Penetration Testing: Look For A Specialist Providing Quality Services

A penetration test is a pen test, a simulated cyber attack against a computer system to review for exploitable exposures. In terms of web application security, penetration testing services Australia help augment web application firewalls. See how penetration testing is beneficial to obtain.

Why use pen testing?

Pen testing involved the attempted breaching of many application systems to uncover vulnerabilities, such as uncleaned inputs tolerant to code injection attacks. Insights given by the penetration test are used to patch detected vulnerabilities and fine-tune WAF security policies.

Web application firewalls and penetration testing

WAFs and penetration testing are exclusive, mutually advantageous security measures. There are a few kinds of pen testing, the tester uses WAF data, such as logs. Logs are used to locate and exploit the weak spots of an application.

In turn, the web application firewall administrators benefit from pen-testing data. After the test is completed, web application firewall configurations are updated to ensure against the discovered weak spots in the test. pen testing will satisfy some of the compliance requirements for the security auditing procedures, including:

• SOC 2
• PCI DSS

Stages of penetration testing

Pen testing procedures are broken down into 5 stages, namely:

• Analysis and WAF configuration. The results are used to configure WAF settings before running the testing again.
• Maintaining access. APTs are mimicked to see if the exposure is used to maintain access.
• Planning and reconnaissance. Test goals are specified and intelligence is collected.
• Gaining access. Web app attacks are staged to reveal the exposure of a target.
• Scanning. Using scanning tools helps to understand how a target reacts to intrusions.

Methods of penetration testing

• Internal testing. A tester with access to the application behind the firewall simulates an attack by the malicious insider. It is not necessarily affecting a rogue employee. There is a common starting scenario where an employee’s credentials are stolen because of a phishing attack.
• External testing. The external penetration tests will target the assets of the company visible online, the web app itself, the company website, and the email and DNS. The goal gains access to and extracts helpful data.
• Blind testing. The tester is given the name of the company to target. It gives security personnel the real-time look at how the actual app assault takes place.
• Targeted testing. In the scenario, both the security personnel and tester work together and keep appraised of their movements. The valuable training exercise provides the security team with real-time feedback from the point-of-view of the hacker.
• Double-blind testing. In double-time testing, security personnel have no past knowledge of the simulated attack. In the real world, there is no time to shore up the defenses before the attempted breach.

See how penetration testing helps possible vulnerabilities of computer attacks.