What is a pentest and why is it so important for an organization’s IT infrastructure?

The company’s IT infrastructure, where the information is stored, processed, and transmitted must be reliably protected from malicious attacks. Naturally, the more diverse the functional processes of a company are, the more technologically innovative its IT infrastructure should be. In order to specifically test how effectively and efficiently the cybersecurity system works, a special method was developed, which is called a pentest (penetration test).

Penetration testing implies an analysis of the security level of the IT framework, employees, or company in general with the help of the methods and tactics of ethical hacking. In this process, security experts simulate the actions of computer hackers, in order to assess the probability of unauthorized access, leakage of confidential data, interruption of the service operation, physical intrusion, or other information security incidents. Checking both the website and the application of the network or organization for penetration provides extremely irrefutable, accurate, and effective recommendations for improving the security level.

Thus, the pentest is vital for assessing the level of information security of the framework of different companies. It is also required by banks and non-banking financial institutions.

Types of pentests

• Black Box. When using Black Box method, the specialists conducting PenTest do not know anything about the IT infrastructure of the organization, they just simulate a hacker attack.
• White Box. If White Box is used, the specialists, performing the penetration, receive all the necessary data about the IT framework of the company from the customer.

You can argue for a long time about the advantages and disadvantages of one or another method, but experts in the field of cybersecurity agree that it is better to conduct both of them. This will provide the most comprehensive result and the most extensive information about the vulnerabilities of the system.

In their work, the leading specialists of Roundsec first perform Black Box pentest, and then White Box. To conduct code analysis for vulnerabilities, experts research thoroughly the IT infrastructure of the organization being tested.

We recommend:

• to conduct pentest both outside and inside the company’s IT infrastructure;
• to perform penetration testing several times a year, immediately after the practical usage of new systems, or after significant changes in existing mechanisms.

Stages of comprehensive penetration testing implementation

When providing pentesting services, the work of Roundsec company specialists is based on modern popular methodologies and consists of the following stages:

• penetration testing planning. At this stage of the work, we outline and agree with the client on the time frame, the cost of the planned work, the testing mechanisms, the responsibility of the parties, the type and number of information systems for testing, as well as the form and content of the report.
• targeted collection of necessary data;
• outline of the network perimeter;
• full port scanning;
• defining network equipment types;
• determining the types of operating system in the network infrastructure;
• defining the types of adjacent peripherals in the network infrastructure;
• checking the types of specialized devices or their combination;
• collecting banners and searching for public exploits. As a rule, even at this stage of the work, it is possible to find significant vulnerabilities, for example, such as forgotten unclaimed services that do not require authorization, but can facilitate access to internal networks, available confidential information, passwords, codes, keys, or other critical information data;
• study of the gathered data. When performing security analysis, common vulnerability scanners are used, which allow detecting potential threats in applications, operating systems, network information infrastructure,  and specialized software;
• defining  “entry points”;
• outlining unwanted intrusion vectors;
• attempts to use problematic sectors;
• confirmation and justification of the calculated vectors;
• preparation of reporting documentation.

Report as an indicator of the work performed

After the implementation of a full and objective penetration testing by the experts of the Roundsec company in the field of computer security, the reporting documentation on the testing is developed, which, as a rule, contains the following information:

• identification and analysis of the sectors where the pentest was carried out;
• methods, techniques, tactics, and tools that were used during the implementation of comprehensive penetration testing;
• description of the diagnosed bugs and faults, including the degree of their danger and the probability of their exploiting by an attacker;
• analysis of potential intrusion schemes;
• marking the achievements;
• reference analysis of the organization’s information security risks;
• basic analysis of the organization’s information security mechanisms;
• instructions for neutralizing the detected drawbacks and improving the organization’s IS mechanisms;
• the draft stages of work on the prevention of diagnosed vulnerabilities and improvement of the mechanisms for ensuring the information security of the organization, proportionally prioritized in accordance with the criticality of vulnerabilities.

Cost and order of services for the pentest

Roundsec provides an opportunity to order a comprehensive service, or to form an individual package for a pentest of individual components of the IT infrastructure.

Depending on the scope of services, the price and terms of work may differ.

For more information, please contact us on phone +7 (495) 128 38 71 or via e-mail info@talitechca.com

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