Penetration Testing is one of the most important tools when it comes to improving an organisation's security posture. Take a look at the benefits of penetration testing...
As we know, Cyber security threats are constantly evolving at an unprecedented pace and organisations must adopt proactive measures to safeguard their digital assets and beef up their cyber defences.
A crucial practice that any organisation, regardless of sector or size can adopt is regular Penetration Testing (Pen Testing). Pen testing, in a nutshell, is a simulated cyberattack that identifies vulnerabilities in an application, service or infrastructure.
One question we’re asked is “What are the benefits of Penetration Testing?” and we’ve written this article to help explore the advantages an organisation can gain by incorporating regular penetration testing.
Improving Security Posture
By identifying and fixing vulnerabilities, organisations can enhance their overall security, making it harder for attackers to breach their systems.
Pen tests validate the effectiveness of security controls and configurations, ensuring they are working as intended.
Identifying Vulnerabilities
Pen testing assists in discovering security weaknesses before attackers can exploit them. This allows organisations to address vulnerabilities proactively. It also reveals both known and unknown vulnerabilities across applications, networks, systems and infrastructure.
Compliance and Regulatory Requirements
Many industries, such as finance and healthcare, are required to perform regular penetration tests to comply with regulatory standards like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.
Pen testing helps demonstrate to regulators, partners, and customers that an organisation is taking security seriously.
Risk Management
Pen testing helps organisations understand the level of risk associated with different vulnerabilities, allowing them to prioritise remediation efforts. By addressing the most critical vulnerabilities first, organisations can minimize the potential impact of a security breach.
Managing risk is a crucial part for any organisation and what bigger risk is there than reputation or financial loss being damaged by a cyber attack which could have been prevented by a pen test?
Safeguarding Reputation and Trust
By identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities, organisations can protect sensitive customer information from being compromised, which is crucial for maintaining trust. Preventing breaches through proactive testing helps avoid the financial consequences associated with data breaches, including fines, legal costs, and loss of business.
Providing an Attacker's Perspective
Pen testers use the same tools and techniques as real attackers, providing an authentic assessment of how an organisation’s systems would hold up under an actual attack.
Pen testing can reveal sophisticated attack vectors that might not be identified through automated vulnerability scanning or traditional security assessments.
Cost Efficiency
The cost of conducting regular pen tests is often much lower than the potential costs associated with a significant security breach, including financial loss, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties. Pen testing helps organisations allocate their security budgets more effectively by focusing on areas with the highest risk.
At D2NA, we offer a wide range of penetration tests and believe every organisation should conduct a test, at the very least annually.
Our team of experts are on hand to discuss your requirements and make sure that we have the right solution for your organisation.
Why run the risk of being exploited when we can find the exploits first and provide guidance on getting them fixed? Find out more about our Pen Testing service here.
Frequently Asked Questions
It all depends on the on what is being tested and why, but to stay vigilant against threats we recommend annually for most tests as the minimum. Just as an example, if a web application is regularly going through several major version updates, we would recommend a test for every version change not annually. Our team can go through your requirements and recommend a schedule for regular testing.
We're CREST certified which means all of our testers are accredited and quality assured against measurable and enforceable standards and competencies. To find out more about CREST and why you should have confidence using a CREST supplier like us, check out their website here.
We appreciate this can be a complicated topic. We would encourage you to contact our team who will be able to go through your requirements and point you in the right direction.
Upon completion of each test, our tester will provide a comprehensive report on their findings. They will also organise a meeting with all stakeholders to talk through the findings in the report, and provide guidance on remediation and re-testing, if required.