Penetration Testing: Simulating an Attack to Strengthen Your Defense
A penetration test, or pen test for short, is a legal and controlled exercise where security experts simulate a cyber-attack on a computer system. They use the same methods and tools real attackers might employ to uncover vulnerabilities and demonstrate the potential consequences for your business. These tests typically mimic a variety of attack scenarios that could pose a threat to your organization.
Penetration tests can assess a system's resilience against attacks from both authorized and unauthorized users, across different system roles. With a well-defined scope, a pen test can delve deep into any aspect of your system, providing valuable insights into its overall security posture.
Types of Penetration Testing Tools
Penetration testing relies on a variety of tools, each offering a unique perspective on your organization's security posture. Here's a breakdown of some common types:
Port Scanners: These tools act like digital flashlights, illuminating open ports on your system. This helps identify all running operating systems and applications, potentially revealing avenues for attackers to exploit.
Vulnerability Scanners: Think of these as security checklists. They compare your systems against known weaknesses in software and configurations, pinpointing potential entry points for malicious actors.
Network Sniffers: Imagine a network sniffer as a wiretap for your network traffic. It gathers details like the source, destination, and type of information flowing through your network. This helps assess whether sensitive data is properly encrypted for enhanced security.
Web Proxies: These act as intermediaries between your users' browsers and your web servers. A web proxy can inspect traffic and identify potential vulnerabilities in web applications, such as hidden fields that could be exploited for attacks like Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).
Password Crackers: While not used for malicious purposes during a pen test, password crackers help identify weak passwords. By simulating brute-force attacks, they expose passwords that could be easily guessed by attackers, allowing you to strengthen your security posture.
By utilizing these tools effectively, pen testers can pinpoint vulnerabilities and recommend mitigation strategies before real attackers exploit them.
Online Penetration Testing Tools
HostedScan: HostedScan provides vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management tools to help your business identify weaknesses and track your remediation history.
Pentest Tools: makes it easy for security teams to discover, exploit and report common vulnerabilities while saving time for custom work and more creative hacking.
Immuniweb: ImmuniWeb SA is a global application security company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company is profitable, cashflow positive and rapidly growing since its incorporation in 2019. The award-winning ImmuniWeb® AI Platform helps over 1,000 customers from more than 50 countries to discover, test and protect their web and mobile applications, APIs and micro services, cloud and network infrastructure, and third-party systems processing corporate data.
Wa3f: penetration testing framework that enhances any pentesting tool through its guidelines. It is capable of identifying nearly 200 various kinds of flaws within various web applications.
Integra: Integra is a Czech private company operating on the market since 2012. They provide solutions like: the capacity of IT specialists, penetration testing, cyber security training and customized software development.
Indusface: Website security scanning (DAST), combined with malware, API and infrastructure scanning, ensures all classes of vulnerabilities are identified immediately in a single place.
Opensource Penetration Testing Tools
Kali Linux: Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution for penetration testing and security auditing. This multi-platform solution is freely available under an open source license, providing numerous tools, automation, and configurations to help complete information security tasks efficiently.
Metasploit: Metasploit is an open source framework for probing systematic vulnerabilities on servers and networks. Testers can easily customize the framework and use it with most operating systems. A penetration team can introduce Metasploit with custom or ready-made code into a network to probe for weak spots. This information can help address weaknesses and prioritize remediation.
SQLmap: SQLmap is an open source tool for penetration testing. It can automatically detect and exploit SQL injection flaws and take over database servers. It provides a detection engine with many features for penetration testing and various switches.
Hashcat: Hashcat is a fast, versatile, and efficient hacking tool commonly used for password cracking by authorized testers and threat actors. It can support brute-force attacks by providing hash values of passwords the tool guesses or applies.
Wireshark: Wireshark is a popular open source network protocol analysis tool supported by a global organization of software developers and network specialists. The community is active and continues to release updates for new encryption methods and network technologies.
NMAP: short for "Network Mapper", is a free and open-source (licensed) utility for network discovery and security auditing.
MimiKatz: Mimikatz is a powerful tool that can be used by attackers to gain unauthorized access to systems. It is important to be aware of Mimikatz and to take steps to protect your systems from attack. Mimikatz can be used to: Extract credentials from memory, Perform pass-the-hash attacks, Perform pass-the-ticket attacks, Build Golden tickets.
OpenVas: OpenVAS is a framework of several services and tools that offers a vulnerability scanning and management solution. It is a free and open-source software, making it accessible to organizations of all sizes.