What are the five network penetration testing techniques?
The strategic implementation of network penetration testing helps businesses to obtain specific insights into their overall security posture. This in turn helps the business to take key actions so that pressing problems about the network can be resolved at the earliest before it becomes a hassle. The organization’s network is breached by an ethical hacker without doing any harm. This is specifically done to investigate the potential vulnerabilities and security weaknesses that may arise in an actual breach. In this article, you will get to know about the five important network penetration testing techniques.
What is Network Penetration testing?
It is a testing method wherein security vulnerabilities are identified in systems and applications by intentionally using various malicious techniques to assess network security. The focus is on identifying network vulnerabilities. A potential attack is simulated by an ethical hacker so that vulnerabilities that are difficult to identify in a network are identified.
Following are the five network penetration testing techniques:
1. Spoofing: In this technique, someone is deceived by thinking that the real person is someone else. For example, an employer (not the real one) might send an email to the employee asking for confidential information. Text spoofing is also a technique, wherein the same process as mentioned above is done via text.
2. Social engineering: It is one of the most popular techniques employed by hackers to gain network access. In this technique, people are tricked into providing their sensitive information.
3. DDoS Attack: A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is where multiple computers are used by a hacker so that the target is flooded with traffic causing it to crash.
4. SQL Injection: It is a web application exploitation method that can be used for the purpose of uncovering security flaws in websites. In this technique, malicious code is inserted into an input field on a website, and when the data is processed by the site, execution of code takes place and access to sensitive information is provided to a hacker.
5. Man-in-the-Middle Attack: Hacker tries to be in the middle of a conversation between two people. Through this eavesdropping on information can be done by the hacker and possibly data can also be stolen.
The following are the key factors that need to be included in a Network pen test report:
1. An Executive summary: A concise description of the overall impact of business findings and business risk is offered in the summary. An approachable and nontechnical analysis of the security’s current state is provided so that the overall security posture can be easily understood by nontechnical stakeholders and thus the needed support can be provided more easily.
2. Risk analysis: The findings pertaining to risk are identified and a detailed analysis of the discovered risks along with their implications is provided.
3. Impact analysis: The discovered vulnerabilities that are to be exploited is described in detail and the widespread impact is also studied
4. Remediation recommendations: Specific steps that a business can take to remediate discovered weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Benefits of Network penetration testing:
Breaches are prevented before they actually happen
Security posture and controls need to be analyzed and understood
The damage caused by preventable attacks is fixed with less time and money
Helps in knowing what steps need to be taken while an actual attack takes place and scrutinizing how a system responds to hacking activities
The network baseline is properly understood.
Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing usability testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a professionally acclaimed software testing services company that will provide you with a methodical testing roadmap that is in line with your project specific requirements.