Penetration Testing for the Day: Daily Security Checks

In the modern-day digital landscape, various professionals want to know about penetration teasing for routine cyber check essentials. Every organization from startups to large scale enterprises undergo frequent cyber security threats or even attacks; positively one of the ways to stay ahead of these attackers is penetration testing. You can begin it keeping an ethical hacker by your side and breaking into your system or applications before the black hat hackers start off with their game.

What is Penetration Testing and Its Various Types?

Penetration (Pentesting) can be considered a simulation of a cyber-attack; be it against applications, networks or systems to uncover various security vulnerabilities present or the so-called backdoors present, before the actual attackers do it.

There are various types of pentesting

1. Web application pentesting
2. Network pentesting
3. Mobile app pentesting
4. Social Engineering assessments
5. Physical Security testing

Must Read: Myths Vs Facts about Spyware on Smartphones

A Quick Checklist for Penetration Testing for the Day

Reconnaissance/ Information Gathering

As a starting point, gather every information possible about the target, be it application, server, etc.

Tools which can be used:

• Whois, nslookup, dig – for domain info
• theHarvester – to gather emails, hosts, subdomains

The Goal is to identify attack surfaces like subdomains, public IPs and open directories.

Exploitation

Exploiting vulnerabilities might not be an everyday exercise but it is important to understand the risk.

For Internal Tests:

• Try simple SQL Injection, XSS or file upload bypasses on test environments.
• We can use tools like Metasploit or SQLmap carefully in isolated environments.
• The Goal here is to prove how an attacker could abuse a security related flaw.

Report and Fix

As the fifth and final step, documentation of the penetration testing for the day done is essential. What to Include?

• Summary of the findings
• Risk Ratings
• Steps to Reproduce
• Fix Recommendations

Pro Tip:

Constantly check keep an eye on the perimeters, reviewing the code and learning from each test.

30 minutes a day with tools like:

Burp Suite Community

• ZAP
• Nmap
• Dirb/ Gobuster

Can help reveal overlooked vulnerabilities.

Scanning and Enumeration

As the second step we can check what services are running on the platform and if any of the ports are open.

Tools which can be used:

• Nmap – for port scanning and service detection
• Nikto – to scan for web server vulnerabilities
• enum4linux – for enumerating SMB (Server Message Block) shares

The Goal is to map out the network and application structure.

Vulnerability Scanning

For the third step we can look for known flaws in the system or application.

Tools which can be used:

• OWASP ZAP – can assist in passive and active scanning for web applications
• OpenVAS – network vulnerability scanner
• Nuclei – for fast templated vulnerability scanning

Note: Don’t just rely on scanners, manual testing is the key element for detecting complex flaws.

Conclusion

Penetration teasing for the day considered as a good habit whether you’re a security analyst or a developer or even a system admin. Small consistent tests will help to secure your applications and infrastructure before the attackers can gain access to your resources.