The most valuable thing in today’s world is Data. The times had gone when the data was managed in offline ways. Since the internet came into being, many things are being done online nowadays. Shopping, Booking a movie ticket, flight ticket, consulting a doctor, and much more are performed online today. The internet has brought another level of comfort to humankind with everything shifting online, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
With this much data available online also comes the risk of data fraud and threats. Securing the data, websites or computer systems has become arduous; several ways of compromising your data and hacking your systems like phishing, DDoS, cookie threat, Fake WAP, etc. Pen testing gives the solution to ensure the security of the system.
What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing is a simulated cyber attack done on the system, application or website to check for its vulnerabilities. It is also called Pen Testing. In Pen testing, a pre-decided cyber attack is made by an ethical hacker on the customer’s product to check for its bugs or vulnerabilities that can be exploited later on by any genuine hacker.
There are certain stages in penetration testing that are:
- Planning and Surveillance – This step mainly involves deciding the test’s scope and planning the examination’s conduct. It also includes planning and gathering information about the target, like domain and network details.
- Scanning – A thorough scanning is done in this step by the hacker to know about the targeted system or website, the code used in it and how it responds to various attacks in the current state.
- Gaining access – In this step, the testers properly attack the targeted system or website, accessing the vulnerabilities of the systems and trying to exploit them by stealing and altering data.
- Maintaining presence – The testers try to access the system/website/application permanently in this step to exploit the vulnerabilities in the future and get further deep access to the system.
- Report compilation – In the end, an analysis report of all the vulnerabilities accessed and exploited is created and the action needed to fix them.
Benefits of Penetration Testing:
There are numerous benefits of the pen testing system. Some of them are:
- Evaluate system – Doing regular pen tests helps in knowing and evaluating your system’s loopholes. It helps to understand what changes are needed in the system to make it attack-proof and work better in the future.
- Prevent real threat – Another benefit of the pen tests is that it helps prevent real-time threat by simulating the attack in advance and making the corrections in the system as per the vulnerabilities exploited by the testers.
- Upgradation in the security – The security structure of the system gets upgraded again and again after every pen test conducted since the loopholes get fixed post pen test. Therefore it keeps your system updated for future threats and upcoming new threats developing.
- Avoid loss – Data and privacy of its customers is the most important thing for any company in the market. Since pen tests help to identify and fix the loopholes prior, it helps in protecting the data of its customers; which further helps in maintaining the database of its customer safe and secure to ensure the privacy of the user/customer and hence maintaining a good name and fame of the organisation.
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