Commercial penetration testing is the process of controlled security assessment or audits performed in such a manner as to reveal weakness and vulnerabilities. These processes help expose infrastructure weaknesses which in turn allows a company to implement fixes for these security holes. While this process simulates real world attacks, it is not a random brute force undertaking. In commercial penetration testing there are standards and methodologies that provide a detailed roadmap of practical ideas and proven practices (Halfond, 2011).
Enterprise level penetration testing is an endeavor usually performed by 3rd party consultants. Shifting this testing from internal to external gives an even more accurate result of testing because internal stakeholders may have inside knowledge an attacker will not have or the stakeholder will omit some of the necessary testing due to overconfidence in the system or the desire to avoid finding weaknesses in something they had a direct hand in implementing. This is not to say that there is not a place for internal testing during implementations and maintenance. The important thing to note is that penetration testing is usually the last step in a security assessment plan which is a very aggressive form of testing performed by highly qualified individuals.
"Although there are different types of penetration testing, the two most general approaches that are widely accepted by the industry are Black-Box and White-Box " (Ali, Heriyanto, 2011). Black-Box penetration testing is defined as external testing performed remotely by testers that have no inside knowledge of the infrastructure being tested. This testing employees many of the tools a real outside threat would employee to compromise an enterprise ...
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...o it. By performing this type of testing on a regular basis a business or organization can expose and fix vulnerabilities and weaknesses that an outside or even inside threat would use to gain information.
Works Cited
Ali, S. , Heriyanto, T. (2011). BackTrack 4: Assuring Security by Penetration Testing. Packt Publishing. Retrieved form: here
Bradbury, D. (2007). Penetration tests measure firms' security. Computer Weekly. Retrieved from: here
Halfond, W. el al. (2011). Improving penetration testing through static and dynamic analysis. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved from: here
Klevinsky, T.J., Laliberte, S., Gupta, A. (2002). Hack I.T.: Security through penetration testing. Addison-Wesley Professional. Retrieved from: here
Northcutt, S. et al. (2006). Penetration Testing: Assessing your overall security before attackers do. SANS Core Impact. Retrieved from: here
Commencing penetration tests within the infrastructure of Alexander Rocco Corporation may be a strenuous, yet beneficial process. However, before commencing penetration tests, much planning, strategizing, and research is necessary in order to ensure successful, seamless, and legal operations. Based on information provided by the SANS Institute, an initial meeting should be coordinated between those responsible for conducting the tests, along with the appropriate leadership personnel of the company (source). Within the meeting, the scope of the project should be established, classifying company data appropriately, and determining which components of the company’s infrastructure require penetration testing, which may include Alexander Rocco Corporation’s
However, I feel users had a different vision/perspective on security mechanisms and they trusted each other during those times and did not have to worry about protecting their information (this is how exactly, one person’s ignorance becomes another’s person’s - hacker, here bliss). This book helps us to understand the vulnerabilities; its impacts and why it is important to address/ fix those holes.
Some of the testing at the unit level would be White Box testing. Making sure that different parts of processes or objects were executing properly during state transitions. It would look at the accuracy of logical operations for financial transactions and functions such as keeping double booking of appointment times from occurring.
Whitman, M. E. & Mattord, H. J. (2011) Principles of Information Security. Boston: Course Technology. (Whitman & Mattord, 2011)
Students earning the Master’s Degree in Cybersecruity through UMUC are provided a distinctive opportunity. The capstone course for the degree program allows students to put the knowledge they have gained throughout the program into practice. The Cybersecurity Capstone Simulation presents students, organized into teams representing business sectors, with various scenarios in which a cyber threat must be addressed. Furthermore, the simulation stresses the need for the teams to consider other impacts on the implementation of security control, such as employee morale, productivity, and profitability. One of the greatest challenges of the simulation is to implement controls which will defend the sector’s systems, yet still provide
And constant security and vulnerability assessment, using scanners from different vendors will efficiently aid the security professional to proactively discover threats and mitigate it because attacker exploits the
Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2011). Principles of information security. Boston, Mass: Thomson Course Technology.
The Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manuel (OSSTMM) has been designed as a set of guidelines to perform a full penetration test. OSSTMM has been written as a methodology, which should be followed to allow security personal to be able to perform penetration testing that has measurable variables allowing for monitoring and retesting. If a methodology is not followed when performing a penetration test it is said to have no validity as there is not a way to confirm or test the activates performed during the testing which concurs with Herzog (2006) “any security test which does not follow a scientific methodology has little to no measurable value” (Herzog, 2006, p.2).
Summary Report for: Computer Security. (2010). January 10, 2011, from O*net Online: retreived January/15/2011 http://online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/15-1071.01
[15] T. J. Klevinsky, Scott Laliberte, and Ajay Gupta. (2002). Hack I.T.: Security Through Penetration Testing. Addison-Wesley Professional.
Abendan, G. (2013, August 8). Exploiting Vulnerabilities: The Other Side of Mobile Threats. Retrieved from Trend Micro: http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/exploiting-vulnerabilities-the-other-side-of-mobile-threats/
Harvey, Brian."Computer Hacking and Ethics." Ed. Paul Goodman, P.G. Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. U of California, Berkeley, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2014.
The top five software-testing problems and how to avoid them. By: Mats, Lars. EDN Europe, Feb2001, Vol. 46 Issue 2, p37, 3p; (AN 4121152)
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The Art of exploring various security breaches is termed as Hacking.Computer Hackers have been around for so many years. Since the Internet became widely used in the World, We have started to hear more and more about hacking. Only a few Hackers, such as Kevin Mitnick, are well known.In a world of Black and White, it’s easy to describe the typical Hacker. A general outline of a typical Hacker is an Antisocial, Pimple-faced Teenage boy. But the Digital world has many types of Hackers.Hackers are human like the rest of us and are, therefore, unique individuals, so an exact profile is hard to outline.The best broad description of Hackers is that all Hackers aren’t equal. Each Hacker has Motives, Methods and Skills. But some general characteristics can help you understand them. Not all Hackers are Antisocial, PimplefacedTeenagers. Regardless, Hackers are curious about Knowing new things, Brave to take steps and they areoften very Sharp Minded..