Penetration Testing & Security Assessment

One of the key steps to measure operational risk is the need to understand where you are vulnerable to an attack, and where you may have already been compromised.

The value and benefits of undertaking penetration tests and security assessments include:

• Policy mandate to undertake periodic testing: all security standards and industry regulations advocate testing.
• Identifying exploitable conditions before they can become a security breach (prevention rather than panic!).
• Acceptance of a new system regarding its security strengths.
• Validating that a previously discovered vulnerability has been adequately removed.
• Ad hoc (sanity) check to measure whether security precautions are fit for purpose.
• Meeting and demonstrating Compliance & Audit directives.

Read more about Penetration Testing - the what, when, why and who here.

Service Offering

1. Cloud Security Posture Assessment: Providing visibility of misconfigurations and compliance posture across Cloud {AWS, Azure, Google and more} and SaaS {M365, Salesforce, Okta, Slack, Box and 50+ other cloud apps}. Cloud and SaaS are easy to set up and, alas, just as easy to configure insecurely. According to Gartner, “99% of vulnerabilities come from misconfigurations” and, as you cannot typically use a traditional pen test service against a Cloud Asset (cloud providers such as Microsoft, for example, often forbid it), a proven option is to assess the security posture of the Cloud Asset. This service will identify, assess, and quantify threats to your Cloud by examining your configuration, setup, and policy settings. In addition to a one-off Cloud Assessment service, we can also provide a solution for continual proactive Cloud Security Posture Management.
   
   
2. External Penetration Testing: Sometimes referred to as infrastructure testing, this encompasses the testing of public facing systems, such as firewalls, DMZ hosts and VPN access.
   
   
3. Internal Host & Wi-Fi: Testing the desktop, server, and network addressable hosts for exploitable conditions and build strength. Ensuring Wi-Fi access cannot be compromised or abused.
   
   
4. Stolen Laptop: Taking a representative laptop or mobile device and testing it as if lost or stolen. The objective is to identify whether access to the stored data is permitted, and whether the device can be used to establish a remote access connection to the network.
   
   
5. Website & Web App Testing: Testing the native web apps, the web host system for resistance to an attack encompassing cross-site scripting, the backend database and legacy system integrity.
   
   
6. APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) Assessment: APTs, by their nature, can be missed by antivirus software. This assessment captures network traffic over a few weeks and analyses for botnets, remote access trojan  and zero-day threats.
   
   
7. Phishing Simulation: Creating a series of bespoke emails and web servers to measure how susceptible staff would be to divulging sensitive information via such an attack.
   
   
8. Social Engineering: Testing whether physical perimeters are open to exploitation via social means, for instance by shoulder surfing, bravado, deceiving reception staff and/or misleading staff via the telephone into disclosing sensitive information such as password resets.
   
   
9. Active Directory Assessment: AD analysis for security, misconfigurations, resource access rights, passwords, stale accounts, roles and administrator privileges.
   
   
10. Information Risk Audit: Identifying and locating how and where sensitive information is being passed, stored and distributed, evaluating the risk of accidental or malicious disclosure.
    
    
11. Incident Response (IR) Service: A retainer provision for when you are under attack, suspect an attack or want to investigate the impact and root cause of a breach. If you are unsure how to manage or investigate an attack, or lack the resources, this is an ideal option. The response team stands ready to respond on your behalf 24/7/365. This service can also provide IR policy and readiness planning, training and knowledge transfer for crafting response playbooks to your specific business requirements and compliance mandates.
    
    
12. ISO 27001 Gap Analysis: Assessment of your security policy, responsibility mapping and management processes against the topics within ISO 27001:2022. This also includes a workshop to conduct a ‘Security Context’ exercise that formulates the organisation’s risk appetite and threat perceptions (this is required for successful certification). This can also incorporate a contrast with the associated security controls as listed in ISO27002 (referenced within Annex-A of ISO27001).

Information Request and Opinion

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Penetration (Pen) Testing is a specialised discipline that encompasses a lot more than simply running a Vulnerability Assessment (VA) tool. Pen tests should follow formal procedures, use a multitude of scan tools and, more importantly, be undertaken by experienced engineers, who can interpret the Vulnerability Assessment results to create stronger cascading attack scenarios. The tests should also be undertaken by staff independent of any other function to ensure the testers provide objective and impartial reports.

Nigel Lewis