What is Network Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing, or pen testing, involves simulating cyberattacks against the systems to help identify any vulnerabilities that could be potentially exploited. Network penetration tests use various hacking techniques to identify security vulnerabilities in applications or networks. These tests use real methods and approaches that a hacker could use to access the system, providing critical information about the security of a network.

The penetration testing process, in general, is the practice of attempting to breach a computer system or network to discover security flaws.Testers use various methods to gain access to systems, including exploiting vulnerabilities, social engineering and brute force attacks

This network penetration testing guide will provide you with step-by-step procedures to effectively conduct penetration tests, assess the security of your network infrastructure, and implement robust countermeasures to mitigate potential threats.

Why Should Digital Businesses Consider Network Penetration Testing?

Protects sensitive data

There is no denying the fact that digital businesses must guard themselves against data breaches. Penetration testing often functions like ethical hacks and simulates cyber-attacks as best as possible. A minor glitch can leak sensitive data, affecting customers’ trust, affecting brand value, and also violating industry regulations. Here, a helpful way to determine the level of intrusion is to identify levels of risk that the application is exposed to.

Ensures overall security

Be it the business model, sensitive data, or newly released apps, network pen testing for network ensures that no overlooked flaw compromises the business integrity. Security assessments and website security scans should be a part of any initiative that involves sensitive data. Some examples of such flaws include SQL injections, misconfigured firewalls, outdated software, virus and malware.

Meets compliance requirements

Certain security regulations insist on continuous automated network penetration testing, irrespective of the industry. For example, data security for the payment transactions ensures that such tests help clients protect customers’ sensitive information (PCI DSS).

Continued maintenance

Network pen tests require multiple continuous runs to ensure long-term security. Penetration testers look over the security controls used for the business network, such as firewalls, layered security, encryption processes, etc.

Benefits offered by network penetration testing services to digital businesses:

Specifically, the following are ways pen testing helps understand and improve overall security

Understanding network benchmarks

• Testing security controls

• Evaluating security posture

• Identifying security flaws

• Assessing risk

• Addressing and fixing identified network security flaws

• Preventing network and data breaches

• Ensuring network and system security

Steps Involved in Network Penetration Testing

In simplest terms, network pen testing simulates a real-life attack, providing critical information about potential weaknesses hackers could use as entry points to gain access to the network. Ethical hackers use a variety of methods and network penetration testing steps in attempt to compromise the network.

A typical network pen testing or penetration testing approach involves the following steps:

Planning

In the planning phase, ethical hackers discuss the scope and overall aim of the test with critical stakeholders. Testing methods and success metrics are defined in this initial discussion phase. After an introductory overview is decided upon, certified ethical hackers survey all components of the businesses’ network.

 Network Discovery & Vulnerability Scanning

In this phase, the penetration tester performs TCP and UDP port scanning to identify live hosts on the target network, open ports and services running on the ports. After that, testers perform vulnerability scanning on the discovered hosts and open ports to detect vulnerabilities.

Network Penetration Testing

After testing the network to understand its behaviour, perform automated scanning validation to manually verify the results from scanning in previous phase. Then, penetration testing is performed where testers try to exploit the network and applications hosted in the network by leveraging misconfigurations and software vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows, injection, brute force attacks, etc.

Analysis and Reporting

After completing testing activities, pen testers will analyse their results and create a report showing their findings. This report will provide actionable insight into vulnerabilities, actual exploitability and the chance for businesses to take necessary remediation action before a real hacker can exploit vulnerabilities in their system.

Types of Network Penetration Testing

A few different types of testing can impact the structure and deliverables of the network penetration testing methodology described above. Specifically, there are two main categories of network penetration testing:

External penetration testing

External penetration testing evaluates the vulnerabilities to analyse the possibility of being attacked by a remote intruder and exploiting the vulnerabilities and information being exposed to outsiders. As a result, the test shows whether the cybersecurity measures implemented by an organisation suffice to secure sensitive data and assesses its potential to safeguard against external attacks.

