Penetration Testing for Organizations: A Deep Dive into SOC
Organizations these days have modified their ways of doing business, carrying out their business operations, and innovating their odes of delivering their services and products to their clients.
This has become more important with the surge in digitized business practices, which came with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and became the survival factor for most organizations, especially those serving the IT & Consulting sectors.
Companies across several industries vary in ways of providing their clients with solutions. Hence, their risk appetite varies with the magnitude of exposure their business units get in the market.
Digitization of businesses, which became prevalent after the pandemic, led to increased cyber threats to businesses.
It included a wide range of business units and processes to help companies drive their businesses and achieve business objectives.
Recent research suggests that 27% of organizations that implemented digital tools and technologies in their business processes reported a rise in instances of cyber-attacks, and that led to increased cases of cybersecurity concerns with compromised data systems, high potential risks of data leakage, and increased participation of foreign bodies that are potential enough to knock down the entire IT infrastructure of companies, and that’s where Penetration Testing becomes more valuable.
Penetration Testing: A Step Ahead in Cybersecurity
Penetration Testing, often regarded as Pen Test, refers to an authorized simulated attack performed on computer systems by large and mid-size organizations’ users to evaluate its security, potential risks, and security concerns.
Penetration testers use the same tools, techniques, and processes as attackers to find and demonstrate the business impacts of weaknesses in a system, which are usually done to focus on any disadvantage that might occur to businesses, especially those more prone to cyber-based threats.
Penetration tests encapsulate the simulation of various cyber-attacks that could threaten a business.
This test helps organizations examine whether a system is robust enough to withstand cyber-attacks from authenticated and unauthenticated positions and various system roles diving into any aspect of a system.
Benefits of Penetration Testing
The benefits that Pen Tests offer are enormous. Ideally, software and systems are designed from the start with the common aim of eliminating dangerous security flaws.
Tests such as Penetration testing allow companies to gather valuable real-time insights into how well the pre-defined aim was achieved.
Across the business functions and specifications, a Pen Test helps companies find weaknesses in systems and determine the robustness of controls by supporting compliances with data privacy and security regulations such as PCI and GDPR.
Furthermore, it helps organizations provide qualitative and quantitative security postures and budget priorities for managing their infrastructure, making it resilient to any cyber threat.
Pros and Cons of Penetration Testing
Something as robust as Penetration Testing should not have any cons. Still, just like any other potential aspect of business that adds value, it also comes with risks and a few harmful elements.
Moreover, what’s more significant is the benefits of penetration testing that mostly overshadow the cons it may offer in utilizing organizations’ cybersecurity concerns.
The most common types of benefits that come with penetration testing include the following.
1.Vulnerability identification
Penetration Testing lets organizations explore existing weaknesses in the system, application configurations, and network infrastructure. That leads to data breaches and malicious getting identified during penetration tests.
The comprehensive penetration testing report provides you the security vulnerabilities and software and hardware improvements along with the recommendations and policies to improve the overall security.
2.Risk Identification
Risks identified at the earlier stages of cyberattack instances offer more resistance against cyber threats than those identified later.
This also allows companies to leverage the extra time they buy to mitigate and re-work potential risks.
3.Hassle-free Business Continuity
Business operations are up-and-running all the time and require network availability, 24/7 communications, and access to resources. With each disruption in the business tools, the impact on organizations’ infrastructure negatively impacts complexities caused by business operations.
Conclusion
Penetration Testing has added another feather to an organization’s cybersecurity concerns. With more risks in place and more security features, the IT experts at organizations are offering to combat the potential dangers.
Furthermore, Penetration tests ensure organizations avoid losses from unexpected downtime and make it more like business audits, which helps companies identify potential risks and mitigate the existing ones.
