It is estimated that the cybercrime costs will grow by 15% per year and are expected to hit an all-time high of USD 10.5 trillion annually by 2025.
Security testing thus becomes important for businesses as it ensures that your software is safe from cyber-attacks. It helps to foster a sense of trust in the application so that the users can transact on it safely. Security testing also ensures that there are no unauthorized inputs in the system.
Network security testing checks for several key elements that include:
- Risk – Evaluating the risks by identifying the threat or vulnerability, the possibility of the threat, and its impact.
- Threats – Checking on certain activities that can cause damage to the assets.
- Asset protection – Protecting company assets like software and infrastructure from cyberattacks.
- Vulnerabilities – Checking for basic security control, unpatched operating systems, browsers, etc.
- Remediation – Providing actionable guidance once vulnerabilities are discovered so that issues can be quickly fixed.
Read The financial impact of the lack of network security
Why Network Security Testing is Important
Network security testing is a process that evaluates your network’s security system, looks for potential vulnerabilities and threats, and fixes them. It is critical for preventing cyberattacks and ensuring the safety and security of the applications and data within the network.
Different Types of Testing in Network Security Testing
Vulnerability scanning
Vulnerability testing is useful for detecting the vulnerabilities of the system. Automated tools are used to identify vulnerabilities, evaluate the impact of the risk, and help with the remediation to fix the vulnerability. The automated vulnerability scanners scan through web apps to detect any cross-site scripting. It also looks for insecure server configuration, command injections, SQL injections, etc. However, one needs to be cautious while doing vulnerability scanning as it can cause an accidental system crash if one mistakenly evokes invasive activity.
Security scanning
Security scanning allows you to review the software or the app against the industry-defined standards and do a gap analysis in the code. It looks for gaps in physical configuration, user practice, information handling process, and the operating system and checks for compliance with the regulatory standards. It assesses the general security of the system and detects any vulnerabilities. The complexity of security scanning greatly varies with the intricacy of the applications. It is recommended to continue security scanning frequently to ensure no security threat in the system.
Penetration testing
Penetration testing allows you to simulate a real-time cyberattack on your applications under a secured condition to help you explore the possible vulnerabilities. Penetration testing can be of two types — application penetration testing and infrastructure penetration testing. While the former helps to detect any technical risks, the latter helps explore vulnerabilities for firewalls, hardware, servers, etc. Remember that penetration testing should always be done manually and only by a certified network security testing expert because some unknown vulnerabilities can also be noticed while conducting penetration testing.
Risk assessment
Through the risk assessment, one identifies any key security issues and implements controls in the application to mitigate the risk. To create a complete security assessment across their servers, networks, and software, conducting a holistic risk assessment is a must!
Ethical hacking
Before a malicious program invades your system, you intrude in your system to detect if there are any loopholes in it that hackers can exploit – that’s ethical hacking for you. As part of the process, ethical hackers use the same tools and loopholes that hackers would use to intrude into the system. Ethical hacking is a great way to find loopholes in the design and address the vulnerabilities before a cyber attacker finds them.
Security auditing
It is a process of checking if all your security systems are adequate or if there are still loopholes that you need to fix. Such audits need to be conducted on a regular basis to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
Posture assessment
A posture assessment helps you understand how the information security environment will behave when it comes under an attack and how it can defend itself against it. It gives an in-depth insight into understanding the enterprise security system and its resilience.
API security testing
As the name goes, API security testing helps detect vulnerabilities in the API and web services. Hackers often target APIs since they serve as an entry point to critical data. Regular API testing should be a mandate for your security testing to prohibit any unauthorized access.
Configuration scanning
Configuration scanning or security scanning helps you identify if there’s any misconfiguration in the software or the network. You can use automated configuration scanning tools to identify misconfigurations against a checklist of industry best practices and how to fix them.
Read: Automation to strengthen network security.
Wrapping Up
Network security has always been a major concern for the business as it can cause significant loss of time, revenue, and reputation. If you need a solid partner who can help you stay on top of the game with your network security testing, connect with us!
