Network Penetration Testing: Everything You Need To Know

While emphasizing the need to secure and test web or mobile applications and APIs is widespread, network security isn’t as commonly discussed, although it should be. Target’s 2013 network security breach, which proved very expensive, is an apt example. 

Hackers exploited vulnerabilities in Target’s network, gaining access through a third-party vendor. The breach compromised over 41 million consumers’ private data, including debit and credit records, resulting in Target having to pay $18.5 million as compensation.  

You can prevent data breaches like these by continually employing network penetration testing. A network pentest involves a security expert conducting simulated attacks against your network assets to detect and exploit vulnerabilities. 

What is the Importance of Network Pentesting?

1. Identifying Hidden Vulnerabilities

While vulnerability scanners are adept at testing for CVEs in a set of test cases, penetration testing goes beyond that. Professional pentesters exploit vulnerabilities from a hacker’s point of view to find weak entry points and create a detailed plan to remediate these vulnerabilities.

Pentesters also look for business logic vulnerabilities and combinations of non-critical vulnerabilities that, when combined, could cause disastrous data loss.

2. Simulation of Real Attacks

Internal penetration tests offer unique input by simulating attacks within your organization. This approach uncovers vulnerabilities external reviews might miss, such as insider threats or business logic errors.

On the other hand, external pentests adopt a hacker’s perspective, exposing weaknesses in firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other perimeter defenses. By using a combination of both internal and external pentests, you can strengthen your security inside out.

3. Improved Security Posture

Network penetration testing is a crucial part of a complete security strategy. While vulnerability scanning is great as an initial base for in-depth testing, pentesting is more targeted toward improving security. 

Moreover, the rate of false positives and missed vulnerabilities is reduced drastically by combining manual and automated methods.

4. Addressing Common Misconceptions

Many organizations rely solely on vulnerability scanners, but this approach falls short as scanning is helpful for initial and maintenance checks. Pentesting, however, is essential to study the effectiveness of your security controls and identify exploitable weaknesses. 

Understanding how these two security measures complement each other empowers organizations to make informed decisions about protecting their assets.

Why Astra is the best in pentesting?

• We’re the only company that combines automated & manual pentest to create a one-of-a-kind pentest platform.
• Vetted scans ensure zero false positives.
• Our intelligent vulnerability scanner emulates hacker behavior & evolves with every pentest.
• Astra’s scanner helps you shift left by integrating with your CI/CD.
• Our platform helps you uncover, manage & fix vulnerabilities in one place.
• Trusted by the brands you trust like Agora, Spicejet, Muthoot, Dream11, etc.

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The Purpose of a Network Pentest

1. Protect Your Data

Conducting a network pentest to protect your organization against data breaches is important. Even minor vulnerabilities can expose highly sensitive information and have severe financial and reputational consequences. 

A successful pentest can be useful in finding weaknesses such as exposed databases, misconfigured servers, and weak password policies that could compromise sensitive data. 

2. Ensure Overall Security

Conduct a network pentest to ensure that no overlooked vulnerability can compromise your company’s integrity, whether it concerns your business’s structure, sensitive data, or newly released applications. 

Common vulnerabilities uncovered through pentesting include:

• Application-level vulnerabilities: SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and insecure direct object references (IDOR).
• Network infrastructure weaknesses: Misconfigured firewalls, open ports, and outdated protocols.
• System vulnerabilities: Operating system flaws, privilege escalation, and weak authentication mechanisms.

3. Compliance Requirements

Several regulations insist on penetration testing services, regardless of the industry you’re from. For example, data security for the payment card industry requires these tests to protect customers’ sensitive information using PCI DSS guidelines. 

Other compliance frameworks that set forth pentest regulations include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare organizations and the System and Organization Controls (SOC 2) for service organizations. 

4. Continued Maintenance

Network pentests need to be conducted several times in a set time period to ensure long-term security. Your security team should also constantly monitor the controls used for the business network, such as firewalls, layered security, encryption processes, etc. 

With every network update that you make or feature that you add, opting for a pentest of the new system is advisable. Businesses should also conduct daily/weekly vulnerability scans alongside this.

