5 Penetration Testing Schemes for Network Security
These days, the threats associated with malware, ransomware, and identity theft have grown in number. You can easily spot escalated trouble for organizations when it comes to securing valuable data and system operations. Based on previous reports, human error can be seen as a leading cause for numerous security breaches. A basic fault by an employee can end up in a devastating outcome; thereby, making penetration testing a vital necessity.
Pen testing or penetration testing is a specific testing process to analyze different aspects of an IT infrastructure to search for vulnerabilities. What makes penetration testing useful for an organization?
- This isn’t any usual vulnerability testing but moves a step ahead to exploit weaknesses for successfully recognizing all valid threats.
- You can perform penetration testing on software programs, websites, and even mobile devices.
These days, network penetration testing is gaining supreme prominence. The sole reason centred at being efficient in safeguarding your company’s network from hacker threats. With a network penetration test, you get to spot exploitable vulnerabilities within systems, networks, network devices, and hosts. Such a process is helpful since you get to recognize potential weak links before hackers can find and exploit them.
For organizations to function in a secure manner it has now become crucial to augment penetration testing for network security. This can be achieved by implementing better penetration testing strategies. Some of the latest and effective schemes for network penetration testing are:
Internal Testing Approach
This testing scheme is applied from within the enterprise’s technology surroundings. Internal testing creates a mock attack on the internal network masked as a discontented employee or an official visitor having access to standard privileges. The primary purpose of this scheme is to understand the extent to which a problem can arise if the network perimeter is successfully penetrated and vital information resources are hampered.
External Testing Approach
An external penetration testing refers to an attack on the enterprise’s network perimeter with the help of procedures operated from outside the enterprise’s systems. Do remember that this test can be performed with full disclosure of the scheme put in place. An external test initiates with openly accessible information associated with the client. The next step is network inventory; this targets the organization’s externally visible devices or servers, including e-mail server, the domain name server (DNS), and a firewall.
Blind Testing Approach
The main purpose of this test is to replicate the actions of a real hacker. Similar to a real hacking incident, the testing team receives limited or no data about the organization, prior to executing the test. It is majorly through publicly available information that the QA testing team gathers information concerning the target and conducts its penetration tests. It should be known that blind testing proves helpful is acquiring additional information about an enterprise which might not emerge under usual circumstances. A blind penetration test may reveal issues like directly linked networks, added internet access points, proprietary information, etc. The only downside of this scheme is its high cost and time-consuming nature.
Double Blind Testing Approach
This is an upgraded approach to the blind penetration testing scheme. As per this arrangement, the company’s IT and security teams are not informed and are kept totally unaware of the planned testing operations. You can view double-blind testing as a vital component since it works to test the company’s security monitoring, escalation as well as response events. Focusing on the purpose of this test, only few people are informed about the testing. Typically, it’s the project manager who is responsible to ensure the testing procedures and the company’s incident response actions.
Targeted Testing Approach
A targeted approach usually involves both the company’s penetration testing team and IT team for conducting the test. A better understanding of the testing scheme is shared among the two teams that include network design as a primary component. A targeted testing approach is viewed as an efficient method when the test objective is centred majorly on the technical setting or network design. In addition, a targeted test, unlike blind test, can be conducted in less time. However, the difference is that it may not present an absolute picture of the company’s security vulnerabilities and response abilities.
The different schemes for running a penetration test for network security are comprehensively mentioned above. You can easily refer to these approaches and chalk out a better plan for safeguarding your organization from hacking threats. ImpactQA, a leading software testing company, actively indulges in resolving queries associated with penetration testing, security testing and a lot more.
