Your network isn’t as safe as you think, especially with the preying eyes of cyberattackers. It’s common knowledge that anyone can be vulnerable to cyberattacks, and it’s up to you to put up strong defenses against the attacks when they arise.
The single decision to secure your network with penetration testing could be your saving grace against what would have been a damaging attack.
Read along as we discuss the benefits of penetration testing and how penetration testing works.
What Is Automated Penetration Testing?
Automated penetration testing is the process of using advanced testing tools to evaluate a system’s security architecture. You get the most of automated penetration testing by implementing it regularly to stop cyber threats and attacks in their tracks.
Automated penetration testing is an advanced form of manual penetration testing. Leveraging machine learning and algorithms to find flaws in systems, it highlights vulnerabilities speedily.
What Are the Benefits of Automated Penetration Testing?
Assessing vulnerabilities present in your network or web applications with automated penetration testing helps you stay ahead of cybercriminals.
Once you detect loopholes, you block them to prevent intrusion. It’s a highly recommended proactive cybersecurity measure to protect your system ahead of time.
Automated penetration has become a common technique against cyberattacks due to its effectiveness. Let’s look at some of its benefits.
1. Identify Risks
Automated penetration tests help you identify most, if not all, of the security risks within your network. At the end of the test, you have an overview of all the risks, from the most dangerous to the least dangerous.
This assessment is the foundation of your testing as it gives you an overview of the vulnerabilities within your network via a vulnerability scanning method. You can launch defense strategies, prioritizing the most pressing needs.
2. Assess Ability to Prevent Cyberattacks
Automated penetration testing helps you measure how well you and your team can respond to cyberattacks. A thorough assessment in this regard brings your cybersecurity weaknesses as strengths to the fore.
The results of the assessment show you where you need to improve on and where you need to commend yourself for doing a good job so far.
3. Build Trust
Security breaches are dangerous for organizations because they can lead to the exposure of private data. With automated penetration testing, you can confidently assure your customers that their data is secured.
Securing customer data goes a long way in maintaining the image and reputation of your company. People will be more comfortable doing business with you.
4. Prevent Network Downtime
Network downtime affects the workflow and causes financial losses. Penetration testing helps to put your system in good condition, resolving issues that may lead to network downtime.
As with most proactive cybersecurity measures, automated penetration testing is most beneficial when you conduct it regularly. You get the chance to nip cyber threats in the bud before they escalate.
How Does Automated Penetration Testing Work?
Automated penetration testing is ideal for ascertaining the security of your network or application. When done correctly, the automated penetration testing process checks all devices and ports in the target environment’s network systems using select penetration testing tools.
But how exactly does automated penetration testing work? Let’s find out.
1. The Planning Stage
The planning stage involves identifying the systems you want to test and the best ways to execute the testing. The goal here is to identify the flaws in your network.
To have a concrete diagnosis, you need to define the scope and goals of the intended test. The general idea behind this stage is to help you gather the necessary intelligence within your network, domain names, and, possibly, mail server. This is needed to unearth potential vulnerabilities in your system.
2. The Scanning and Reconnaissance Stage
At this stage, you need to have a thorough understanding of how your network applications will respond to various intrusion attempts. Employing static code analysis or dynamic code analysis is a good place to start.
Static code analysis is a method of debugging by examining a network’s source code before a program is run. This will assist in estimating the way your network will behave when the scan starts running. Using the static analysis tool, you can scan the entirety of an application code in a single pass.
Dynamic analysis is the process of examining the source code of a running program. Here, you analyze your computer software by making use of real or virtual processors.
With the dynamic analysis method, you can monitor an app’s performance in real-time, which is more useful.
In comparison to static analysis, dynamic analysis is a more practical way of scanning your system. It gives you a real-time look at how your network is performing.
3. The Gaining Access and Target Acquisition Stage
Once you conduct scanning and reconnaissance, the next step is to gain access and begin target acquisition. This stage uses various techniques, such as cross-site scripting and backdoor techniques to uncover potential security holes.
As a penetration tester, you have to exploit the vulnerabilities detected by escalating privileges, stealing data, and intercepting traffic. You also need to understand the level of damage that such exploitation can cause.
4. The Breach and Maintaining Control Stage
The goal of the breach and maintaining control stage is to see if the vulnerability can be used to establish a persistent presence in your system. In this case, you need to mimic a malicious attack in order to breach and maintain full access to your database.
These sorts of attacks recommended are those that can mimic an advanced threat by remaining in your system for months before stealing your most important records, such as your credit card numbers, passwords, emails, and private documents. Once this happens, you can be sure that there is a breach in your security system.
5. Forensic Analysis and Reporting Stage
Having gone through the initial stages successfully, you need to exit the system. Now, you have a report that details the different stages of the test. This includes the how, where, when, and possibly why the penetration test was successful.
The issues you need to raise here are:
- The specific vulnerabilities that were exploited.
- The sensitive data you were exposed to.
- The amount of time you spent in the system undetected.
Going forward, you may present the report to a cybersecurity expert to help configure and possibly patch the vulnerabilities to protect against future attacks.
You and your team need to swing into action to deal with the loopholes present in your network.
Preventing Cyberattacks With Automated Penetration Testing
Cybersecurity is a continuous effort. Automated penetration testing helps you to stay vigilant against vulnerabilities that threaten the functionality of your system.
Since cybercriminals leverage all sorts of advanced tools for their attacks, you can’t afford to combat their moves with only manual cybersecurity techniques. You are more secure using automated tools as they are more effective, faster, and mostly easier to implement.
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