Using Cyber Security Penetration Testing To Improve Your Organisation’s Security Posture

In our blog last week we explored different options to pressure test your IT/OT systems, so now we’re diving deeper into Cyber Security Penetration Testing. Penetration testing (“pen testing”) involves authorised cyber security professionals simulating real-world cyber-attacks on your organisation’s systems, networks, or applications to identify potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses. It is one of the most powerful and effective ways to understand and improve your organisation’s security posture in the face of evolving cyber threats.

Cyber Security Penetration Testing benchmarks your organisation’s level of risk at a given moment in time and supports your management to prioritise and remediate vulnerabilities found, in order of risk and severity.
Before conducting a penetration test, CyBiz’s penetration testing team will work with your organisation to understand your objectives, systems, and potential areas of concern, and will then define the scope of the test, outlining the specific systems, networks, or applications to be assessed.

At this stage we will agree on the Cyber Security Penetration Testing approach to be followed:
• Black Box: no information is shared, which is useful to understand and simulate how a malicious attacker can gain access and exploit your systems.
• Grey Box: a login is provided with standard privileges, which is useful to understand and simulate an attack from a compromised email or laptop through credential theft or a potential disgruntled employee.
• White Box: the tester is granted high-level privileges, and aims to identify weaknesses in areas such as security misconfigurations, poorly written development code, inadequate defensive measures and other potential security exposures. White Box penetration testing is the most thorough and time-consuming, so is generally only used to test high-risk systems or those that process sensitive data.

During the initial Scoping phase, we will gather information about your organisation’s systems such as IP addresses, domain names, and employee information, using publicly available sources. This helps us understand your organisation’s online footprint and potential attack vectors. Following this, our penetration testing team will conduct a number of steps:

Vulnerability Assessment: We use both automated tools and manual techniques to identify security flaws and vulnerabilities in your organisation’s systems and assess weaknesses in configurations, software, and potential misconfigurations.
Exploitation: Once vulnerabilities are identified, our testers will attempt to exploit them to gain unauthorised access (only for Black Box testing), escalate privileges, or manipulate your system in ways that could be harmful in a real-world scenario.
Post-Exploitation: After our penetration testers have successfully gained access to your organisation’s systems (which is only a matter of time), we generally conduct further exploration and attempt to laterally move through your system to understand the extent of the potential damage a threat actor could cause – say though extraction of sensitive data or potentially shutting down systems.
Documentation and Reporting: Throughout the entire penetration testing process, CyBiz testers document both steps taken and findings. We provide a detailed report outlining discovered vulnerabilities, potential impact, and recommendations for remediation.
Remediation and Follow-up: We will support your organisation to use our penetration test report to address and fix identified vulnerabilities, which may involve patching software, reconfiguring systems, or implementing additional security controls.
Re-testing: Often our penetration testing scope will include a retest option to test the vulnerabilities discovered and ensure they have been effectively remediated. Either way, penetration testing is ideally iterative, with periodic testing performed to assess improvements and changes over time.

Cyber Security Penetration Testing Attack Vectors

CyBiz’s penetration testing can be utilised to focus on specific aspects of your organisation’s systems, networks, or applications. This is agreed at the scoping stage. Common vectors for penetration testing include:

Network Penetration Testing identifies vulnerabilities in your organisation’s network infrastructure, including routers, switches, firewalls, and other networking devices.
Web Application Penetration Testing assesses web applications, including websites and web services, for security flaws and vulnerabilities.
Mobile Application Penetration Testing focuses on identifying security issues in mobile apps on various platforms.
Wireless Network Penetration Testing (aka Wi-Fi Penetration Testing) assesses the security of wireless networks to ensure that unauthorised users cannot gain access and that data transmitted over the wireless network is encrypted and protected.
Social Engineering simulates human-based attacks such as phishing, vishing (voice phishing), and pretexting to gauge the effectiveness of your organisation’s security awareness training and identify vulnerable individuals.
Physical Penetration Testing assesses your organisation’s physical security measures, such as access controls, surveillance systems and alarm systems.
Cloud Infrastructure Penetration Testing evaluates the security of your organisation’s cloud-based infrastructure and services.
IoT (Internet of Things) Penetration Testing identifies security vulnerabilities in IoT devices and their communication protocols (such as printers, air-conditioning systems, smart lighting etc).
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Penetration Testing is specialised testing focusing on the security of industrial control systems used in critical infrastructure.

Penetration testing is an essential component of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to safeguard your organisation against potential threats and protect sensitive data and assets from cyber-attacks. Our team comprises individuals who are more than just security experts, but are genuine (ethical) hackers knowledgeable and experienced in the “dark arts” of cyber-attacks such as endpoint protection bypass techniques, RFID cloning, security alarm system bypass, and more.

Reach out to us now to discuss your penetration testing needs and objectives.