according to GartnerPenetration Testing or Penetration Testing is a cybersecurity strategy that “provides visibility into collections of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that could lead to attacks that could cause significant business impact.”
Jason MartinAVP and Field CISO PentellaHe sees it as a “proactive cybersecurity exercise in which white-hat hackers mimic cyber attacks against an organization to identify exploitable security gaps in the IT environment.” Put simply, he says, “Penetration testing uses the mindset and capabilities of an attacker to improve an organization’s defensive capabilities.”
Martin added that the strategy is crucial. Cybersecurity measures “It allows security teams to validate existing security controls from an attacker’s perspective. Pentesting compares an organization’s existing security controls with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that threat actors are actually using. This validation allows security teams to understand where security can be exploited and proactively remediate gaps before threat actors get the chance,” he adds.
Pentera’s research report “The State of Penetration Testing in 2024” Reports show that businesses worldwide spend approximately 12.9% of their total IT security budget on manual pentest assessments, amounting to an average of $164,400. Gartner Penetration testing is becoming more prevalent and is expected to reach $4.5 billion by 2025.
Overcoming Penetration Testing Challenges
According to the 2024 State of Penetration Testing report, the biggest barriers to penetration testing are a shortage of penetration testers (42%) and fears about the risks of conducting penetration tests. Business Continuity (39%).
“Security teams’ mission is to minimize IT risk and ensure uninterrupted business operations. Security leaders are understandably cautious about penetration testing, as many have experienced penetration testing mishaps in the past that have taken down networks. CISOs want to work with the most experienced penetration testers who can provide the highest level of security validation while minimizing risk to operations,” says Mar-Tang.
He advises organizations to research and find highly skilled penetration testers suited to the specific environment (on-premise or remote) that they need. Cloud Environment.
Mahltan stressed the importance of penetration testing using real-time threat intelligence and the latest attack techniques and methods during testing, which he said allows organizations to close exploitable security gaps before malicious players do.
“The more up-to-date the testing methodology, the more resistant the security will be to attackers,” the Pentera executive added.
The more up-to-date your testing methodologies are, the more resilient your security will be against attackers.
Jason Martin
Frequency Gap
Highlights from the 2024 State of Penetration Testing Report Forty-two percent of organizations conduct penetration tests every six months, primarily to control and validate cybersecurity (33%), assess the potential damage from a cyberattack (31%), and prioritize security investments (29%).
An astounding 51% of organizations have fallen victim to a cyber attack in the past 24 months. Additionally, while 73% of businesses report changes to their IT environment at least quarterly, only 40% report penetration testing with the same frequency, highlighting a gap in how frequently change occurs within organizations. IT Infrastructure Percentage of security validation tests.
“You’re going too long without validating your security controls. Your configurations are likely opening up entirely new threat vectors that attackers can exploit. Without testing, these attack vectors could remain open for months, leaving threat actors with ample time and opportunity to compromise your organization,” Martan warned organizations.
automation
Mar-Tang advises CIOs and heads of security and development teams to automate processes.
“Today, manual third-party penetration testing is the most common method of security validation, but it’s not enough. These manual tests are often limited in scope and only cover a small portion of an organization’s security. IT assets“Most organizations only perform pentests once or twice a year. Why not perform pentests on an ongoing basis to gain benefits and insights,” he said.
“Automated security validation enables organizations to test the effectiveness of their security controls at scale against the latest attack techniques used by today’s threat actors. This allows them to consistently understand their risk posture from threat actors and continuously remediate demonstrated exploitability in their environment,” Mar-Tang concluded.