How can your business benefit from Penetration Testing?
Wednesday, 15th March 2023In the ever-evolving world of technology, it’s more important than ever to ensure that a business is secure from cyberattacks. One way to do this is through penetration testing, commonly called “pen testing.” Pen testing is a process used to identify security vulnerabilities and assess the overall security posture of a business. It allows companies to uncover hidden security flaws and weaknesses before malicious actors can exploit them. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the five key reasons why every business should undergo pen testing to protect itself in cyberspace.
Business benefits of penetration testing
Cloud, security and mobile have been the three most talked about tech topics shaping lives outside tech. As technology advances and businesses become more reliant on digitally connected systems, they also become increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Cybercriminals continuously find new ways to exploit weaknesses in IT systems and compromise security measures. In order to protect their organisations, CTO and IT teams must consider undergoing pentesting to check their security controls. Let’s break down the business benefits of procuring crest penetration testing services. CREST-accredited services add higher technical standards, industry benchmarked code and conduct into the business approach and ensures that the service level qualities are taken care of.
1. Uncover Hidden Security Vulnerabilities Before Cybercriminals
Pen testing can be used to identify any weaknesses in your IT system that could be exploited by malicious actors, helping you minimise the attack surface of your system. By proactively identifying potential security vulnerabilities before they can be discovered and abused by cybercriminals, you can prevent costly data breaches and other malicious attacks from happening in the first place. This is why pen testing should be performed regularly as part of an organisation’s cybersecurity program.
2. Measure the Effects of Change in Your Environment
Organisations are constantly implementing changes to their environment for various reasons, such as upgrades or new features added to applications or services. When these changes occur, it is important to measure the impact on your security posture and ensure that no vulnerabilities have been inadvertently introduced during the process. Pen testing provides an effective way to assess the effects of change on your environment and helps ensure that no new risks have been created due to recent modifications or additions to your IT system.
3. Validate Your Controls To Strengthen Hardening Processes And IT Security Strategy
Pen testing allows you to validate any controls implemented in your environment and enables you to strengthen hardening processes against threats and attacks. It also assists in evaluating whether existing strategies are adequate for protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorised access or any malicious activity within your network perimeter. By validating current controls, organisations can improve their overall IT security strategy by ensuring that all areas are properly protected from potential threats and attacks.
4. Security And Privacy Compliance
Another major benefit of pen testing is that it helps organisations remain compliant with relevant industry regulations related to security and privacy compliance, such as GDPR, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, Cyber Essentials, etc. It is even mandatory for organisations to be Cyber Essentials certified if they need to compete in public sector marketplaces such as GCloud. Performing regular pen tests helps organisations demonstrate that they are actively taking steps towards securing customer data, which is an important factor for maintaining regulatory compliance standards within their sector or industry.
5. Minimal Attack Surface By Deploying Pen Testing At Right Stages
Organisations should deploy pen tests at various stages throughout the software life cycle, such as during development, deployment, operation, use case scenarios, etc., so that any issues discovered during the tests can be handled promptly without compromising user experience or introducing additional risks into their environment. Regular pentesting ensures a minimal attack surface while providing visibility into potential threats and vulnerabilities in the organisation’s infrastructure at all times.
Lastly
Penetration testing plays an indispensable role in strengthening cybersecurity measures within organisations across different industries around the world today due to its ability to uncover hidden security vulnerabilities before cybercriminals do; measure the effects of change in one’s environment; validate existing controls; promote security and privacy compliance; deploy minimal attack surface; among many other benefits mentioned above.
A cyber security services provider such as Cyphere adds your business realities into the engagement approach to ensure it reflects an accurate status of your people, processes and technological controls in cyber security.