Why Penetration Testing is Important

Cyber threats are getting more sophisticated and more dangerous – which is why so many businesses use penetration testing to prepare their systems and networks against potential malicious attacks.

Proactive security testing has never been more important. According to our research, almost half of companies say that cyberattacks are increasing in frequency – and 43% say severity is increasing, too.

In this guide, we’ll take you through why regular penetration testing is so important for keeping your business’s security posture reactive and robust against emerging threats. We’ll also explore some typical penetration testing stages, types, and styles.

Why Is Penetration Testing Important?

Penetration testing is a type of cybersecurity strategy that mimics the typical attacks and techniques used by modern hackers. It’s essentially a controlled hack – where you agree for an expert to carry out assessments and measured attacks against your internal and external security.

By emulating the typical strategies hackers might use to break into your systems, you can ensure your infrastructure is protected against evolving threats, typical tools, and strategies they use to successfully leak data and wreak havoc.

The importance of penetration testing right now cannot be overstated. Cybercrime is set to cost businesses more than $10 trillion, worldwide, by the end of 2025. Recovering from attacks is extremely costly – meaning it pays to regularly test and assess your systems so you’re strong enough to face unknown threats of varying sizes.

It’s always a good idea to run regular penetration tests as part of a broader cybersecurity strategy. We recommend conducting full penetration tests annually or after any major changes to your systems or network. Businesses with high security requirements may benefit from more frequent testing.

Benefits of Regular Penetration Testing

Having explored the basic idea behind why penetration testing is important for businesses of all sizes, let’s explore some broader benefits in detail.

Regular pen testing can help you:

• Identify and prioritize risks
• Prevent unauthorized access
• Avoid costly data breaches
• Ensure regulatory compliance
• Provide realistic risk assessments

Let’s dive into these points.

Identify and Prioritize Risks

Penetration testing can help you immediately identify any weaknesses or vulnerabilities that are not obvious at first glance.

For example, pen testers might uncover misconfigurations in your software which hackers could exploit to insert malicious code or use as a backend to steal sensitive data.

A penetration test identifies hidden risks and helps you to prioritize and patch the most significant vulnerabilities.

Prevent Unauthorized Access

Simple passwords aren’t enough to protect your sensitive data. A penetration test analyzes how effective your access control is at keeping unauthorized personnel out of your data.

For example, an external pen test might analyze how long it takes to break into your systems by guessing passwords through a user portal. A test report will then advise on potential steps to take to harden up your security and avoid future risks.

Avoid Costly Data Breaches

Data breaches are costing businesses more and more money every year. Reports suggest businesses are paying out an average of $4.88 million per breach!

Penetration testing can help reduce costs incurred through breaches by helping you spot weaknesses before it’s too late. Pen testers will show you how quick and easy it could be to break in, and how you can mitigate this ease of access.

Essentially, the average penetration testing cost is overshadowed by the cost implications of data breaches in the long run.

Ensure Regulatory Compliance

When it comes to regulatory compliance and penetration testing, these assessments can help address many regulatory requirements to conduct testing and address vulnerabilities as part of a broader compliance strategy.

For example, if you follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a pen test will tell you if you’re doing enough to safeguard users’ data, and if not, how to improve your standards.

Provide Realistic Risk Assessments

It’s often easy to set up protective cybersecurity measures without digging deep into what you actually need. However, an overall action plan will only be helpful if it’s relevant to your systems and its users.

Penetration testing accounts for all the finer points of your infrastructure and effectively helps you build realistic risk assessments. That means you’re not only safer against threats, but your budget is more effective in preparing for security measures.

Stages of Penetration Testing

An effective penetration testing analysis usually takes place over the following five steps:

1. Planning and Scoping: Where testers discuss your needs and look carefully at how your systems are arranged.
2. Reconnaissance: Where testers start to explore your network and systems and look for potential vulnerabilities to exploit.
3. Exploitation: Here’s where testers start to actually attack you – and take notes of how long it takes to exploit systems, and what methods are the most effective.
4. Post-Exploitation: After exploitation, testers check how long they can remain behind the scenes, and record useful report data to share with the client.
5. Reporting: Report data offered to the client explores the techniques testers used, what data was intercepted, and what the client ultimately needs to do to harden their security.

Types of Penetration Testing

There are several different types of penetration testing that suit different scenarios and purposes. These usually split into:

• Network Penetration Testing: A thorough analysis of your internal or external networks and connected devices.
• Web Application Penetration Testing: A deep dive into how secure your web app or public interface is against hackers.
• Wireless Penetration Testing: Similar to network penetration testing, this type specifically considers WiFi connectivity and the devices on your wireless network.
• Social Engineering Penetration Testing: This type of testing looks at how susceptible your team and infrastructure are to confidence tricks, phishing, and fake emails.
• Physical Penetration Testing: Physical testing usually involves checking physical security measures, such as on-site storage, locking systems, and personnel privileges.
• Cloud Penetration Testing: Specifically, cloud pen tests take place in cloud infrastructures where several services and applications connect together.
• Mobile Application Penetration Testing: This type of test assesses how robust your mobile apps are against hacking attempts.

What Are the Different Approaches to Penetration Testing?

When you first hire penetration testing services, you might have a choice of different “box” approaches to security analysis. These are black, white, and gray box tests, and here’s what each term means in practice.

Black Box Testing

Black box penetration testing closely mimics legitimate, real-world hacking attempts by blindly exploiting systems with no prior knowledge of its setup or purposes.

While effective in some cases, some business operators prefer to use white box testing because it gives them a complete overview of their vulnerabilities and security position.

White Box Testing

White box penetration testing gives testers complete access to an infrastructure’s setup and blueprints, meaning they can plan ahead and cover as much security ground as possible.

This pen testing approach is typically used by our team – we feel it’s important for our clients to have a complete understanding of their security postures and what to do to improve them.

Gray Box Testing

Gray box penetration testing is the middle option between black and white. This pen testing model gives testers some information that’s vital to the type of test they’re doing, but not a complete overview of a complete network or infrastructure.

Conclusion

Up against the evolving threat landscape businesses find themselves in, penetration testing leads to security confidence. Penetration testing is typically one component of a broader cybersecurity strategy that includes regular vulnerability scanning and continuous monitoring. However, there’s no more effective way to mimic the actions of typical hackers and to prepare business operators for potentially costly threats

If you’re considering penetration testing your application, internal network, or external access, contact the team at VikingCloud to learn more about how we can help protect you against hidden threats and weaknesses.