Pen-testing is an integral part of any comprehensive information security program. Penetration testing, or pen-testing for short, is a method employed to identify the exposures within your organization’s system(s) before someone else exploits it enough to make a headline news story. Many find pen-tests useful in gauging the strength of their security posture.
What pen test in Singapore is, how it’s used, and some of the common risks associated with an information security program that doesn’t take advantage of this tool. The three primary goals of a penetration test are to discover vulnerabilities, determine if they can be easily exploited by adversaries, which could lead to loss or damage of data, and finally to disclose the issues to those impacted responsibly. Pen tests in Singapore are a critical part of any information security program for many reasons. They’re many different types of penetration testing, so it’s important to understand why you need a pen test, what the benefits are from a penetration test, as well as understanding some common risks if a pen test is not performed.
The first step to a successful penetration test is developing a rigorous methodology to ensure that all of the required information and documentation is collected. At this stage, it’s also important to clearly define the objective(s) for the test and your intended scope. It may be helpful to include specific sub-tasks to provide clarity.
Secondly, the individual(s) carrying out the pen test in Singapore must be fully trained and qualified before beginning any task. Risks should also be identified and documented during this phase. This step is similar to an incident response plan; certain risks may need to be mitigated because of an audit requirement, external partner/customer expectations, or other internal factors.
This is typically the easiest part of the task, as it’s about identifying vulnerabilities within your systems. This step should include any network security testing methods that can be executed to reveal weaknesses or misconfigurations. A penetration test by nature identifies vulnerabilities so that this phase will be mostly reviewed.
This step is about identifying the ease with which vulnerabilities discovered in the previous steps can be exploited prior to implementing appropriate mitigation. This will include developing exploits or using existing ones that allow for unauthorized access, privilege escalation, persistence on a system, command execution, and possibly data exfiltration. If vulnerabilities are identified but the difficulty to exploit is so high it’ll be very difficult or time-consuming, they can still be included in the final report.
This step requires creative thinking because you’re trying to prove that your systems are exposed to adversaries who might specifically target them for exploitation. This should include common techniques used by malicious actors that have been previously identified during the reconnaissance phase.
The pen test in Singapore can now be reviewed, lessons learned should be documented, and the final step is to provide the client with a full report detailing each of the steps executed and all of the identified findings. After this, mitigation plans should be developed and agreed upon before affected parties take any further actions. This will allow you to close the loop on your pen-test efforts by ensuring that remediation takes place.
