It's time for your company's annual penetration test. Nothing beats having outside professionals come in and assess your security. If you're not overjoyed at the prospect of a pen test, our team has prepared some expert advice to help you get the most out of the experience and your money.

Why Perform Penetration Testing?

Let's review the benefits of a penetration test. It's like the dental hygienist's regular lecture on flossing: "Why is it helpful for you?"

Pen testing has many benefits, including experienced testers who strive to find flaws before a motivated hacker does.

Persistent vulnerabilities, attack paths, and context help you prioritise cleanup efforts.

The report also assesses the organization's ability to respond to an adversary.

How to maximize your testing experience

#1: Know Your Pen Test Parameters

Participate early in identifying your goals and how to prioritise your resources to improve your cybersecurity stance with your penetration testing team. Before you start testing, know:

#2: Predict Potential Threats

You know your business and have probably been keeping up with the latest cyber dangers. Identifying potential dangers can help penetration testers decide what to look for and how deep to dig. An insider threat or script kiddies may be more prevalent in your sector.

#3: Set realistic goals

Establish how much of your network can be tested and how extensively, given price and time. Remember that motivated bad actors won't target specific portions of your system, therefore don't limit your testing.

You may not want to let them run wild. Yes, you desire creativity, but the security manager needs to ensure testers know their limits (such as never to perform a denial of service attack on any production system).

#4: Know Your Network

The more information you can offer, the faster penetration testers can assess your network and systems.

A clear point of contact who can communicate with the testing team and respond to security logs and alarms quickly is another key component of an effective pen test.

#5: Watch What They Do

You can better set parameters and expectations if you understand the testers' tools, methodologies, and processes. To ask questions regarding testing methodology and policy, or to find overlooked testing options, you need to understand testing.

You'll also be able to take more meaningful action based on the engagement's findings.

#6: Seek Flaws

A penetration test cannot verify your network, application, or IoT devices are secure. We often remark that there is no such thing as 100% security.

But you can't afford to find every possible flaw. So instead of identifying issue areas, use the pen test to garner leadership buy-in or justify budget spending.

#7: Stick with a Friend

Once you've found a penetration testing team that does the job well, stick with them. Having a long-term connection with a testing group can save you money because they will know your culture, infrastructure, and support systems better. Visit nextdoorsec.com to get the best penetration testing services in Antwerp, Belgium.