There are compliance requirements to be met, or someone suggested offhandedly about a good offer from a penetration testing company. Either way, a lot of firms in India choose vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT) mostly for reasons other than what it should be – security strengthening.
There are a lot of factors that one needs to look into when deciding on a penetration testing procedure. This includes the objectives of the firm, certifications required, industry requirements, scope of testing, pricing and services provided by the penetration testing provider, customer service, etc.
The question that still remains is, why do you need a VAPT procedure?
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Increased vulnerability in today’s global scenario
As each company moves forward with the aim of digitization of their services for maximum optimization, it has also increased the vulnerability of their system. Be it mobile apps, IoT, SaaS applications, there are different methods in which a company can make its digital presence known. However, the ever-present risk of being severely compromised and losing in terms of data, reputation, and finances can be scary.
This is where the VAPT procedure steps in – the security auditing process will work towards protecting your system against real-time threats through identification, exploitation, and resolution of existing vulnerabilities and loopholes in your system. The entire process works to provide an image of how secure your app & network are within the entire world’s cyber presence.
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Are you really secure?
You may be one of those organizations that invested in their online security and frequently pays for it to be maintained – but, are you actually safe? This question can be quickly and effectively answered through a VAPT procedure.
Maybe you’ve installed various cybersecurity products like antiviruses, firewalls, and other software. However, without knowing the security situation of your organization, simply installing such elements will not guarantee full-scale protection.
Security isn’t just protecting yourself when the attack happens, it is also knowing where the security loopholes lie within the system. If this is done before any attack happens, the firm can also work towards their removal and protect themselves. With penetration testing, security doesn’t become a one-time thing, or a hazy task done once a year, but a full-time responsibility with constant maintenance required.
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Is your company involved in ‘risky business’?
Yes, security risks. A lot of companies deal with sensitive information and/or provide services and applications that use different aspects of customer details, such as healthcare of the payments industry. Infrequent penetration testing procedures don’t cover the gap of a dedicated cybersecurity team within the organization. Always make sure there’s an experienced and skilled group of people maintaining the security of your organization, its apps, and other services at all times.
Depending on automated testing tools can only be a temporary solution, as the concerning security vulnerabilities are ones that aren’t easily found or resolved, mostly structural in nature. Often, they give false positives on the safety of the system from external and internal threats, so manual penetration testing techniques as a part of penetration testing plays an important role. Critical vulnerabilities need to be identified, even more so if you’re a firm that deals with sensitive data and wishes to protect your customers’ privacy.
Using techniques like grey, black and white box testing in simulated hacking scenarios, penetration testing is the key that holds the organization’s long-term security strategy together.
The benefits of penetration testing is for all, but here are a few companies that stand to really gain from it;
- Manufacturing companies wishing to protect their designs, drawings, and client data
- Pharmaceutical companies with impending patents for drug formulas
- IT companies preserving their codes, data, customer details, etc.
- Finance companies with sensitive information of their customers
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It’s just a simple addition to the network – do I really need to test it?
As strong as the potential of the network infrastructure is in carrying your business forward, it is equally vulnerable to the smallest pricks of change. Hackers only need the space of a needle to insert a mountain of backdoors, malware, and other suspicious content to completely compromise your business, be it short-term or long-term.
Network VAPT employs internal and external testing techniques that work to protect your servers, networks, test the effectiveness of the firewalls, to name a few. So, if you’ve added an aspect to the network or updated the software for an important provision of the system, it is best to conduct penetration testing for optimal protection and prevention of unseemly events.
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Protect your intellectual property
In the world of constant competition and an edge that is probably a sliver ahead of what the rest of the market offers, protection of intellectual property is vital. A better cyber security position also allows your customers to trust you with their data and its handling, thus promising better and high-quality business.
In the near future, cyberattacks are only expected to increase, so make sure to take that extra step to protect your business with the help of Astra Security today!
