Kamini Kumari
3 min readJul 5, 2021

--

Penetration testing: What you need to know

Keywords used: Advanced penetration testing, advanced penetration testing course

Penetration testing is a rigorous process of identifying and exploiting the security vulnerabilities present in an organization’s systems, applications, and network. It is a simulation of a real cyber-attack in which penetration testers gather information about the target and assess its security infrastructure. The findings of the assessment are reported to the management of the organization.

Why organizations conduct penetration testing?

Organizations conduct penetration testing to check the susceptibility of their security posture. Once the testing is complete, an actionable report is prepared to help top management formulate an effective strategy against any potential cyber threat and analyze its impact on business. The penetration testing can be fruitful to the organizations dealing with a large volume of data or have strict compliance and regulations to follow.

Different penetration testing approaches

White box penetration testing: In white-box penetration testing, the pen testing team is provided with all the information about the target organization’s system and network. This approach saves time and cost of the testing process.

Black box penetration testing: In this testing method, the pen testing team has no information about the target organization’s network and systems. The team gathers this information through reconnaissance and enumeration.

Grey box penetration testing: In grey box penetration testing, the organization shares a minimal amount of the information with the pen testing team. This approach is used to assess the damage a privileged invader can cause in the network.

Advanced Penetration testing tools

Penetration tester use tools to automate certain processes and increase testing efficiency. Some of the popular penetration testing tools are as follows:

· Nmap

· Wireshark

· Metasploit

· BurpSuite

· Hydra

· WPScan

Some use cases of penetration testing:

Below are a few penetration test scenarios that will help help you understand the penetration testing process.

· Verifying the email spam filters to keep track of spam mails

· Checking for all the vulnerable ports and services in the network

· Verifying the URL for disclosing any sensitive information

· Ensuring the firewalls are deployed to protect all the systems in the network

· Check whether the system is protected against DoS attack

· Verifying the web application for SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities

· Checking website cookies and ensuring that it is not in a readable format

· Checking for the spoofing attack

· Checking data leak and buffer overflow

· performing a brute force attack to identify the vulnerabilities

· assessing the Wi-Fi security

· verifying the security of reset password functionality

Become a certified professional penetration tester with Infosec Train

Are you willing to set a career in cybersecurity as a penetration tester? or are you looking for a certified training program to upgrade your penetration skills? Infosectrain’s Advanced Penetration Testing course is an excellent opportunity that you must seize.

Here’s what we are offering

· Blended delivery model (emphasizing on practical knowledge along with theory)

· Certified and highly skilled instructors

· Interactive training sessions and Q&A rounds

· Cloud-based dedicated labs to simulate a real-like environment

· 24/7 technical support

· Lab-based exams to evaluate the competency

Get yourself enrolled and take your pentesting & ethical hacking skills to the next level.

--

--