With the great increase of online applications and their prominence and importance to businesses everywhere, cybersecurity threats have also increased, and it has never been more important for companies to be prepared with the infrastructure and resources that they need to face any network security thread that comes their way, whether a virus or another hacking attack. In order to prepare well for such threats, it is wise for a business that relies on its network to have manual penetration testing done.
What Is Manual Penetration Testing?
Manual penetration testing is essentially a manual audit of a system or network with the goal of finding places that are vulnerable to attack. It is referred to as manual because it is performed by a human rather than software. This is widely accepted as the most effective method of catching any and all threats to security. After all, to really think like a hacker takes a human mind.
The tester will look at any IT and OT networks, web apps, devices, and wireless networks that are part of the infrastructure of the business hiring them, and they’ll perform various tests to determine the strength of each area of the system. For example, they might perform what is called an “actual exploit,” which is essentially a test attack on the system in order to better understand how to fortify it and make such an attack less likely from an actual hacker or threat to the system.
It is very important that a business properly vet the companies they can hire for manual penetration testing to be sure that they have a good track record and the qualifications they need to do thorough testing.
Why Does RedBot Security Recommend Manual Testing?
Manual testing is known to be superior to automatic testing done by software and computers because human experts are simply better able to find the more complex and hidden issues that exist in systems. For example, logic flaws might exist in the coding of a shopping cart application, and as a result it may be possible for a customer to enter negative numbers in the field and be reimbursed money on their debit card instead of paying money to the company for their product. Such an issue may be lost on a software running an automatic test, and it could cost a business a lot of money as a result.
Other examples of issues that human agents are better at discovering and handling are DOM-based XSS, cross-site request forgery attacks, blind SQL injections, and general session handling issues. These are advanced problems that make hiring a good security tester absolutely vital for businesses that rely on their networks for success.
In the end, hiring a strong company that can handle such cybersecurity issues as these can pay dividends for your company in the long run, saving both headaches and actual dollars. Smaller and medium-sized businesses may not have in-house expertise for this kind of work, so it’s especially important that they bring in experts to do it well.