Hello, aspiring ethical hackers. In this blogpost, you will learn about what is pen testing, types of pen tests, the purpose of a pen test etc.
What is pen testing?
Pen testing also known as penetration testing is the testing done to exploit the vulnerabilities and weakness in the applications, system, device and network. The aim of pen testing is to find out about any vulnerabilities in the target and patch or fix them so that malicious hackers cannot exploit them and compromise the security of the organization.
Different approaches to pen testing
Pen tests can be classified based on the information that is provided to the pen testers. They are,
1. Black Box Pen test:
In a Black box pen test, no information about the target is provided to the pen tester. This pen test is performed to simulate the Real-World Black Hat hacking attacks that usually start from the phase of reconnaissance.
2. Grey Box Pen test:
In a Grey Box pen test, the pen tester is provided limited information about the target network or organization. For example, this information is something like that gives basic login access to the pen tester. This pen test saves the elaborate time that takes to perform a Black box pen test.
3. White Box Pen test:
In this type of pen test, the maximum information needed about the target is provided to the pen tester as much as possible. This test is done to simulate the hacking attack in which the hacker knows about the target organization, someone like an internal employee. This test saves time and expenses.
Based on the location of the pen test being done, pen tests are classified as Internal & External pen tests.
4. Internal Pen testing:
This pen test is performed from inside the organization. This is to simulate the inside threats, who have extensive knowledge about the organization and its resources.
5. External Pen testing:
As you might have already expected, this pen test is performed from outside the organization. This test is usually performed to test the perimeter security of the network.
Types of pen testing
There are different types of pen tests. They are,
- Network Penetration Testing.
- Wireless Penetration Testing.
- Social engineering Pen test.
- Physical pen test.
- Red Team pen test.
- Web app pen test.
- Mobile Pen test.
- IOT Pen test.
- Cloud Pen test.
