Penetration Testing
If You Don’t Find Your Vulnerabilities, Cybercriminals Will
Are you making assumptions about the strength of your cybersecurity? The only way to know how well defended you are is to put it to the test.
Do you (and your employees) know what a phishing email looks like? Would you know if you suffered a data breach? Do you know if your systems are properly defended right now?
If you don’t, then you need to have your cybersecurity tested—Generation IX can help. Our penetration testing services will assess the capabilities of your cyber defenses and determine how they need to be improved.
Have You Put Your Cybersecurity To The Test?
Not all third-party assessments are created equal. Some involve nothing more than a technician checking off items on a list:
- Do you have a firewall in place?
- Do you have an antivirus solution in place?
- Is there a data backup in place?
And so on. While these are certainly all important aspects of a viable cybersecurity posture, checking them off a list is not enough on its own—you need penetration testing.
What Is Penetration Testing?
Also known as pen testing, this is an attempted breach against your business systems to disclose application, web server, or network vulnerabilities. Penetration testing keeps you ahead of the attackers by letting you in on exploitable weaknesses and gives you a chance to correct these before you lose valuable data and vast amounts of money.
How Does Penetration Testing Work?
As a form of ethical hacking, penetration testing employs techniques similar to the ones used by criminal hackers.
- Planning: Defining the scope of the project.
- Reconnaissance: Gathering all the necessary information
- Scanning: Using all the information to assess vulnerabilities
- Penetration Attempt: Utilizing results from the scan to exploit the weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
- Exploitation: Controlled attacks are meant to act on the vulnerabilities.
- Analysis: Compilation of a detailed report detailing the vulnerabilities identified in the testing phase.
- Remediation: The process of eliminating vulnerabilities by applying the right solutions and processes, and training your staff members where necessary.
- Subsequent Testing: At a regular interval, you undergo additional penetration tests to ensure remediation initiatives were effective, and determine if other vulnerabilities have developed.
Ethical hackers or penetration testers (like those on the Generation IX team) perform the test. These people can be in-house hackers or external managed service providers, and they can perform different types of tests depending on your business needs.
What Do You Get From Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing isn’t just meant to break into your systems and show you they’re not protected properly. A robust penetration testing service will note and track all potential vulnerabilities, and distill that data into a report that you can use to fix them.
Make sure that whoever is conducting your penetration test will be preparing a report for your use after the fact. Ideally, they will meet with you to review the results, make recommendations, and even help facilitate any necessary upgrades.
Ready To Put Your Cybersecurity To The Test?
Generation IX will help you figure out precisely what you don’t know about your cybersecurity by conducting comprehensive penetration testing for your organization.
This proactive approach allows your business to counteract potential breach activities before they happen, by gaining a greater degree of transparency into your network activity. Regular penetration testing helps identify any potential gaps so they can be tended to before cybercriminals decide to invade your systems.
Get in touch with our team to learn more about your current cybersecurity measures (and how they can be improved).
