It’s impossible to be too cautious when it comes to safeguarding your company from cyberattacks. That is why seeking the assistance of a penetration testing firm to find and repair vulnerabilities in your system is critical. In this blog post, we will discuss the 5 best penetration testing providers and what makes them unique. We will also go over the types of pentests and how they work, You can learn these from any CCSP Course online and elevate your career in Cyber. So whether you’re just starting out with penetration testing or you’re looking for a new provider, this blog post has got you covered.
Understanding penetration testing:
Penetration testing involves simulating attacks on your system in order to identify security flaws in your website, network or systems and fix them before hackers get a chance to exploit them.
5 stages of penetration testing
- Reconnaissance: In this stage, the pentester gathers sufficient information from various sources about the target system. The information includes open ports, services running on these ports and the OS of the target system.
- Vulnerability Scanning: In this stage, pentesters scan for vulnerabilities in the target system using automated tools or manual methods.
- Exploitation: After identifying a vulnerability, pentesters try to exploit it by finding ways to bypass security controls and gain access to the system.
- Post-exploitation: After gaining access to the target system, pentesters explore it further and try to gather as much information as possible. This stage also includes installing backdoors and malware in order to maintain access to the system even after the test is over.
- Reporting: At the end of the penetration testing process, pentesters generate a report that contains the findings of the test along with suggestions for fixing the vulnerabilities.
Types of penetration testing
Black-box pentesting: In this type of pentesting, the pentester has no knowledge about the target system. The pentester only has access to the web application or website, and no information is provided by the organisation conducting the test.
White-box pentesting: In this type of penetration testing, all details about the target are provided to the tester in advance (such as source code). This allows for a much more thorough assessment of the system’s vulnerabilities.
Grey-box pentesting: In this, some information about the target is provided to the tester in advance but not all details are disclosed (such as source code). The grey box gives you an idea about what’s going on inside the target system.
Different approaches to penetration testing
Automated pentesting: This type of pentesting involves using automated tools and scripts to identify vulnerabilities in a website or network. It is much faster than manual pentesting but it can also give you false positives, which means that some vulnerabilities might not be real (or they may already have been fixed).
Manual pentesting: In this type of pentesting, vulnerabilities are identified by manually scanning for them using tools like Nmap or Wireshark. It is slower than automated pentesting but it gives you a more accurate assessment of the target system’s security posture.
Which method is right for you?
The best approach to penetration testing depends on your needs and budget. If you have limited time or resources, then automated penetration testing may be the best option for you. But if your goal is to find all vulnerabilities in a system (no matter how small), manual testing would work better than automated tests because they’re more thorough and don’t miss anything out.
It also depends on whether or not an organisation has access to an internal team of pentesters. If they do not have an internal team, then using a third-party vendor may be the best option in order for them to get the highest level of security possible from their website or network.
What are the best penetration testing providers?
The five best penetration testing providers are:
1. Astra Security: Astra Security is a pentesting company that offers services such as vulnerability scanning, penetration testing and security audits. They also have an automated tool called Astra Pentest that can scan your website for vulnerabilities. Its features include:
- scanning for threats against 3000+ known vulnerabilities
- real-time threat alerts from the dashboard
- easy to use, interactive interface
- remediation tips for each vulnerability
- 24/7support from the team
- risk scores
2. Offensive Security: This is a company that specialises in providing training and certifications in ethical hacking, penetration testing and other security-related topics. The company’s blog contains information about how to set up virtual machines for pentesting purposes as well as articles on various methods of exploitation such as DNS hijacking or buffer overflows.
3. CrowdStrike: CrowdStrike offers cloud-based services that include endpoint detection response (EDR), cloud access control and threat intelligence services along with their flagship product Falcon Host which provides antivirus protection at the machine level instead of using traditional signature-based techniques as most anti-malware software does.
4. HackerOne: HackerOne is a company that offers security services such as vulnerability scanning, penetration testing and web application firewall (WAF) deployment. They also provide training for developers on how to write secure code so they don’t introduce new vulnerabilities into an organisation’s software products or internal systems.
5. BreachLock: BreachLock is an enterprise-grade pentesting provider. They are the first of their kind to combine AI with expert knowledge into their penetration testing process. They offer a variety of services including vulnerability scanning, penetration testing and web application firewall deployment.
Conclusion
The best approach to pentesting depends on your needs and budget but using an automated tool may be the fastest way to get started with it if time is limited or resources are scarce. If you do have access to some internal expertise then manual testing methods might work better than tools because they’re more thorough and don’t miss anything out; however, this requires more knowledge about how these types of systems operate so there’s always going to be tradeoffs either way when choosing between approaches.
If you don’t have any experience at all in this area then hiring third party companies like Astra Security could help provide peace of mind knowing that they’ve got your back when it comes down to getting hacked. It’s always better safe than sorry.