External penetration tests include:

• Configuration testing

• Deployment management testing

• Identity management testing

• Authentication testing

• Authorization testing

• Session management testing

• Business Logic Testing

• Client-Side Testing

• Testing for error handling

Internal penetration testing

An internal pen test uses a different way of dealing with the attacks and comes into the picture after an external penetration test is completed. Internal penetration testing aims at identifying what could be accomplished by an intruder who may break into the network and gain unauthorised access. Internal network penetration testing methodology reveals that should an attacker gain access equivalent to an insider, or if any malicious internal user tries to break the security, what impact could it have on the disclosure, misuse, alteration, or damage to the confidential information.

Internal penetration tests include:

• Internal network scanning

• Port scanning

• System fingerprinting

• Firewall testing

• Password strength testing

• Third-party security

• configuration testing

Best Network Penetration Testing Tools in 2023

NMAP

Key Features

• Helps map a network by scanning ports, discovering operating systems and creating device inventory

• Easy to navigate

• Easy Wide range of networking features

Metasploit

Key Features

• Used by security professionals to detect systematic vulnerabilities

• Contains portions of fuzzing, anti-forensic and evasion network pen testing tools

• Currently includes nearly 1677 exploits

WireShark

Key Features

• Capture and analyse network traffic

• Inspect and decrypt protocols

• Capture live data from Ethernet, LAN, USB, etc.

•Export output to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text

Nessus

Key Features

• Allows efficient vulnerability assessment

• Accurate identification of vulnerabilities

• Integrates with the rest of the product portfolio

ZAP

Key Features

• Available for Windows, Linux and Mac

• Detects a variety of vulnerabilities within web applications

• Easy to navigate UI

• Supports many pen-testing activities

Indusface WAS

Key Features

• Pause and resume feature

• Enables manual penetration testing

• Checks for malware infection, the reputation of the links on the website and defacement and broken links

• Unlimited POC requests to provide evidence of identified vulnerabilities and remove false positives

Astra

Key Features

• 3000+ tests scanning for CVEs in OWASP top 10, SANS 25

• Testing for ISO 27001, HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR

• Integration with GitLab, GitHub, Slack and Jira

• Zero false positives ensured by manual pen-testers

• Scans progressive web apps and single-page apps

• Scan behind logged-in pages

• Intensive remediation support

Conclusion

Network penetration testing, or pen testing, is a crucial practice for digital businesses in the United Kingdom to ensure their cybersecurity. It is an effective way to view the application or network security from a hacker’s perspective. Once the security has reached a particular stage, pen testing is essential to a business’s security plan. Network penetration testing services provides visibility, confidence and increased security to the network. It improves the network’s security, identifies attack vectors and tests incident response procedures. Network pen testing requires specialised knowledge and skills in network security testing tools, so it’s essential to understand the requirements and have professional penetration testing experts perform effective testing to meet the desired security outcomes.

How can TestingXperts Help with Network Penetration Testing?

TestingXperts (Tx) is one of the five largest global pure-play software testing services providers. Tx, one of the top pen testing companies in the UK, has been chosen as a trusted QA partner by Fortune clients and ensures superior testing outcomes for its global clientele. We have rich expertise in enabling end-to-end security testing services for global clients across various industry domains like healthcare, telecom, BFSI, retail & eCommerce, etc.

With our domain knowledge and with over a decade of pure play experience in automated network security penetration testing, the company has been serving the UK clientele with high-quality next-gen software testing services to deliver superior enterprise network security testing solutions to clients.

TestingXperts Differentiators:

• Large pool of CEHs (Certified Ethical Hackers) for specialized penetration testing.

• Conformance with international standards, including OWASP and OSSTMM.

• Vendor independence coupled with deep expertise in key security technologies.

• The report classifies each vulnerability into appropriate categories along with mitigation strategies.

• Ensuring zero false positives with snapshots of exploitation.

• Complete coverage of regression testing and penetration testing best practices.

• Vulnerability-free application with an iterative penetration testing strategy for further release

• Supported Tools: Hp Web Inspect, IBM App Scan, Acunetix, Cenzic Hailstorm, Burp Suite Pro and other open-source tools.

