your defenses quickly and quietly, just like the threats you want to stop. The difference between us and the threat actors is that we help secure your defenses before you become a victim of a cyberattack.

To examine the limits of your cybersecurity, we perform a multitude of penetration tests: external security, internal security, wireless security, web application security, and social engineering. The testing can take different perspectives: a threat actor with no access to the environment or one that starts inside the network. These overlapping approaches test the limits of your detection and response systems to identify all relevant vulnerabilities. Our experts will walk you step-by-step through our penetration testing to ensure your organization maximizes security visibility and comprehensive knowledge of all facets of your security posture.

As our experts evaluate the current state of your security, we will also assess the efficacy of your security toolkit and clarify your overall readiness for a cyberattack. The thorough analysis from our experts will enhance your team’s ability to remediate any uncovered gaps to make your system less vulnerable. We give extra effort to validate important findings and reduce false positives, providing your organization with accurate findings and the high-level executive information required by leadership to eliminate risks from the environment.

Our testing goes beyond just automated scanning to provide a true picture of your organization’s risk posture. When vulnerabilities are discovered through cybersecurity penetration testing, actionable intelligence is provided along with clear remediation steps. Once we are done, your organization will know exactly where the vulnerabilities exist and how to remediate them. It’s an important piece of the cybersecurity risk assessment process and should be done regularly to ensure the safety of your organization. As threat actors seek to penetrate your network to inflict damage, SpearTip defends you.

If your company is experiencing a breach, call our Security Operations Centers at 833.997.7327 to speak directly with an engineer.