Nowadays, the need for cybersecurity is becoming a dire necessity due to the rise of cyber-attacks not only on an individual level but also on corporate and government levels. Cyber-attacks have become more sophisticated and harder to detect. Ethical hackers may have different skills and may have followed different paths, but they all share one common skill: programming.

Penetration testing, pen testing, or ethical hacking all refer to the process of testing a computer system, network, web application, or wireless mobile applications to find security holes or vulnerabilities that may be abused by malicious users or criminals to gain unauthorized access to a system. Malicious users are not only external users, but can also be internal ones, or employees; many reported incidents were from inside organizations. Penetration testers use their skills to prove the existence of security holes or vulnerabilities in different systems so they can fix those security holes, and consequently, prevent access of attackers who may abuse them.

What is a vulnerability?

Vulnerability is the risk that an attacker can disrupt or gain authorized access to the system or any data contained within it. Vulnerabilities are usually introduced by accident during the software development and implementation phase. Common vulnerabilities include design errors, configuration errors, software bugs, etc. Penetration Analysis depends upon two mechanisms namely Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing(VAPT).

Why is Pen Testing needed?

1. In the case of sectors like banking and stock trading exchange etc, security of data is very important. A hack can result in a temporary outage to leak user data which may have a long-term effect.

2. In case the software system is already hacked and the organization wants to determine whether any threats are still present in the system to avoid future hacks.

3. Proactive Penetration Testing is the best safeguard against hackers.

Types of Pen Testing

The type of penetration test selected usually depends on the scope and whether the organization wants to simulate an attack by an employee, Network Admin (Internal Sources), or by External Sources. There are three types of Penetration testing and they are:

-> Black Box Testing

-> White Box Penetration testing

-> Gray Box Penetration Testing

In black-box penetration testing, a tester has no knowledge about the systems to be tested. He is responsible for collecting information about the target network or system.

In a white-box penetration testing, the tester is usually provided with complete information about the network or systems to be tested including the IP address schema, source code, OS details, etc. This can be considered as a simulation of an attack by any Internal sources (Employees of an Organization).

In gray box penetration testing, a tester is provided with partial knowledge of the system. It can be considered as an attack by an external hacker who had gained illegitimate access to an organization’s network infrastructure documents.

Tools used in penetration testing are very important. Penetration testers should have mixed knowledge of how to use existing tools and the ability to write his/her scripts and programs. Depending only on existing tools to discover vulnerabilities is not efficient, as we have recently seen many private and governmental entities being attacked successfully, despite penetration testing and red teaming assessments being carried out. The only systems that are not tested during operation are SCADA which are systems that are being used in countries’ infrastructures. The rationale behind this is that any mistake or wrong packet is sent while testing it will cause a disaster; since SCADA systems control oil and gas operations, water and electricity, nuclear powers, vessels, and so on. Therefore, governments most of the time clone the operating system to allow the penetration testers to try to find potential vulnerabilities. Besides, updating and patching the vulnerabilities as well as the replacement of software or hardware is not easy as they require suspending certain production functions.

Note: Using offensive tools in a live environment like companies requires written permission from the entity. Always remember that penetration testing without permission from clients is illegal.

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