“A penetration test is an attack on a software or hardware system with the goal of finding vulnerabilities. The attack involves an active analysis of any potential vulnerabilities, poor or inadequate configurations, both hardware and software, or operational deficiencies in security measures.

This analysis is conducted from the perspective of a potential attacker and may involve the active exploitation of security vulnerabilities.

Following the attack, a security assessment of the system will be presented, indicating all security issues detected along with a proposed mitigation or technical solution.

The purpose of a penetration test is to determine the feasibility of an attack and the business impact of a successful attack.” (source: INCIBE, National Spanish Agency for Cybersecurity).

Penetration testers are security professionals skilled in the art of ethical hacking, which is the use of hacking tools and techniques to fix security weaknesses rather than cause harm. By staging fake attacks, pen testers help security teams uncover critical security vulnerabilities and improve the overall security posture.

The terms “ethical hacking” and “penetration testing” are sometimes used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Ethical hacking is a broader cybersecurity field that includes any use of hacking skills to improve network security. Penetration tests are just one of the methods ethical hackers use.

There are 3 main reasons why companies conduct pen tests.

• Pen tests are more comprehensive than vulnerability assessments alone. Penetration tests and vulnerability assessments both help security teams identify weaknesses in apps, devices, and networks. However, these methods serve slightly different purposes, so many organizations use both instead of relying on one or the other. Vulnerability assessments are typically recurring, automated scans that search for known vulnerabilities in a system and flag them for review. Security teams use vulnerability assessments to quickly check for common flaws. Penetration tests go a step further. When pen testers find vulnerabilities, they exploit them in simulated attacks that mimic the behaviors of malicious hackers. This provides the security team with an in-depth understanding of how actual hackers might exploit vulnerabilities to access sensitive data or disrupt operations. Instead of trying to guess what hackers might do, the security team can use this knowledge to design network security controls for real-world cyberthreats.

• Because pen testers use both automated and manual processes, they uncover known and unknown vulnerabilities. Pen testers actively exploit the weaknesses they find so they’re less likely to turn up false positives. If they can exploit a flaw, so can cybercriminals. And because penetration testing services are provided by third-party security experts, who approach the systems from the perspective of a hacker, pen tests often uncover flaws that in-house security teams might miss. There are a variety of tools, both manual and automated to carry out penetration tests:

• Many cybersecurity experts and authorities recommend pen tests as a proactive security measure.