Published: 05 Jan 2023
Network Penetration Testing – An Informative Guide
Last Updated: 24 Jan 2023
Content 1. Network Penetration Testing – A Quick Overview 2. Why Should Digital Businesses Consider Network Penetration Testing? 3. Steps Involved in Network Penetration Testing 4. Types of Network Penetration Testing 5. Best Network Penetration Testing Tools in 2023 6. Conclusion 7. How can TestingXperts Help with 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.
Penetration testing, 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.
• 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
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 to attempt to compromise the network.
A typical network pen testing approach involves the following steps:
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.
A few different types of network penetration testing can impact the structure and deliverables of the penetration testing methodology described above. Specifically, there are two main categories of network penetration testing:
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 network scanning
• Port scanning
• System fingerprinting
• Firewall testing
• Password strength testing
• Third-party security
• configuration testing
• Helps map a network by scanning ports, discovering operating systems and creating device inventory
• Easy to navigate
• Easy Wide range of networking features
• Used by security professionals to detect systematic vulnerabilities
• Contains portions of fuzzing, anti-forensic and evasion tools
• Currently includes nearly 1677 exploits
• 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
• Allows efficient vulnerability assessment
• Accurate identification of vulnerabilities
• Integrates with the rest of the product portfolio
• Available for Windows, Linux and Mac
• Detects a variety of vulnerabilities within web apps
• Easy to navigate UI
• Supports many pen-testing activities
• 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 reported vulnerabilities and remove false positives
• 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
A network penetration test is a deep dive into security. 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 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, so it’s essential to understand the requirements and have professional penetration testing experts perform effective testing to meet the desired security outcomes.
TestingXperts (Tx) is one of the five largest global pure-play software testing services providers. Tx 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 testing experience, the company has been serving the global clientele with high-quality next-gen software testing services to deliver superior solutions to clients.
• Large pool of CEHs (Certified Ethical Hackers).
• 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.
• Vulnerability-free application with an iterative 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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