Performing an external penetration test is an important step in securing your IT infrastructure from potential cyberattacks. It identifies vulnerabilities in your company’s system and helps you take immediate corrective action against them to prevent future attacks.
The first and most crucial step in protecting your company from data breaches and cyberattacks is to identify security weaknesses within your network. An experienced IT safety and security firm can help you do this by conducting external penetration testing, which simulates the activities of real-world hackers to assess the resiliency of your organization’s network perimeter.
This type of testing will simulate the actions of a hacker to expose your IT system’s most critical vulnerabilities and prepare your team to move with alacrity the moment a cyberattack is detected. This way, you can protect your customers’ sensitive information from an attack that could result in a data leak.
When it comes to cybersecurity, you have to constantly be on guard against evolving threats. That’s why it’s so essential to regularly perform internal and external penetration tests.
In general, companies with public-facing websites and web applications are most vulnerable to attacks, so these systems should be subjected to the most extensive external testing. However, there are some cases where an internal penetration test may be more appropriate than an external one.
The main benefit of an external penetration testing is that it gives your team a clear, objective view of the strengths and weaknesses of your IT infrastructure and how it’s responding to various cyberattacks. This can be particularly useful for companies that need to quickly update their technology and are unable to do so on their own.
A good external penetration test will use a range of tools to analyze the system’s critical vulnerabilities. These can include Nessus, John the Ripper, Maltego, and Kali Linux.
Once the identified weaknesses have been duly analyzed, it is time for the external penetration tester to leverage these vulnerabilities to gain access and control of the target, which could be a firewall, a secure network, or a specific system. This can be done by utilizing the list of vulnerabilities that the external penetration tester has gathered to determine which are truly exploitable and provide access to the target.
This is a common way to perform penetration testing, as it allows the tester to remain undetected by key system safeguards. It also provides an opportunity for the tester to familiarize himself with your network and its complexities, and study how cybercriminals can potentially use your own measures against you when they come up with a plan of action that’s more lucrative than your own.
How to Conduct an External Penetration Test
In a web 3.0 world, with the Internet being the norm for virtually everything, it’s more important than ever to be aware of cybersecurity threats and attacks. This is why a majority of organizations have implemented security measures to protect their information systems. This includes conducting external penetration testing.
Penetration testing is a type of cyber security test that aims to identify vulnerabilities in IT systems and networks that could be exploited by attackers. It mainly involves vulnerability scanning and manual testing to determine what information your organization is exposing to the outside world.
How to Conduct an External Pen Test
Performing an external penetration test is an essential step to ensure that your company’s IT system remains impenetrable to threat actors. It is recommended that you carry out this security strategy at least once a year, and after any major changes in your network.
The process of conducting an external penetration test is comprised of seven different stages: planning and reconnaissance, discovery, vulnerability detection, automated and manual exploit attempts, open source intelligence gathering, password attack opportunities, and mitigating controls.