The Five Steps of Penetration Testing: The Penetration Tester's Guide

If you have ever had any questions regarding penetration testing and how it can help your business, then this post is for you. It contains a comprehensive overview of the penetration testing process, including five steps and why they're important.

The defensive tests included in an audit or penetration test (pentesting) are conducted against the environment's present defensive mechanisms. These tests range from looking into the victim's electronics to using social engineering to learn more about them.

This article provides an overview of the five steps utilised during penetration tests, so that you can avoid any risks.

Why Do You Need a Penetration Test?

If the precautionary measures had been tightened at the time, many incidents that happen in organisations may have been avoided. Data loss, unauthorised access, and information leaking are just a few examples of incidents. The audit of the security measures must be proactive so that the pentester, or person doing the audit, may point out the problems and fix them before a hacker takes advantage of the vulnerability.

Pentesting Procedures

The Penetration Testing Process begins well before a mock assault. This will make it possible for ethical hackers to evaluate the system, look into its advantages and disadvantages, and determine the most effective strategies and tools for getting into it.

In this brief, I will introduce you to five steps of penetration testing. By using these methods, firms may avoid spending money and time on possible problems brought on by application vulnerabilities.

Planning and reconnaissance, scanning, gaining system access, establishing persistent access, and the final analysis and report are the five steps of the penetration testing process.

A Step-by-Step Guide for a Penetration Test: 

Planning and Reconnaissance - The initial penetration step involves preparing for a hostile attack with the goal of learning as much as possible about the system.

The system is evaluated by ethical hackers, who look for vulnerabilities and evaluate how the organisation's tech stack reacts to system breaches. This is one of the time-consuming phases. The types of information requested range from IP addresses and network topology to employee identities and email addresses. It should be noted that the type of information or the depth of the study will depend on the audit aims. Social engineering, dumpster diving, network scanning, and domain registration information retrieval are a few of the data collecting techniques used.

Scanning

Based on the results of the planning phase, penetration testers use scanning tools to look into network and system weaknesses. This pentest phase identifies system vulnerabilities that might be used in focused assaults. Accurately gathering all of this data is essential since it will impact how well the succeeding steps go.

How to Get System Access

After identifying the system's vulnerabilities by exploiting security holes, pen testers access the infrastructure. Then, in an effort to prove their ability to penetrate the target settings, they try to further penetrate the system by gaining more privileges.

Constant Access

This pentest step assesses the possible impact of an exploit by using access privileges. Penetration testers should maintain access to a system and the simulated attack running for as long as necessary to accomplish and replicate the malicious hackers' objectives. As a result, during this pentest phase, we strive to access as many systems as we can while obtaining the maximum level of privileges and network information. To do this, we check to see whether any data and services are available to us.

Now is the time to show the client what the security breach may mean. Direct access to passwords or compromised data is different than gaining access to an old and outdated system that isn't even connected to the domain.

Discover industry best practices on penetration testing to protect your data.

Reporting and Analysis

This was the outcome of a penetration test. The last phase is when the security team delivers a comprehensive report covering the whole penetration testing process. Facts or information that should be mentioned include, for instance:

• The seriousness of the risks that the exposed defects pose

• The tools that can successfully get into the system showing the places where security was properly implemented

• The shortcomings that need to be fixed as well as strategies for avoiding further attacks (remediation recommendations)

This could be the most important phase for both parties. This report should be divided into an executive report and a technical report because both IT professionals and non-technical managers will read it. This division will make the report easier to understand for both groups of readers.

Summary

Finally, it is crucial to implement the necessary safety measures to avoid recurrence attacks and disasters. Attacks have increased exponentially in recent years, and they don't appear to be going down any time soon, which is mostly to blame. 

Due to the valuable intelligence gathered, businesses are the top focus of cyberattacks. They could even demand money in return for the information. Tighten your security measures with IARM, Leading Penetration Testing Service Provider

About Author

Priya Dharshini is a passionate Digital Marketer and Trusted Security Consultant at IARM. She is the individual who will enthusiastically take initiative, goal-oriented senior professional with solid experience in Cyber and Information Security services. Self-motivator, meticulous attention to detail and excellent interpersonal skills.