Pen testing demystified

A penetration test is one of the most powerful and effective ways to understand and improve your organisation’s security posture.

Whether you’re planning a new development project, are mindful of an upcoming compliance requirement, maintaining compliance, or are concerned about the brand damage a cyber security breach could cause, penetration testing gives you the confidence that your security practices are robust.

What is penetration testing?

A penetration test (also known as ethical hacking or a pentest) is an authorised hacking attempt targeting your organisation’s IT network infrastructure, applications and employees.

The main goal of a pentest is to discover vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit. Penetration testers use the same tools, techniques, and processes as attackers to find and demonstrate the business impacts of weaknesses in security.

They can examine whether a system is robust enough to withstand attacks from authenticated and unauthenticated positions, as well as a range of system roles. With the right scope, a pentest can dive into any aspect of security.

Types of penetration tests

Network penetration testing

Network penetration testing, also known as infrastructure testing, refers to a type of pentest performed for the purpose of protecting the organisation from common network attacks.

The goal of a network pentest is to discover the most exposed security weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the network - before attackers can exploit these blind spots.

A network pentest typically checks various components of the infrastructure, including servers and firewalls, switches and routers, workstations and printers.

Ideally, a network services test can help you protect against common network attacks, such as firewall misconfiguration, router attacks, switching or routing-based attacks, database attacks, man in the middle (MITM) attacks, proxy server attacks, and more.

Since mission-critical systems rely on the health of the network for continuous availability, organisations should perform external and internal network services pen testing on an annual basis, at the least.

Web application penetration testing

The purpose of a web application pentest is to identify security weaknesses or vulnerabilities in web applications and their components, including the source code, the database, and any relevant backend network.

A web application penetration testing process typically performs the following three phases:

1. Reconnaissance - Gathering information about the application. For example, the operating system (OS) and resources the application uses.

2. Discovery - Attempts are made to detect vulnerabilities.

3. Exploitation - Using the detected vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access to the application and its pools of data.

The results of a web application pentest should provide information about detected vulnerabilities and any successful exploitation. This information can help the organisation prioritise vulnerabilities and determine how to apply fixes.

Physical penetration testing

A physical pentest is performed for the purpose of discovering any vulnerabilities and issues in physical assets, such as locks, cameras, sensors, and barriers, that may lead to a breach.

For example, a physical pentest can assess whether attackers can gain unauthorised access to a server room. This access can serve as a point of entry into the corporate network.

Physical penetration testing can also assess how the organisation copes with physical security threats like social engineering, badge cloning, tailgating, and more.

By the end of this pentest, the organisation is supplied with information about discovered physical security flaws and suggestions for mitigation.

Social engineering penetration testing

A social engineering attack targets employees of the company or parties with access to company assets, trying to persuade or trick them into disclosing information and credentials.

A social engineering pentest tries to determine how the organisation copes during a social engineering attack. At the end of this test, the organisation is provided with information that can help create or improve a social engineering awareness program and related security protocols.

Client-side penetration testing

A client-side pentest is performed for the purpose of detecting software vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited on a client device like workstations and web browsers.

A client-side pentest can typically identify specific attacks. For example, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, form hijacking, HTML injections, clickjacking attacks, and malware infections.

Mobile application penetration testing

A mobile application pentest attempts to discover vulnerabilities in mobile applications. This test does not include servers and mobile APIs.

Mobile application penetration testing usually involves the use of the two following tests:

• Static analysis - Involves extracting elements like source code and metadata, for the purpose of performing reverse engineering.

• Dynamic analysis - Involves looking for vulnerabilities during runtime. The tester, for example, may try to extract data from the RAM or bypass controls.

---

If you have concerns about your organisation’s security posture, and its vulnerability to attack, reach out to our team via enquiry@destefanoandco.com.au or by calling 1300 GET DISP.