Penetration testing, often referred to as pen testing, is frequently viewed as a trade-off between simplicity and effectiveness. The general perception is that the more often you conduct pen testing, the better. Nowadays, with e-commerce serving as the primary platform for accessing essential services, businesses of all sizes are striving to enhance and automate their online operations. Consequently, it is imperative to prioritise the protection of customer data, safeguard business reputation, and fortify defences against cyber breaches. Read more about the differences in pen testing and why we recommend continuous pen testing.
One-off pen tests are highly effective as a one-off static picture; they can validate requirements, prove compliance and achieve PCI-DSS.
But businesses don’t stay static and neither does the cyber-attack landscape.
A single pen test proves that your house is secure at that moment in time, but 24 hours later something might have changed, and someone could break in.
Repeat penetration testing, eg 2-4 times a year or once a month, still only proves that you’re secure at the point of the test. However, the main benefit of this more regular testing regimen is the ability to see that something has changed.
On an ongoing basis, this demonstrates risk levels and highlights to you where focus is needed. It’s also a very powerful part of a change control process, showing you whether and where you’ve introduced vulnerability by making alterations to the environment. Ideally, pen testing should be performed before and after a change is made, which again has the benefit of showing you a direct comparison and exposing vulnerabilities quickly.
The gold standard for penetration testing has evolved to become a continuous process, moving beyond a one-time assessment to an ongoing monitoring of vulnerabilities and intelligence gathering. By conducting penetration tests regularly, you gain deeper insights into the operating systems, applications, and technologies in your network. This allows you to proactively assess vulnerabilities based on CVE notifications.
Continuous pen testing has the power to become an ongoing vulnerability monitoring and intelligence capability.
The latest pen-testing products can now automate the pen-testing process through APIs as part of the deployment. This provides notifications of any changes and potential vulnerabilities introduced. If a change causes vulnerabilities, the product can identify the responsible update and automatically roll back to the trouble-free version.
As part of the implementation process, the user specifies what range of IPs they want to scan and how many devices are in that range. A top-level pen testing product will also proactively monitor other software and devices that get connected to that subnet, 24/7. These can then automatically be pen-tested as they connect, and become part of your CICD development process.
Penetration testing tools can integrate with MDR and XDR solutions to enable automated detection and response. The insights provided by the pen testing regime can be used to patch and fix problems as they occur.
Ultimately, continuous penetration testing has the potential to evolve into an automated, intelligent, and fully integrated component of a comprehensive cybersecurity stack. It can identify, track, and neutralize hacking activity before it breaches your data and impacts your organization.
For information about advanced pen testing or to chat with a FullProxy expert about securing your environment, get in touch.
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