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Below is the infographic of important penetration testing tools in 2022:

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Content 1. What is Penetration Testing? 2. What are the benefits with Pen Testing? 3. What are the different types of Pen Testing? 4. Who performs Pen Testing and what are the roles & responsibilities of Pen Testers 5. Differences between Manual and Automated Penetration Testing 6. What are the phases of Penetration Testing? 7. What are the different approaches to Pen Testing? 8. What are the important Penetration Testing Tools? 9. Conclusion

What is Penetration Testing?

Pen testing or penetration testing is an ethical hacking process which involves assessing an application or an organization’s infrastructure for different types of vulnerabilities. This process of pen testing helps to exploit the various vulnerabilities within the system and the reasons for these vulnerabilities include certain misconfigurations, poorly designed architecture, insecure code, etc.

Thus, by performing pen testing, it eventually helps to identify vulnerabilities and the process delivers actionable reports that clearly explain each vulnerability, specifically how to exploit them along with how to fix them. Essentially, each of the vulnerability identified is given a specified rating with which the actionable remediation should be planned by the organizations.

Typically, a pen test is an ethical attack simulation that is performed to validate the effectiveness of security controls in a particular environment and highlights the possible vulnerabilities. This pen testing process involves the usage of various manual or automated techniques to simulate an attack on an organization’s information security (in a well informed environment to the organization so there is no actual data loss). The ethical hacking process could be run be from on company’s infrastructure or on employees within the same organization to test the security.

Primarily, businesses that store and access sensitive or private data such as banks, financial institutions, healthcare providers, etc. should adopt this form of testing to safeguard them from any possible vulnerabilities. Thus, businesses adopting pen testing tend to achieve many benefits by leveraging this method of testing.

What are the benefits with Pen Testing?

– Helps to identify vulnerabilities that would remain unidentified otherwise

– Helps to discover new threats by any possible attackers or intruders

– Helps to identify real-time vulnerabilities within systems and web applications

– Helps to test the effectiveness of web application firewalls

– Helps to test cyber-defence capability of the organization

– Helps to identify and showcase real-time risks and vulnerabilities

– Helps to find any possible insecurity within the system infrastructure network or an application

What are the different types of Pen Testing?

Network penetration testing:

In this type of pen testing, the physical structure of the system is checked primarily to identify risks in the network of the organization. In this testing, the penetration tester performs tests in the organization’s network and tries to find out flaws in the design, operation, or implementation of the respective company’s network. Various components of the organization such as computers, modems, remote access devices are all checked by the tester to exploit the possible vulnerabilities.

Physical penetration testing:

This method of physical penetration testing is done to simulate the real-world threats. The pen tester acts as a cyber-attacker and tries to break the physical barrier of security. This test is done to check for the vulnerabilities in physical controls like security cameras, lockers, barriers, sensors, etc.

Web application penetration testing:

This method of pen testing is done to check vulnerabilities or weaknesses within web-based applications. The web penetration testing looks out for any security issues that might occur due to insecure development due to design or code and identified potential vulnerabilities within websites and web apps. This type of testing is most needed for online shopping websites, banking apps, and other eCommerce websites which deal with online transactions.

Wireless network penetration testing:

This form of pen testing is done to examine the connection between all devices like laptops, computers, tablets, smart-phones, etc, that are connected to the organization’s Wifi. This form of pen testing is done to prevent any data leakage that can happen while sharing data from one device to another device through the Wifi network.

Who performs Pen Testing and what are the roles & responsibilities of Pen Testers:

The penetration testing is conducted by pen testers who design and plan simulations and security assessments that are designed to probe any potential weaknesses within the system or IT infrastructure or web apps.

They are also responsible to document all the findings and deliver them to the clients or employees or to the organization. These pen testers perform the process of this testing either manually or by using certain set of automated tools and there are basic differences between these methods of testing.

Differences between Manual and Automated Penetration Testing

What are the phases of Penetration Testing?

– Pre-engagement activities

– Reconnaissance phase

– Threat modelling & vulnerability identification

– Exploitation phase & post exploitation

– Comprehensive reporting

– Resolution phase

– Re-testing phase

What are the different approaches to Pen Testing?

Depending up on the level of information that is available to the pen tester, there are three types of approaches to pen testing.

