Security testing
VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT AND PENETRATION TESTING
ASSESS YOUR IT SECURITY BEFORE ATTACKERS DO IT!
Why is IT security so important?
Prevention of data theft such as bank account numbers, credit card information, passwords, work related documents or sheets, etc. is essential in today’s communications since many of our day to day actions depend on the security of the data paths. Data present in a computer can also be misused by unauthorized intrusions. An intruder can modify and change the program source codes and can also use your pictures or email accounts to create derogatory content such as pornographic images, fake misleading and offensive social accounts.
Malicious intents can also be a factor in computer security. Intruders often use your computers for attacking other computers or websites or networks for creating havoc. Vengeful hackers might crash someone’s computer system to create data loss. DDOS attacks can be made to prevent access to websites by crashing the server.
Above factors imply that your data should remain safe and confidential. Therefore, it is necessary to protect your computer and hence the need for Computer Security arises.
How to check our IT security?
Although there are many ways to secure systems and applications, the only way to truly know how secure you are is to test yourself. By performing vulnerability assessment and penetration tests against your environment, you can actually replicate the types of actions that a malicious attacker would take, giving you a more accurate representation of your security posture at any given time.
What is a Vulnerability Assessment?
Vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying and quantifying security vulnerabilities in an environment. It is an in-depth evaluation of your information security posture, indicating weaknesses as well as providing the appropriate mitigation procedures required to either eliminate those weaknesses or reduce them to an acceptable level of risk.
Vulnerability assessments follow some general steps as follows:
- Catalog assets and resources in a system
- Assign quantifiable value and importance to the resources
- Identify the security vulnerabilities or potential threats to each resource
- Mitigate or eliminate the most serious vulnerabilities for the most valuable resources.
The vulnerability assessments are done in two formats:
- External Vulnerability Assessment – it’s performed strictly remotely, with no internal access provided to the security experts. The goal of this test is to identify and classify the weaknesses of the internet-facing assets of an organization, for example: Web applications, web servers, network endpoints, VPN, e-mail servers. This test helps an organization learn what external assets need security controls, patches and general hardening.
- Internal Vulnerability Assessment – it’s performed from within the premises of the target organization, usually to identify & classify threats and weaknesses in the internal network. An Internal Vulnerability Assessment helps an organization determine its compliance to global or local policies, standards and procedures in terms of information security, data protection and segmentation of networks.
What is a Penetration Testing?
A penetration testing (pen test) simulates the actions of an external and/or internal cyber attacker that aims to breach the information security of the organization. Using many tools and techniques, the penetration tester (ethical hacker) attempts to exploit critical systems and gain access to sensitive data.
Depending on the scope, a pen test can expand beyond the network to include social engineering attacks or physical security tests. Also, there are two primary types of pen tests: “white box”, which uses vulnerability assessment and other pre-disclosed information, and “black box”, which is performed with very little knowledge of the target systems and it is left to the tester to perform their own reconnaissance.
Penetration testing follows the following general steps:
- Determination of scope
- Targeted information gathering or reconnaissance
- Exploit attempts for access and escalation
- Sensitive data collection testing
- Clean up and final reporting.
Which service is best for your organization?
The answer to that question should be determined by your current security posture. It depends on your aim – which question you want to be answered:
What are our weaknesses and how do we fix them? or
Can someone break-in and what can they attain?
The first question will be answered by conducting vulnerability assessment. The vulnerability assessment works to improve security posture and develop a more mature, integrated security program.
The second question will be answered by conducting penetration testing. The pen test is only a snapshot of your security program’s effectiveness.
The vulnerability assessment is going to yield much more value for most enterprises than a pen test. That is why most organizations should start with a vulnerability assessment, act on its results to the best of their abilities and then opt for a “white box” pen test if they are confident in their improved security posture. Once an organization has gone through these steps successfully, they should then consider having a “black box” penetration test performed by a different third-party vendor for due diligence. If you’ve completed these, chances are that your organization’s security posture has improved dramatically.
Why vulnerability assessment and pen testing from Management Systems and Business Consultants LLC?
The results from vulnerability assessment/pen testing depend first of all on the competence of the tester. If the tester has not an appropriate competence sometimes the pen tests can have a serious negative impact on your network. The vulnerability assessments and pen tests done by Management Systems and Business Consultants LLC are performed by certified specialist - Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).
Our company provides different services related to the information security and IT management such as ISMS implementation, information security audits, IT audits etc. which gives us a serious expertise on a system level. This expertise helps our testers to be focused on the specific vulnerabilities and risks of your network.
It’s known that the vulnerability assessment and pen testing are highly qualified and not cheap services. Sometimes the cost of such services even could be decisive factor the management do not approve their assignment. Management Systems and Business Consultants LLC proposes you quality service at a reasonable price.