Penetration Testing: What is it Good for?
Penetration Testing is a vital part of identifying critical vulnerabilities in your systems, allowing key data on personnel and other critical information stored on business networks to be as secure as possible from cyber adversaries. Now this is a somewhat mundane fact in the cybersecurity industry, but what about those small businesses and corporations that are not privy to the intricacies and lengths hackers will go through to collect and hold your data, sometimes for a ransom, steal bank account information, crash entire infrastructures, and publish PII for the public? No business is safe from cyber attacks, and you are especially more vulnerable if you believe your business networks do not need to be as secure as possible, internally and externally.
Crest Security Assurance understands that not every business thinks about the everyday cyber attacks happening as we speak, but we would like to put the idea in everyone’s head that you are not safe from cyber attacks, until you have properly established and assessed your business’s security protocol(s) for all critical systems relating to your business. This also involves teaching your personnel members how to recognize a possible adversary attempting to breach into your networks; this can include phony emails, phone calls, text links, direct messages and really any form of media that can elicit interaction from unsuspecting employees.
Now what exactly is a penetration test, how does it work, and how can it help make my business safer you ask?
Well…
A penetration test by definition is a security simulation designed to identify the many ways a hacker could breach your system, the level of control they could have if a breach were to occur, and the success or failure of security systems already set in place, in order to give the business a complete portfolio of their system’s cyber security. It starts with surrendering to cyber professionals a list of secure data from the business that could potentially fall into a hackers lap, allowing the professional to simulate the level of breach a hacker would initiate if holding the same amount of data. This data could be but is not limited to: IP addresses, emails, passwords, login credentials, ect. Now the amount of data the professional has to work with varies depending on the desired motivation of the soliciting business.
If the goal is to simply test the functionality of a previously installed security system, or prove there are vulnerabilities in a business’s critical networks, a black box penetration test is the usual go to. This test is the shortest duration and requires absolutely no initial data from the company. The goal of this test is to identify and assess the vulnerabilities in the external system, that could allow an adversary to potentially enter into the system at the lowest level, and work their way into obtaining much more sensitive data. No work is usually done from inside the system, it is simply a test to see if a hacker would be able to get in in the first place.
If the goal is an assessment of the system that is a little more comprehensive and involves the use of more data, or a deeper look into a system that has already had a black box pen test performed, a gray/white box pen test may be the best option. A gray/white box penetration test involves giving a few data points that an adversary could possess, enabling the professionals to access the business’s system if possible. This test looks into the ability not only to enter the system externally, but once inside the system, what is the hacker able to accomplish with the data they already have? Can they further progress into more critical parts of the system or are there security software in place to prevent that? There is a little more revealed in a gray/white box pen test, allowing a little more insight into the full sophistication of vulnerabilities in a system.
If the goal is a complete and total deep dive into a system and a comprehensive understanding of every breachable point a potential adversary could enter, a crystal box penetration test test is the one for you. Crystal box pen tests involve the cyber professional trying to breach the system externally, while also having access to the internal system. It allows the profession to witness the exact reaction of the internal system while simulating a cyber attack, making it the most revealing pen test that illuminates every weak point that could be guarded against when considering security measures. This test identifies exactly how a hacker would attempt to enter the system, what measures the system would take internally to stop them (if any) and the extent to which the hacker could navigate through the system when external penetration is successful. In a nutshell, if you are trying to keep your systems as secure as possible, and mitigate any cyber attacks on your business, this is definitely the one you're going to want to request when working with a cybersecurity company. It ensures that no stone is left unturned.
Now that you know some kinds of penetration tests are available to your company, let's understand what exactly will be reported by the cyber professionals with the completion of the pen test:
A penetration test report is essentially an entire layout for the company of the tools, techniques, and tactics used to conduct the test. It tells you exactly what the cyber professionals did, how they did it, and what they used to do it. It also obviously reports on any vulnerabilities found, where they were found in the system, and outcomes of the specific tactics and tools used on the systems involved. The most important part of the report however, is the recommendations for mitigation, or fixes, for the found vulnerabilities. This section will help guide the business in the right direction of how and why they should account for these breach points, allowing for the ultimate goal of cyber security to be reached.
While we're on the topic of penetration testing, let's touch on Zero Trust, its benefits, and downfalls…
Zero Trust is the implementation of resource specific authentication within the business, those who need access to the business’s systems can only access a certain part that is pertinent to their area of employment. This means that administrative employees wouldn't necessarily have access to everything available on the network. For example, if the information of Suzie in accounting falls into the hands of a ransomware hacker, they would only be able to gain the information Suzie in accounting was allowed to access. Now this could still be catastrophic depending on what an adversary is looking for and whose credentials they end up with, but it also can prevent critical business data from reaching those same adversaries that entered with Suzie’s credentials. Now this is perfect because it limits the amount of vulnerabilities in a system that needs to be mitigated, if a hacker cannot get past accounting there's no reason to have such extensive security measures. However, it also may be difficult to integrate Zero Trust into an already existing system, since the existing system already allows everyone to access the whole system, and zero trust would require the complete removal of every employee and rewriting their credentials to a limited amount of access for a specific part of the system. If anything the system would have to be designed as Zero Trust, otherwise it would be quite a hectic and unproductive few months of trying to integrate Zero Trust into your already established flat network.
If this article illuminated the importance of cyber security for your organization, Crest Security Assurance has a multitude of seasoned professionals with decades of experience in penetration testing, threat hunting, and threat mitigation with the sole goal of making your company and its data as secure as possible. Visit our services tab of the website in order to learn more about what we have to offer and contact us at info@crestassure.com to receive information on how to solicit comprehensive penetration testing from Crest!
