WHAT IS A PENETRATION TEST?
A Penetration Test, is sometimes known as “red teaming”.
A “red team exercise” is the practice of simulating a real-world attack in a manner resembling that of today’s cyber criminals. Before attempting this it’s worth understanding the target assets, and the motivations and capabilities of the would-be attackers and their likely approach to hacking you. It is important to deploy the same kinds of tools and techniques to make the most of this exercise.
Do I Need to do a Penetration Test?
A Penetration Test can be a valuable part of your cybersecurity strategy and is a good motivator for businesses to experience “the reality of cybercrime.” It can also help identify cybersecurity risks via a harmless real-world simulation.
A Pen test is especially useful after changes in your IT infrastructure and to test new security policies, methods or software. Sometimes Pen tests re-test a failure point to prove the fix is solid.
It can help identify vulnerabilities in critical assets, including IT infrastructure, email, databases, mission-critical applications, intellectual property, credit card data, customer data and other sensitive information.
You May Need to do a Penetration Test:
- To satisfy HIPAA, HITECH, GDPR, PCI or other compliance requirements
- To test your cybersecurity controls after they have matured
- After significant changes to your business or infrastructure