Penetration testing is a simulated cyberattack against a computer or network that checks for exploitable
vulnerabilities. Pen tests can involve attempting to breach application systems, APIs, servers, inputs, and
code injection attacks to reveal vulnerabilities. In a well-written, highly-detailed research paper, discuss
the following: What is penetration testing, Testing Stages, Testing Methods, Testing, web applications
and firewalls
Introduction
Cyber security plays a vital role in protecting the company's assets and the organizations from malicious
cyber attacks. A comprehensive security solution or risk assessment framework is needed to protect the
business from security breaches. Every company must have a business strategy to develop a risk
assessment framework. Once the applications are compromised due to cyber attacks, hackers can easily
access the user's crucial data.
Cyber threats are evolving rapidly over the years, so the organization should develop new security
strategies with the help of new security tools and techniques. Security attacks occur on supply chain
applications, cloud computing, network level, and Internet of Things technology. Therefore, business
executives must design policies and security assessment frameworks to protect critical applications from
malicious attacks.
Penetration testing
Penetrating testing can be defined as the authorized attack or the simulated cyber attack to successfully
exploit critical applications or computer systems to secure those systems. The process includes probing
for vulnerabilities and providing proof of concept attacks to demonstrate that the vulnerabilities are real
(Engebretson & Kennedy, 2013). Therefore, in simple words, penetrating testing is finding the security
issues of an attacker or hacker in a computer system with the help of tools and techniques.
Penetrating testing is also known as offensive security, white hat hacking, ethical hacking, pen testing,
and hacking (Engebretson & Kennedy, 2013). Vulnerability assessment differs from penetration testing,
which is very concept to understand to avoid confusion. Vulnerability assessment reviews the potential
security attacks on computer systems. In contrast, penetrating testing exploits computer systems or
critical applications to prove that security issues exist in computer systems (Engebretson & Kennedy,
2013).
Penetration Testing Stages
The penetrating testing process is divided into five stages
1. Planning and reconnaissance: The first stage comprises defining the goals of the test, the different
computer systems which will be addressed to find the security issues, and the testing methods. The
tester will gather the necessary tools like the mail server, network, and domain names to understand
better computer systems' potential vulnerabilities (Imperva, 2022).
2. Scanning: The next stage is the possible responses of the target applications to the various intrusion
attacks. There are two types of analysis to determine computer systems' possible responses to cyber
attacks.
Static analysis - Static analysis is analyzing or scanning the entire code of the application in a
single pass to find out the behavioral aspect of the application while it is running (Imperva,
2022).
Dynamic analysis - Dynamic analysis is the most practical way of scanning the code of an
application that is already in its running state (Imperva, 2022). Moreover, it provides real-time
insights into the performance aspect of the application in a running state.
3. Gaining access: Testers use web application attacks like SQL injection attacks and cross-site scripting
to exploit the vulnerabilities (Imperva, 2022). Moreover, these exploited vulnerabilities help the testers
to understand the intensity of the damage caused to the application.
4. Maintaining access: The main goal of the testers in this stage is to imitate the penetration attacks and
persistent threats that remain in the application for months to steal the organization's crucial data.
5. Analysis: The penetration testing results are displayed in the reports to the security professionals to
develop the appropriate security solutions. The reports include the amount of crucial data accessed due
to cyber-attacks and the specific vulnerabilities uncovered due to simulated attacks.
Penetration Testing Methods
There are various types of penetrating testing methods.
1. Blind testing: In blind testing, the tester is provided with only the name of the organization targeted
by cyber attacks to experience the real-time analysis of ethical hacking (Imperva, 2022).
2. Double-blind testing: In double-blind testing, the security team needs to gain prior knowledge of the
real-time security attack. Therefore, the security team will always stay alert to assess possible security
breaches.
3. External testing: External testing will involve the possible tests on the visible assets of the organization
to steal crucial data. The visible assets include the company's website, domain name servers, and many
more (Imperva, 2022).
4. Internal testing: The tester will simulate the cyber attack by accessing the application behind its
firewalls.
Penetration Testing and web application firewalls
The tester will analyze the web application firewall logs to understand the targeted application's weak
points for all testing methods except blind and double-blind testing. Moreover, the web application
firewall administrators will access the testing data to update the firewall configurations to secure the
application. Therefore, the penetration testing data can secure the applications from security breaches.
