Why penetration testing is key for effective security strategy?

An effective cyber security strategy is key to an organization’s ability to protect their assets, reputation, intellectual property (IP), staff, and their customers. Many companies believe that investing in sophisticated technical solutions mean that they are well protected from cyber threats. In fact, this is not entirely true but it is only part of an effective defence.

With the recent release of Singapore’s Cybersecurity bill, there’s no better time to prioritise cyber security. Global financial and economic losses from the WannaCry attack affected at least 150 countries costing billions of dollars. This made it one of the most serious cyber attacks in 2017. Cyber attacks are getting more complex, and this is where cyber security service providers come into play. It’s no longer enough to protect against threats with automatic vulnerability scanners or software. The best way to protect your company’s infrastructure is to invest in building internal security know-how, and use external service providers where it makes sense. No security system is guaranteed to be safe, effective testing by ethical hackers (Penetration testers) can help ensure robustness of the systems.

So, what exactly is Penetration Testing?

Penetration Testing allows you to discover your vulnerabilities in your system from a hacker’s perspective. As a result, the Penetration Testing process will reveal many exploitable vulnerabilities of your system, as well as design and configuration decisions that could present an issue in the future. With this knowledge, security administrators at your company can protect against these critical vulnerabilities and harden the servers.

There are many reasons why there is a need to conduct regular penetration testing for your organization. Some common examples are:

• To expose the vulnerabilities in the infrastructure (hardware), application (web application or mobile application), network (wireless or wired)
• Knowledge of security standing is vital for any information security plan or security strategy
• Although some processes may be automated, Penetration Testing relies heavily on skilled experienced professionals who are able to analyse systems in the same way that hackers would. Many, in fact, are offensive security certified professionals.
• It ensures that your company’s security is effective & robust.

How often should Penetration Tests be conducted?

The level of cyber security risk a company faces correlates directly to the exposure it has and what is of value to them that could potentially be affected by any attack. We recommend ongoing penetration testing as an effective security strategy. This could be done on new systems, major enhancements, or part of a regular assessment. Updates to software may address existing vulnerabilities, but they might introduce new and serious issues. As the threat landscape is always changing, it is important regular assessments are done. At Horangi, our Penetration Testers are experienced in offensive security and have many respected certifications like OSCP, CREST CRT and GIAC. Prevention is always better than a cure. Let the good guys find flaws before unethical hackers do. If you’d like to know more, or need any clarification, please contact us.