The Five Benefits of Ethical Penetration Testing

The Five Benefits of Ethical Penetration Testing 

An Ethical Penetration Testing (known as Ethical Pentesting) is a series of legal pre-approved attempts at gaining access to a protected network or system with the intention of identifying and analyzing potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses in that network. This ethical penetration testing is carried out by a third party of certified professional testers at the request of the owner of the network or the system.

An ethical Penetration testing is concluded by a full report on the security position of the system or the network regarding the tests performed and developed plans of action for flaws uncovered.  The network security of most companies today is crucial for their business success. With the increasing amount of computing systems in most businesses, it becomes more and more important to be protected against threats like industrial espionage, credentials, and database leak.

A malicious attack by an unethical hacker can create money losses and severe damage such as remediation costs, lost productivity, legal fees, lost data, and lower stock prices of the targeted business, according to the Associated Press. 

The key to your business success is regular Ethical Penetration Tests that allow you to find the gaps in your security before hackers do, by exploiting vulnerabilities and providing steps for remediation.

Companies who get hacked often end up going out of business, being unable to handle the burden of cleaning up. As a legit example, HBGary Firm Hack, its servers were broken into, its email pillaged and published to the world, its data destroyed, and its website defaced by Anonymous. A second site owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, the owner of HBGary, was taken offline, and the user registration database published.

Here are the five benefits of performing regular Ethical Penetration Tests:

1.      Evaluating your security system

Penetration tests allow your organization to evaluate internal, and external network security. You will get to know the effectiveness of any security actions you may already have in place. It is important for your organization to have the level of security that allows it to protect your customers and your assets.

2.      Exposing your security flaws

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Regular Ethical penetration tests are controlled attacks performed by certified professional testers against the tested systems to reveal and uncover the systems' security flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. These tests give you a chance to fix them properly to prevent any actual attack.

3.      Protecting your company reputation, gaining your customers’ trust

Performing regular ethical penetration tests will help you to boost the customers' confidence in your products and services. Surely when hackers are hitting your system, you won’t expect loyal customers to show you a similar level of support. Ethical Penetration Tests play a major part in protecting your company reputation and in gaining your customers' trust. Since customers give you their trust when you truly deserve it.

4.      Avoiding costly data leaks and loss of business continuity

Insecure systems are very exposed to breaches whether you are just starting up your company or you’ve established your business, a mistake in your network security system can destroy all your progress and growth. You don’t want to suffer server instability at the hands of unethical hackers. Recovering from the outcome of data leaks is no doubt expensive. Legal fees, customer protection programs and loss in sales could cost the company tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

5.      Reducing client-end attacks/ Cross-Site Script AKA XSS attacks

Attackers find it easier to break into the organization network security system from the client-side through the web and services such as online forms. Therefore companies should start taking actions to protect their systems right from the client-end inwards.  Since an ethical, a penetration test will provide you with an overview of your network weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and which attacks to expect, then you are in an appropriate position to update and secure your applications and your network systems.

Businesses of all sizes are facing the risk and must take actions to update their security methods to prevent and to detect attacks and breaches. Therefore it is crucial to hire a third-party expert to test your network security system level. The tests have no value if the tested company doesn't take immediate actions to fix the found vulnerabilities and weaknesses, then the risks will increase with time and will present in the next penetration testing.

If you haven’t tried to test your network security level yet, you should start thinking about it. Attackers only need one successful access to your network. Teknologiia Company takes Penetration Testing to a different level. Our team of experts can test various types of systems, expose almost all of vulnerabilities and weaknesses, answer questions, and provide a detailed remediation report with an effective repairing plan.