Penetration Testing in Australia
Are you looking to protect your company’s data from unwanted cyber-attacks? Not sure where to start? Penetration testing in Australia is a good place to start to find out how secure your system really is. The following blog will explain how a penetration testing company conducts penetration testing in Australia.
About Penetration Testing
Penetration testing in Australia is becoming more and more popular amongst organizations due to the emergence of new technology. It is becoming easier for hackers to gather a company’s sensitive data through cyber attacks. Penetration testing is a specialized tool that combines technical and social engineering skills to identify exploitable vulnerabilities in your networks and systems. Penetration testing in Australia provides you with actionable results, telling you where your security weaknesses are so you can fix them before they’re exploited by criminals.
A penetration testing company also helps you discover vulnerabilities that may have been accidentally introduced into your systems through software upgrades, change management processes, or staff turnover. Penetration testing in Australia is especially useful for organizations that are new to cyber security or have experience but don’t have the internal resources to conduct their own security assessments. Thus, penetration testing in Australia is an important part of any cyber security program.
Who Conducts Penetration Testing in Australia?
A penetration testing company performs penetration testing in Sydney by employing highly skilled security professionals with access to carefully crafted attack vectors for the express purpose of finding exploitable vulnerabilities in your systems, networks, and applications before they can be exploited by criminals.
A penetration testing company has a wide range of tools at its disposal including social engineering attacks that target human psychology, hardware or software backdoors that provide attackers with remote access to your systems, and advanced hacking techniques that exploit vulnerabilities in software. Penetration testing in Sydney is also conducted by experienced security consultants who are independent of your organization’s IT team. This ensures that penetration testing in Australia delivers objective results without any perceived conflict of interest.
Methods of Penetration Testing in Australia
The following are some of the methods to conduct penetration testing in Australia:
- External Penetration Testing: External penetration testing focus on a firm’s internet-visible assets, such as the web application itself, the corporate website, and email and domain name servers (DNS). The objective of this type of penetration testing in Australia is to get access to and extract important information.
- Internal Penetration Testing: A penetration testing company also runs penetration tests from the inside of a company’s network, focusing on business processes and application-level vulnerabilities that allow attackers to interact directly with internal systems.
- Social Engineering Penetration Testing: This type of penetration testing in Australia takes the most effort and time since it requires human interaction. A penetration testing company tries to effectively phish staff in order to get them to send valuable information. A penetration testing company also performs social engineering attacks against the company’s customers in an effort to extract valuable data or use their computers for further cybercrimes.
- Operational Penetration Testing: A penetration testing company can simulate real-world attacks on your organization by identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, or exploit loopholes in your security policies. A penetration testing company also looks for physical vulnerabilities in office buildings, including unauthorized wireless points and insecure lock systems, as well as social vulnerability in visitors’ reception areas.
- Web Application Penetration Testing: A penetration testing company will look for any deficiencies in an application’s design or coding that can be used to steal sensitive data, inject malicious code, or manipulate parameters to gain unauthorized access. Penetration testing in Sydney is done against your organization’s website(s) and web applications. The penetration company also looks for vulnerabilities in the infrastructure behind these applications (e.g., databases, web services), as well as misconfigurations that can be exploited by attackers to gain further access to a system.
- Blind Testing: In a blind test, the only information supplied to the penetration testing company is the name of the company being tested. This allows security staff to see how an actual application attack might play out in real-time.
- Double-Blind Testing: The penetration testing company in a double-blind test has no prior information of the simulated attack. They won’t have time to shore up their fortifications before an attempted breach, much as in the real world.
- Targeted Testing: Both the penetration testing company and the security staff collaborate in this scenario and keep each other updated on their movements. This type of penetration testing in Australia is an excellent training exercise that gives a security team real-time feedback from the perspective of a hacker.
Process of Penetration Testing in Australia
Penetration testing in Australia is usually carried out in three stages according to the system being tested:
- Pre-attack Phase: This stage is designed to gather as much information about the systems, devices, and applications being tested without actually attacking them. A penetration testing company uses a wide range of techniques including web searches, social engineering attacks against employees, and traffic analysis. The penetration testing company uses the information they gather in this and subsequent phases to plan their attack against your systems.
- Penetration Attack Phase: This stage is where a penetration testing company actually attempts to compromise the systems, devices, and applications being tested. The penetration testing company can implement a wide range of techniques including remote exploits that target vulnerabilities in software, such as Java, Flash, Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, and Windows.
- Post-Attack Phase: Penetration tests are often repeated several times until the penetration testing company is satisfied that their attack has been successful or unsuccessful due to security countermeasures. A penetration testing company typically reports their findings in a Penetration Testing Report that outlines the vulnerabilities they have identified and recommends security measures to mitigate them.
Benefits of Penetration Testing in Australia
Hiring a penetration testing company to conduct penetration testing in Australia has numerous benefits, including the following:
- Insures against financial loss
- Provides an evaluation of the company’s IT infrastructure
- Clientele and partnerships are safeguarded
- Compliance with regulation and security certification
- Protects the company’s image and reputation
For more information about Penetration Testing Australia or Penetration Testing in Sydney, please contact us at enquiry@iascertification.com or visit our Penetration Testing Australia frequently asked questions page to learn more.
