With businesses slowly recovering from the pandemic, the last thing they would want to deal with is the effects of cyberattacks.
Most companies go as far as educating their users to reduce these impacts, but sourcing alternative prevention methods is feasible to prove your systems.
One of the ways organizations are coping with cyberattack threats is coming up with internal control measures like pen testing.
Pen Testing help companies test their systems for gaps and mitigate them before hackers can see them. Read on to understand what pen testing is and how it helps prevent cyberattacks.
What Is Pen Testing?
Pen testing comprises activities such as penetration testing services that initiate a cyberattack on your system to identify vulnerabilities. Unlike ethical hacking, which checks the system on a broader level, penetration testing is specific to information systems.
Penetration testing services breach the application systems such as APIs to unveil vulnerabilities susceptible to attacks. You can then use insights from such tests to improve your WAF security.
How Penetration Testing Services Prevent Cyber Attacks
Seeking pen test services should be timely to reap optimum benefits. Taking this test too early is unadvisable as the system undergoes constant changes while taking the test too late is risky as hacker attempts might be successful before then. A company should conduct a pen test before putting its system into production.
After the initial test, penetration testing should accompany new software deployment and other changes. Other factors dictating your pen test frequency will include:
- Company Size and Infrastructure: Large companies with a 100% cloud environment require penetration testing services more often than small and medium-sized companies.
- Budget Allocation: Pen tests are costly, and an organization on a budget may not be able to conduct them frequently.
- Compliance with Laws and Regulations: Your sector of operation will determine the necessity and frequency of pen tests.
Benefits of Penetration Testing Services
Penetration testing is beneficial to a company in preventing cyberattacks through the following:
1. Identification of Possible Vulnerabilities in a Program or Network
Penetration testing services will employ testing techniques such as network service, web application, client-side, social engineering, and wireless security tests on a network for the possible gaps that hackers can take advantage of.
2. Provides Information to Security Teams for Mitigation
Penetration testing analyzes your network services for vulnerabilities and weaknesses and gives you results on the areas to improve. This way, you will not only comply with the security standards by law but also prevent possible attacks.
3. Identification of Security Holes before an Attacker
Through pen testing, an organization can identify the potential threats in its system, network, or wireless devices used in the system.
Consider Penetration Testing Services
If successful, cyberattacks are costly, as the organization loses access to critical information and control over its systems. Therefore, taking regular precautions through pen testing techniques is advisable to secure your systems.
Depending on your nature of operations, the size of your company, and its infrastructure, you can invest in more tests within your operational years.
