Making The Most Of A Penetration Test: The Organizational Perspective
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to grasp why cybercriminals prioritize attacks on organizations. These folks are notoriously keen on taking shortcuts, and the average enterprise environment is a goldmine of quick exploitation opportunities that range from ransomware extortion and data breaches, to industrial espionage and botnet activity.
Once a trespass has happened, hackers move laterally across the infrastructure to stretch the attack surface by plaguing multiple endpoints in one go. What’s particularly unsettling, they may maintain the foothold for months without being detected. In the aftermath of this, companies face downtime, loss of customer data, financial repercussions, and regulatory issues, let alone long-term reputational damages.
It comes as no surprise that proactive security is gathering steam today, wherein penetration testing (pentesting) is a Swiss Army knife strategy. In plain words, it’s about breaking bad for a while to simulate a real attacker’s actions. This offensive approach can be an eye-opening experience to enterprises in terms of their vulnerabilities and applicable fixes.
The internet is rife with information about penetration testing types and methodologies, so this article will zoom in on a few key aspects, including those that call forth confusion and misconceptions among organizations that decide to jump on the pentesting bandwagon.
Knowing the objectives is half the battle
Emphasis on the goals is a cornerstone of preparing for an offensive cyber stress test that will yield positive security dividends rather than being a waste of time and resources. This is first and foremost because the motivation defines the methods for conducting a pentest.
Risk mitigation is a common objective. The impulse to minimize the odds of a security incident is often fueled by a recent attack that wreaked havoc in the industry the company represents. The impetus for reducing risks may as well stem from corporate decision makers’ forward-thinking philosophy geared toward best security practices, which is a commendable route to take.
Compliance is another driving force throughout the penetration testing…
