What are the different Types of Penetration Testing?
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What is Pen Testing and what is it’s purpose?
Penetration testing, also known as ethical hacking, involves simulating various cyber-attack scenarios to identify vulnerabilities in a system, network, or application.
Penetration tests UK are an excellent way to help businesses find exploitable vulnerabilities in their network which could allow cyber criminals to access critical assets.
Various penetration tests demand different degrees of intrusion and access. Sometimes, just identifying the vulnerability suffices. Hence, it’s crucial for CREST security experts to select the appropriate penetration test type for clients, in line with the agreed-upon scope.
Certified by CREST and Offensive Security, our qualified testers employ real-world hacking techniques to uncover profound insights.
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Whether you are a CISO, an IT Director or a business owner, Equilibrium has the expertise to help you shape and deliver your security strategy.
What different types of penetration testing are there?
There are several types of penetration testing, each with its specific focus and objective.
The benefits of carrying out a range of different penetration tests is that it gives you a clearer view of your security posture. It allows you to evaluate how secure each gateway of your infrastructure is and how easy it would be for a hacker to gain access to your systems and sensitive information.
Some of the different penetration tests we offer include:
Curious About The Craft Behind Penetration Testing?
It’s a blend of art and science. Explore our playbook for the methodologies our experts use in each test.
Social Engineering penetration testing
What does it involve?
- Social Engineering penetration testers mimick tactics used by hackers to trick employees into divulging sensitive company information, allowing the tester to gain access to systems.
- Cybercriminals utilise various methods to obtain information, many of which exploit a significant cause of cyber breaches: human error. Unfortunately, malicious actors frequently succeed in deceiving employees.
- Common tactics encompass phishing emails and impersonating trusted individuals internally or through third parties. These methods often aim to extract passwords, banking details, or solicit unauthorised payments.
The advantage of a social engineering penetration testing?
- It provide crucial insights into the susceptibility of your employees to such attacks.
- Successful deception highlights areas for improvement, allowing you to provide targeted training and fortify your security defences against this type of threat.
Wireless pentesting
A wireless penetration test checks the security of every wireless device within the company. This is usually a very detailed and targeted test which can involve a very long list of devices such as tablets, smart phones and laptops.
Wireless pen test methodology involves:
- Identifying all Wi-Fi networks as well as wireless fingerprinting and signal leakage
- Discovering encryption weaknesses such as session hijacking and wireless sniffing
- Identifying ways which hackers may be able to penetrate a system using wireless or evading WLAN access control
- Identifying credentials and users profiles to access private networks
- Wireless pen tests find vulnerabilities affecting wireless protocols, access point wireless and admin credentials
Network Pentesting
The purpose of network Penetration Testing is to closely examine weaknesses in a corporate IT infrastructure.
Network pen testing tools can be used to determine the effectiveness of security hardware, software and policies. Essentially it tests whether your technical controls are working successfully or if a hacker would be able to evade your security defences.
Once these weak spots are identified, the pen tester can either:
- Provide a report detailing the security holes discovered
- Safely exploit the vulnerabilities found within the system in a controlled environment.
The benefit of network security and penetration testing is that it can discover critical flaws in your network security systems. Leaving these vulnerabilities unpatched could lead to a catastrophic breach.
What is the aim of Network Pentesting?
A network penetration test is one of the most common pen test methods. The aim of a network pen test is to identify damaging vulnerabilities within a network infrastructure, and security gaps in devices and network services.
As many networks have both external and internal access points, it is common practice to carry out tests on site and remotely.
This usually includes:
- Identifying internet-facing critical assets a cyber-criminal could exploit to gain entry into your network
- Testing the effectiveness of firewalls in place
- Assessing whether unauthorised users can gain access to your systems through an external network
CREST pen testers would target the following network areas:
- Firewall configuration testing
- Stateful analysis testing
- Firewall bypass testing
- IPS deception
- DNS level attacks
- Zone transfer testing
Our Penetration Testing Process
Before testing commences, our experts will take time to understand your pen testing requirement in more detail, define the testing scope and gather the necessary technical information and access required to carry out the test.
Using a variety of pen testing tools our qualified penetration testers will manually assess your systems to identify security weaknesses/vulnerabilities which require patching and remediation.
In this phase we will interpret the results, and (if permitted and approved) exploit any vulnerabilities discovered. This will determine whether a hacker could use the vulnerability as leverage to gain wider access to your systems. However, many customers prefer to patch and remediate, rather than risking the potential service disruption that exploitation could cause.
Our experts will analyse the results and present the finding in a comprehensive penetration testing report. This will detail and categorise the vulnerabilities discovered ranked as either ‘Critical, High, Medium, or Low’, as well as outline instructions of how to remediate, patch and strengthen your defences.
After remediation, we can retest your systems to check that all patches have been applied and security holes have been mitigated.
Penetration Testing Resources
How can we help?
Here at Equilibrium, we are CREST certified penetration testers. CREST penetration testing certifications demonstrate that a company follows a stringent and industry approved penetration testing methodology.
Our team of experts is equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to identify not only common security weaknesses but also those sophisticated vulnerabilities that might elude routine checks.
This commitment to depth and thoroughness ensures that our insights provide actionable recommendations that can significantly enhance your overall security posture.
- A range of penetration services available
- Insights that go beyond the surface level
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