As data breaches become increasingly common within corporate networks that are becoming more complex by the day, it is imperative that organizations have a robust line of defense in place. For most organizations, this means opting for an automated penetration testing solution to identify vulnerabilities within the network, with advice on ways to implement measures.
What pentesting entails
Penetration testing (also called pentesting called) is a controlled attempt to breach IT systems. Penetration testing is commissioned by the organization to discover and fix security weaknesses. How exactly does this work? First, let's look at the stages that make up a penetration test, as described by EC-Council:
- Information Gathering
- Reconnaissance
- Gaining access
- Maintaining access
- Documenting and Reporting
To shorten the time of conducting pen tests, many organizations seek to automate parts of the process using tools that can ease the effort. However, these automated pen tests are generally overseen by a Security Analyst so that superficial issues are quickly recognized and resolved.
How pentest automation is applied
Automated penetration testers offer speed and scale, deploying hundreds of attacks to different assets and from multiple endpoints across the network. Unlike scanners, they can perform some level of reconnaissance. Examples include Network/Port Scans, Transport Layer Security Scans, and Dependency Scans (NPM, Maven, etc). These scans are primarily utilized at the earlier stages, and are intended to take work off the pentesters' hands during the audit process by identifying known vulnerabilities.
Benefits of automated pen testing
First, the speed of testing and reporting is many times faster, with accompanying reports that are generally very readable. After a test is completed, reports are prepared immediately. This is not possible with manual testing; in some cases, preparing reports can take several days to weeks of manual work, not to mention a few QA rounds.
This is one of the main weaknesses of manual pen testing today - the lengthy process means that many reports are already outdated before delivery. The cyber environment has often been updated several times since the test, introducing new vulnerabilities that were not there during the initial pen test. In this sense, a traditional pen test is actually a time-consuming snapshot of the security status.
Disadvantages of automated pen testing
Automated pen testing tools also have drawbacks. First, they don't understand how Web applications work. While they will detect something like a Web server at the port/service level, they will not understand that you have, for example, an Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) vulnerability in your internal API, or a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) in an internal Web page that a human pentester can use to probe further.
In a similar vein, automated penetration tests often fail to find the more advanced and complex vulnerabilities that trained experts can identify, because they require in-depth knowledge of how networks and apps work at the architectural level. An experienced pentester has the expertise to fix these problems before they can be exploited. Someone using only automated tools does not have the necessary knowledge and experience to address these threats, making the process even more difficult.
Nestor Security's golden pentest formula
Although manual penetration testing and automated security testing are very different, they are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the combination of their strengths results in a comprehensive and effective approach to security. Nestor Security and its Cybersecurity partners combine automated scanning technologies with best-in-class penetration testing expertise to expose business logic and other dynamic vulnerabilities in network, mobile, desktop, back-end and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Want to learn more about how we work, and how our Cybersecurity experts can strengthen your network security? Contact our experts without obligation, they will be happy to tell you more about our security solutions.