How To Implement Network Penetration Testing?

Mobile and internet has taken the world by storm, its positive impact can be seen across the globe. Consumers can access every piece of information on their hand-held devices, thereby bringing the added level of convenience in their hands!

As rightly stated in the Spiderman movie “With great power, comes great responsibility!”. Consumers using the internet to access any form of information must be extra vigilant since sophistication of data breaches has grown over time. Picture this – Close to 180,532 vulnerabilities^[1] were recorded in 2020 alone by the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) of the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

This staggering number is an indicator that developers & enterprises need to rigorously focus on strengthening the security aspects of their offering. The ideal way to achieve the said task is by donning the hat of the hacker and unearth the potential vulnerabilities in the system.

Penetration testing is one such form of testing that is performed by the ethical hackers, whose job is to fix the nuts & bolts in the product from a security point of view. As per our experience in serving a number of clients, we believe that network penetration testing must be considered on a high priority. It is advisable to partner with an experienced penetration testing company in case you do not have in-house expertise in pen testing.

Introduction to Network Penetration Testing

As the name indicates, network penetration testing (or pen testing) is a form of testing where ethical hackers (or security engineers) use mechanisms to exploit the potential security vulnerabilities in the system. These tests are performed to test the overall resilience of the security aspects of the organization.

Malicious agents are deployed by the whitehat hackers to unearth the vulnerabilities. Network penetration testing helps in improving the product quality (from a security standpoint). Though there are a number of penetration tests, network pen tests majorly focus on improving the security levels at the application layer.

Also Read – 5 Reasons Why Penetration Testing Is Important

Along with this, network pen testing also tests the security aspects when accessed from VPN (Virtual Private Network) or remote connections. On the whole the major purpose of network pen testing is to verify if malicious actors are able to bypass the security mechanisms to gain authorized access to the system.

This in turn helps in identifying the security loopholes and minimizing the further threats posed by them. Data is the new oil and network penetration testing helps in ensuring that any form of data is secure, whether it is in transit or at rest.

Some of the major benefits of network penetration testing are:

• Verify security aspects of every feature (and module) of the product
• Prevent the possibility of security breaches
• Prevent (and minimize) the financial losses that could occur due to security threats

Types of Network Penetration Testing

Here are the major forms of network penetration tests:

Internal Penetration Testing

There could be umpteen scenarios where internal employees can use the data available at their perusal. This scenario can be avoided by performing internal penetration tests.

The major purpose of internal penetration testing is to replicate the threats that can be realized by employees. Such an act can lead to a major compromise of IT assets. Internal security threats can tarnish the brand name in a huge way.

Also Read – Key Stages of Penetration Testing

External Penetration Testing

As the name indicates, external penetration tests are conducted to avoid threats posed by external malicious actors. Such tests are ideal for strengthening the network aspects from external threats!

Steps to craft network penetration testing strategy

Though there are a number of ways to build a network penetration testing strategy, here are some of the major steps that we derived after providing penetration testing services to a number of global clients:

Information Gathering and Scoping

Like any other form of testing, it is important to gather all the necessary requirements before building a network penetration testing plan. To make this possible, security experts and test architects must be involved in assessing all the network assets and devices.

Let’s make it clear – It is practically impossible to security test every aspect of the IT infrastructure. This is where the team needs to prioritize the items that need to be a part of the security testing plan.

Scoping lets you determine the engagement boundaries and intrusion levels that could determine the density of the attack.

Reconnaissance pen testing and Discovery

Reconnaissance penetration testing is the approach of analyzing the organization’s security aspects on the internet – network infrastructure, applications, users, etc. For overcoming the security vulnerabilities, ethical hackers performed detailed reconnaissance.

Loopholes in the organization’s security can only be identified exploiting them. Exhaustive reconnaissance pen tests and discovery are the two major exploratory testing mechanisms to analyze the security infrastructure.

Also Read – Best Practices for Mobile App Penetration Testing

Reconnaissance pen testing tools primarily fall under three main categories^[2]:

• Port Scanning Tools (Purpose – Identification of open ports)
• Network Vulnerability Testing Tools (Purpose – Identification of web based vulnerabilities)
• Web Service Review Tools (Purpose – Identification of security issues related to the infrastructure)

Here are some of the widely-used tools for reconnaissance testing:

• Port Scanning: NMap, Masscan, Wireshark
• Network Vulnerability: Qualsys, Nexpose, OpenVAS
• Web Service Review: HCL AppScan, Netsparker, wpscan, etc.

Port scanning lets you identify the open ports on the system, whereas packet sniffing lets you sniff the activities happening over the network. Discovery is the end-result of a successful reconnaissance test execution.

Exploitation and execution

Now that the security loopholes are identified from the reconnaissance tests and discovery phase, it’s time to do an actual exploitation of those loopholes. The execution phase is carried out by the ethical hackers where the attacks are simulated in a highly controlled environment.

Buffer overflow, SQL injection, privilege escalation, etc. are some of the common attacks that are carried out in the exploitation phase.

Reporting and patching up security vulnerabilities

This is the final step of network penetration testing where a detailed report that lays down information related to security vulnerabilities and their severity. The report details every aspect of the vulnerabilities, steps to replicate the same, and recommendations to fix those vulnerabilities.

Application of security patches, operational (and/or infrastructural) changes, and incorporating new security rules proposed by the security architects are some of the steps that are part of the remediation step.

Also Read – Security Testing vs. Penetration Testing

Conclusion

Penetration testing has become extremely crucial in today’s times since malicious actors are always on the lookout to make quick bucks by exploiting the vulnerabilities of the organization. This is where ethical hackers can play a major role in identifying the security vulnerabilities and increase the resilience of the system (or organization).

Network penetration tests play a major role in unearthing those vulnerabilities and fixing the same on priority. Building a fool-proof network pen testing strategy can go a long way in devising a more security and unbreakable system. Penetration testing company like KiwiQA can step in and give wings to your network pen testing plan so that your team can release a secure product at faster speeds!