Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing
Assess Your Security Posture
Penetration Testing provides organizations with an effective assessment of their existing security posture and controls, providing them with the opportunity to address any existing vulnerabilities or weaknesses associated with their environment. Penetration Testing is performed by simulating a ‘real-world’ attack against the organization in a controlled manner to see how the organization would withstand a targeted attack utilizing many of the same Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) observed in the current threat landscape.
Benefits & Application
Why Penetration Testing?
Routine penetration testing allows organizations to identify existing vulnerabilities present within their environment and understand how these weaknesses may be exploited to compromise the organization. Our carefully constructed engagements are designed to enable organizations to address these shortfalls and avoid being exploited.
Penetration Tests provide a ‘snap-shot’ of an organization’s security posture at the time it was conducted and for this reason we recommend that organizations conduct assessments on an annual basis, or at any time significant changes are made to the environment.
- Understand current risk level
- Stay ahead of emerging threats
- Understand existing vulnerabilities
- Demonstrate mature security posture
- Assess & improve security posture
- Build trust & credibility
- Proactively mitigate risk
- Meet compliance requirements
Post Engagement Support
Expedited Remediation
Your penetration test is just the beginning. It is what happens following the engagement that impacts your organization. Following each penetration test, all findings and information gathered are carefully examined by professional security engineers and prioritized based on a variety of factors such including – severity of the risk, likelihood of exploitation and effort to remediate, allowing organizations to expedite their remediation efforts.
All findings are presented in a clear and concise report, with security engineers available to answer any questions you may have or to assist with the remediation efforts.
Penetration Testing
Engagement Process
Every penetration test that we perform follows a strict and structured methodology designed to ensure a comprehensive assessment is delivered every time.
Being familiar with the engagement framework allows customers to not only understand what activities are performed during the assessment, but allows them to grasp how the various vulnerabilities are identified, exploited, and reported, allowing them to communicate and discuss remediation options more effectively.
This knowledge will also allow management teams to make better strategic decisions with regards to both the scope of each engagement and required frequency of testing.
Familiarize yourself with each of the six engagement phases:
We will learn more about the organization and any specific security concerns the organization may have. We will define the scope of the engagement and ensure that all proposed testing aligns with the goals of the business. We will discuss items such as the types of tests that can be run, along with the testing schedule.
Based upon the defined scope, security engineers will gather information regarding the target organization. This includes both technical details (e.g. IP addresses, connection information, etc.) along with information regarding the business and its personnel.
Security engineers will analyze the information gathered and attempt to identify and verify any vulnerabilities present within the environment, ranking them in order of criticality.
Security engineers will attempt to exploit any vulnerabilities (within the engagement scope) discovered, carefully documenting the success or failure of each attempt. If exploitation is successful, security engineers will evaluate the next step in the engagement.
Any systems modified during the engagement will be returned to their original operating state prior to the exploitation phase.
Whenever appropriate, information contained within the engagement report should be used to improve policies and procedures within the organization.
Demonstrate Your Hard Work
Get the Recognition You Deserve
While penetration tests are designed to demonstrate how vulnerabilities within the environment can be exploited to facilitate an attack against the organization, they should also take time to highlight and validate those areas in which the organization has successfully taken steps to mitigate risk.
Organizations may also find penetration test reports a highly effective tool when attempting to demonstrate and/or justify certain security initiatives to senior management and/or board members.
Fit For Purpose
Selecting the Correct Service
If your organization is fairly new to cyber security assessment services, choosing the correct service for your needs can be a daunting task, especially as many of the services available will have overlapping aspects.
Fundamentally, when considering these security assessment services, organizations should view them as building upon one another to increase the depth of the assessment being performed, with more in-depth engagements (e.g. Red Teaming) being most appropriate for those organizations with prior experience of penetration testing, as this will typically imply a more mature security posture.
If you would prefer to discuss your requirements with a friendly security advisor please contact us and we will be happy to assist you!
Familiarize yourself with the types of assessment service:
The fundamental purpose of a Red Team engagement is to assess and improve the “Blue Team’s” ability to detect and respond to a targeted attack. It allows organizations to challenge their operational security program through an adversarial lens.
Suited for: Organizations with a mature cyber security program with prior experience of utilizing penetration testing.
Builds upon simply discovering vulnerabilities and moves to actively exploiting them to discover how they may be used against the organization and to further an attack.
Suited for: All organizations that wish to improve their security posture by understanding how weaknesses within the environment may be used against them.
This type of exercise is designed to identify, quantify, and prioritize vulnerabilities (i.e. weaknesses) present within the environment that may be exploited by a malicious actor.
Suited for: All organizations that wish to remove vulnerabilities from their environment and resolve issues that allowed them to manifest.