8 Reasons You Need a Security Penetration Test Paul T. Yoder Information Security Specialist El Camino College District

1. Identify Gaps Between Security Tools Attacks directly focused on individual, enterprise-class security tools are largely unsuccessful. Attacks succeed by exploiting the gaps between different security tools. Some security tools mesh better with others – and a penetration test is one way to verify whether or not your network has significant gaps between security tools.

2. Prioritize Risk With all the security risks to contend with these days, it's crucial for InfoSec to determine how to prioritize risks in order of importance, so they can be handled appropriately. There's no better way to determine priority than to use a pen test to identify areas of weakness.

3. Discover Backdoors And Misconfigurations Even the most well managed and robust network infrastructures contain backdoors – often through misconfigurations. Sometimes the best way to figure out where these security holes are located is to let a third party run a penetration test. Putting fresh eyes on any network often unveils security faults which had previously gone unnoticed.

4. Test Against Multiple Attack Vectors One of the great benefits of an in-depth pen test is that multiple attack vectors can be used together to identify complex vulnerabilities which often go unidentified. Multiple security tools are pieced together to create a defense-in-depth strategy to protect against multi-vector threats.

4. Test Against Multiple Attack Vectors (cont.) The only way to really determine whether disparate security tools can truly work together is to validate using the same multi-vector attack strategies the bad guys might use.

5. Confirm The Value Of Your Investment Security tools are expensive. One way to confirm the value of an already implemented tool – or to confirm more funding is needed to secure data resources – is to leverage the results of a penetration test. Pen tests will show the (sometimes ugly) truth in regards to your security stance.

6. Improve Security Response Time Viewing the results of a penetration test can sometimes be a sobering and stressful ordeal. But it's important to apply the knowledge gained toward a better security posture. One way to do this, with little investment, is to use the identified weaknesses and gaps to form a streamlined security response policy.

6. Improve Security Response Time (cont.) Identify all the key players, their communications channels, and escalation procedures. Then, when a real breach does occur, you'll be better prepared to handle it in a timely fashion.

7. Provides A Real-World Measuring Stick There's no way a network can be completely safe from internal and external threats. Instead, your ultimate goal should be to be secure enough so that the bad guys will pass up your infrastructure in favor of a softer target. A thorough penetration test provides a great deal of useful information when measuring your company's overall security risk.

8. Micro-Level Tests Offer Macro-Level View Penetration testing should be thought of as multiple, micro-level tests which, when put together, provide a unique macro-level view of your entire security posture. No other security test available today can provide both a granular and a global view.

Conclusion The amount of useful and architecture-specific information gathered via a pen test is invaluable to IT security specialists – and the business as a whole. The benefits highlighted here show how pen tests help give a high-level overview, as well as point out areas where special attention is needed. In the end, a pen test is likely to strengthen weaknesses, save money, and eventually build confidence in your overall security posture.