Have you ever heard of penetration testing? Enterprise networks store a lot of privately owned and sensitive business data that they cannot afford to lose. Through doing so, they become major targets for cybercriminals across the Globe. One successful cyber attack could see you lose business, assets and customer trust in one fell swoop. With so much at stake, it’s no wonder cyber security is a top priority for all modern businesses.That’s why proactive solutions to identify the major areas of weakness in your IT systems, such as penetration tests, are essential.
What is Penetration Testing?
For once, we have technical jargon that needs little explanation. A penetration test, also known as a pen test, is a simulated cyber attack against your computer system to check for exploitable vulnerabilities. It is performed by ethical hackers (also known as white hats) with the purpose of identifying potential security gaps in a system’s defense that can be utilized by hackers.
How to do pen test?
Penetration testing is unique from other cybersecurity evaluation methods, as it can be adapted to any industry or organization. Depending on an organization’s infrastructure and operations, it may want to use a certain set of hacking techniques or tools. But whatever the company’s particularities, the pen testing process can be broken down into five stages:
Recon and information gathering. Before any action can be taken by a penetration testing team, suitable information gathering must be completed on the prospective target. This stage is vital to define the scope and goals of a test, including the systems to be addressed and the testing methods to be used.
Scanning. The next step is to understand how the target application will respond to various intrusion attempts.
Gaining access. Once data has been collected, penetration testers leverage common web application attacks such as SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting to exploit any present vulnerabilities. Now that access has been obtained, testers attempt to imitate the scope of the potential damage that could be generated from a malicious attack.
Maintaining access. The goal of this stage is to see if the vulnerability can be used to achieve a persistent presence in the exploited system— long enough for a bad actor to gain in-depth access.
Integrate the report results. The results must be detailed so the organization can incorporate the findings.
As the first Italian LIMS provider to have developed a 100% Cloud solution, Eusoft has always given top priority to system security. Eusoft.Lab has been designed according to the highest cyber security standards and tested by third-party cybersecurity organisations through penetration testing and other activities that allow users to stay in front of any potential cyberattacks. Curious to find out more? Contact us for a demo!