Black box:

Black box pen testing is also commonly known as external penetration testing. In this approach, the pen tester has no information about the IT infrastructure of the organization. This process appears to be more like simulation of real-world cyber-attack to check the vulnerabilities in the system.

Specifically, in this method, the pen testers act as cyber-attackers and try to exploit the vulnerabilities that exist in the system. This process usually takes a lot of time and can take even up to six weeks to complete.

White box:

White box penetration testing is also known as internal penetration testing, clear box, or even known as glass box penetration testing. In this approach of pen testing, the pen tester is provided with the complete information of the IT Infrastructure, source code, and environment.

It is a much detailed and in-depth type of pen test done wherein every area is checked such as the quality of code and the basic design of the application. Moreover, this type of pen testing approach usually takes two to three weeks to get completed.

Gray box:

In this approach of penetration testing, the pen tester is provided with partial information of IT infrastructure, and code structure. It is a more focused approach as the pen tester has partial knowledge or access to internal network or web application and can focus some effort on exploiting the possible vulnerabilities which typically saves a lot of time and cost.

What are the important Penetration Testing Tools?

SQLMap:

It is an open-source tool used in penetration testing to detect flaws with an SQL Injection into an application. It automates the process of penetration testing and this tool supports many platforms like Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.

W3af:

The web application attack and audit framework (W3af) is used to find any weaknesses or vulnerabilities in web-based applications. It is used to remove threats such as DNS, cache poisoning, cookie handling, proxy support, etc.

Wireshark:

This is an open source tool and is available for many operating systems such as Windows, Solaris, Linux, etc. With this tool, the pen tester one can easily capture and interpret network packets. This tool provides both offline analysis and live-capture options.

Metasploit:

It is one of the most commonly used penetration testing tools in the world. It is an open source tool that allows the user to verify and manage security assessments, helps in identifying flaws, setting up a defence, etc.

NMAP:

It is also called network mapper and is used to find the gaps or issues in the network environment of the organization. This tool is also used for auditing purposes.

Nessus:

It is one of the most trusted pen testing tools by many companies across the world. It helps in scanning IP addresses, websites, and completing sensitive data searches.

John the Ripper Password Cracker:

It is an open-source software which is used to detect vulnerabilities in passwords. This tool automatically identifies different password hashes and finds issues with the passwords within the database. Its pro version is available for Mac, Linux, Hash Suite, and Hash Suite Droid.

Conclusion:

Penetration testing is an effective testing process that helps to uncover the critical security issues of your system to check for exploitable vulnerabilities to their IT Infrastructure, or web applications. As cyber threats continue to increase, it has become essential for companies to keep their IT infrastructure, web apps and systems safe and secure from any possible threats and vulnerabilities. Therefore, penetration testing has become so important in today’s digital world with rampant cyber-attacks on the go.

TestingXperts with its team of highly skilled security and pen testers ensures the best pen testing services to give you the complete benefit and helps to identify any possible vulnerabilities within your systems or IT infrastructure or web apps. Get in touch with our security testing experts today.

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Contents 1. What is Penetration Testing? 2. What are the types of Penetration Testing? 3. Why Perform Penetration Testing? 4. Reasons why Penetration Testing is Important 5. TestingXperts’ Pen Testing Capabilities

Cybersecurity has become the prime concern for every service organization these days. Organizations, unacquainted with the cyber-attacks and the harm it can cause to the systems are falling prey to these attacks. Therefore, the most appropriate way to secure the organization is to focus on comprehensive security testing techniques. The effective testing approach to assess the current security posture of the system is known as penetration testing also known as ‘Pen Testing’.

What is Penetration Testing?

Pen testing aims to identify vulnerabilities and risks in the system which may impact the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data by emulating a real DDoS attack. In this approach, the organization employs security analysts who work as hackers (ethical hackers) to identify the uncovered security loopholes.

The only thing that separates a penetration tester from an attacker is permission. A pen tester will always have consent from the owner of the computing resources that are being tested and will be accountable to provide a report. The objective of a penetration test is to validate the current security implementation and identify the vulnerabilities with the updated attack set.

