As hackers are exploiting IT vulnerabilities, ransomware is becoming very pervasive and sad to say, rewarding for them in manipulating unsecure environments. As organizations, are getting more and more focused in counteracting potential threats, a typical proactive first line of defense is to perform a cyber security “IT Penetration Test”, commonly referred to as a “Pen Test” (in other words – an Ethical Hacking Test).
A Pen Test identifies potential weaknesses and possible entry points into an IT infrastructure. With the use of sophisticated tools, approaches and methodologies, organizations can perform simulated cyber-attacks, to fully understand current strengths and weakness of their security systems and policies…so they can ultimately harden their infrastructure.
Pen Test Highlights
- Recon (reconnaissance) is where the penetration tester gets to know the environments, what are your public IP’s, what ports are open on them, what operating systems are Internet facing, etc.
- Vulnerability Scanners purpose is to identify vulnerabilities residing in operating systems, and third-party software packages using a predefined list of known vulnerabilities.
- During the discovery phase, the penetration tester manually customizes attacks specific to the vulnerabilities identified in the automated test.
- This is where the attacks happen. The exploitation phase is where we leverage any/all vulnerabilities to obtain unauthorized access.
- This stage documents all of the identified vulnerabilities and exploits with remediation recommendations.
Interested in learning more, click here to sign up: The Anatomy of a Pen Test
