The penetration tests are designed to meet the needs of a specific organisation. Here are some common penetration test examples:
- Penetration testing of networks: is used to identify vulnerabilities within an internal network, or a perimeter that faces the public.
- Web Application Penetration Testing: identifies web application vulnerabilities, such as SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting.
- Wireless Network Penetration Testing: identifies weaknesses in wireless networks such as weak preshared keys or evil-twin attacks.
- Social Engineering Penetration Testing: identifies weaknesses in human behaviour.
- Physical Penetration Test: identifies weaknesses in physical safety such as unauthorised access to a server room or building.
- Red Team Penetration Testing: Full-scale simulation of an attack scenario in which a team of specialists attempts to breach the defenses of an organisation.
- Internal and External Penetration Testing: simulates attack from an internal or external perspective. For Website Security Checks, visit etempa.co.uk/website-security-checks/
Benefits of Penetration Testing
The benefits of penetration tests include:
- Identifying vulnerabilities: can help identify security vulnerabilities in systems, networks and applications of an organisation before they are exploited by attackers.
- Mitigating risk: By identifying vulnerabilities in an organised way, organisations can fix these problems (e.g. Low/medium/high-risk vulnerabilities should be identified before they can be exploited).
- Compliance with regulatory requirements: Many industry regulations and compliance standards require regular security reviews, or penetration tests as part of their protocol.
- Improving security posture: improves security posture through an unbiased assessment and recommendations for improvements.
- Assuring: Assures stakeholders, partners, and customers that the organisation takes cybersecurity seriously and actively works to protect their systems and data.
- Cost savings: It is cheaper to identify and fix vulnerabilities earlier than deal with the aftermath of data breaches or successful cyber attacks.
- Improve business continuity: pen-tests help reduce the risk of a disruption which could impact operations.
- Protects reputation: reputations take years to establish and only minutes to destroy. Penetration testing can help protect your reputation by reducing the risk of attack.