Most of the pen testers are hired just to find one hole, however, in most of the cases, they are expected to keep looking past the first hole so that additional threats and vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed. It is important for the pen-testers to keep comprehensive notes about how the tests were performed so that the results can be validated and if there are any issues that are uncovered can be resolved.

These days, companies are following the “defense in depth” methodology, in which multiple independent network layers and the OSI layers are checked for vulnerabilities. This methodology means that no single security-control catastrophe can bring down your IT infrastructure. This approach defends the networks and systems through the use of various simultaneous protection schemes.

What are the types of Penetration Testing?

Black Box Penetration Testing:

In the type of black-box penetration testing, the tester plays a similar role as a hacker, with no knowledge upon the targeting system. This method helps to sort out the vulnerabilities that can be exploited from the outside network. The penetration testers performing this testing practice should be able to create their target network by considering the observations. To perform the black box pen testing, the tester should be familiar with the methods of manual penetration testing and automated scanning tools.

Advantages:  -This testing doesn’t require an expert tester as it doesn’t specify the usage of any programming language -Testing is performed by considering the user point-of-view -The tester verifies the differences by examining the actual system and expected specifications

White Box Penetration Testing:

The process is the opposite method of black-box penetration testing. The testers are provided with complete access to architecture documents, source code and more. This testing practice helps the testers to perform static code analysis by improving the familiarity with the source code, debuggers, and the usage of tools. This method is a comprehensive assessment method of testing to identify external and internal vulnerabilities. 

Advantages: -This testing practice ensures that all independent paths are exercised -Discovers the errors related to typography and performs syntax checking -Ensures to verify all the logical decisions along with the true/false values -Identifies the errors that occur as a result of logical flow and actual execution

Grey Box Penetration Testing:

In this method of testing, the tester is provided with user-level knowledge. In addition to this, the testers will be provided with partial knowledge or access to the web application and internal network. 

Advantages: -This method doesn’t require the need for internal information related to program functions and other operations -In this testing practice, the tester does not require any need to access source code, as the method is unbiased and non-intrusive

Why Perform Penetration Testing?

A pen test is generally performed to find vulnerabilities and fix them before an attacker does. Sometimes, the IT department is aware of the reported vulnerabilities but still needs an external expert to officially report them so that the management is sure of the vulnerabilities and can fix them properly. Having a second set of eyes to corroborate all the vulnerabilities is always a good security practice. Let’s find out the reasons why performing pen testing is important.

Reasons why Penetration Testing is Important

1. Meeting compliance: There has been a mandate in the payment card industry to follow the PCI-DSS regulations for an annual and ongoing penetration testing. A pen-test allows the enterprises to mitigate the real risks associated with the network.

2. Maintaining confidentiality, revenue and goodwill: Failure to protect the confidentiality of the data can result in legal consequences and a loss of goodwill. A security attack can affect the accounting records, hampering the revenue of the organization. Penetration testing as a service not only helps the enterprises discover the amount of time that is taken for an attacker to breach the system but also helps in confirming the companies to prepare the security teams in order to re-mediate the threat.

3. To verify secure configurations: If the security team of an organization is doing a good job, and are confident of their actions and the final results, the penetration reports verify them. Having an outside entity acts as a confirming agent of whether the security of the system provides a view that is lacking the internal preferences. An outside entity can also measure the team’s efficiency as security operators. It helps in identifying the gaps in the system.

4. Security training for network staff: Penetration testing companies allows security personnel to recognize and respond to a cyber attack types properly. For instance, if the penetration tester is able to compromise a system without letting anyone know about it effectively, this could be indicated as a failure to train staff on proper security monitoring effectively.

5. Testing new technology implementation: Testing the technology, before it goes into the production stage is considered to be a perfect time. Performing a penetration test on new technologies, before they go into production often saves time and money as it is easier to fix the vulnerabilities and gaps before the application goes live.

TestingXperts’ Pen Testing Capabilities

TestingXperts holds a rich expertise in security testing and is catering to diverse business needs. TestingXperts have been serving clients across different industry verticals for more than a decade now.  Our web application penetration testing services exposes vulnerabilities in applications and minimizes the risks of the application. Moreover, our efficient pen-testers ensure that the software code of the application is benchmarked for increased quality assurance.

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