What are the Steps Involved in Network Penetration Assessments?

Step 1: Reconnaissance

Network penetration testing experts deploy the reconnaissance strategy by assuming the disguise of hackers and analyzing the system to find potential weaknesses.

1. The technical aspect – Expert looks for weaknesses in network ports, peripherals, and other software that could allow hackers to break into the system. Vulnerability assessments become highly useful here, providing an outlook on other issues within the system. 
2. The social aspect – Social engineering loopholes are the typical phishing scams, login credentials theft, etc. These kinds of tests could be used to increase employees’ awareness to avoid these scams and gain information about the general security of the entire system. 

Step 2: Discovery

In the discovery phase, pentesters use the data from the reconnaissance to run live tests with pre-coded or customized code scripts to identify vulnerabilities. Usually, one script discovers one issue at a time, so multiple scripts may be required to complete the entire process. 

Technical errors like SQL injections and human errors such as divulging sensitive data are given the same weightage. During discovery, pentesters:

• Completely analyze the network’s architecture.
• Look for firewall vulnerabilities, weaknesses in intrusion detection systems, etc. 
• Attack misconfigurations, outdated software versions, and weak encryption protocols.

Step 3: Exploitation

Here, pentesters leverage the discovered information, such as possible vulnerabilities and entry points, to test the discovered exploits in your network devices or IT systems. 

The exploitation phase aims to break into the network environment, avoid detection, and identify entry points using different online pentesting tools. The key steps during the exploitation phase include:

• Breaching network defenses while evading detection in a hacker-style pentest.
• Chaining multiple vulnerabilities together to escalate privileges or move laterally within the network.
• Simulating data exfiltration to assess potential damage.

Methods of Network Pentesting

1. Black Box

A black box test is performed without information on the network’s functions or technical aspects. Extensive network reconnaissance is required to carry out a targeted attack.

This is the closest possible simulation of an actual attack. Businesses that deal with sensitive information and want to keep their systems safe from exploitation prefer this type of testing. Examples of black-box testing tools include Selenium, Applitools, Microsoft Coded UI, etc. 

2. Gray box

A gray-box test is the middle ground between black-box and white-box testers’ levels of knowledge. In this method, the tester simulates attacks to understand, for example, how an average system might experience internal information theft, including login credentials, user privileges, technical documents, and so on.

These highly focused attacks are framed to analyze the direction of attack by an average hacker and are among the most common network pentests. Some common gray box testing tools include Postman, Burp Suite, JUnit, NUnit, etc.

3. White box

White-box testing is an extensive method in which network professionals gather all the possible information about the system and its flaws to target the specified infrastructure and evoke a response. 

While a black box test is realistic and a gray box test is moderately intrusive, a white box test resembles complete security auditing. Veracode, GoogleTest, CPPUnit, RCUNIT, etc., are some of the best tools for white box testing.

Tools to Conduct Network Penetration Testing

Astra Security

Astra Security conducts thorough penetration testing services for networks. Our skilled team manually scans for vulnerabilities within your network infrastructure using automated tools to reduce the risk of error. 

In addition to traditional network security, we also provide API security testing services, which protect your exposed endpoints. Our customizable reports include actionable remediation steps, detailed vulnerability descriptions with risk scores, and proof-of-concept exploits.

Partnering with Astra Security will help make your network defenses strong enough not to let any chances of data leakage or breaches slip in. Here are a few other network penetration testing tools you can use to conduct pentesting for your network systems:

• Nessus – vulnerability scanning tool used for vulnerability assessment (VA) process
• Nmap – network discovery and security auditing tool
• NetCat – port scanning and listening tool used to read and write in a network
• Hydra – pentesting tool used for brute-forcing login and obtaining unauthorized access
• Wireshark – packet sniffing and analysis tool used for monitoring network traffic and its behavior
• Nikto – vulnerability scanning tool used for scanning web servers for security weaknesses
• Metasploit – pentesting tool used for probing vulnerabilities in networks and servers.
• PRET – pentesting tool for checking printer security controls
• Burpsuite – vulnerability assessment and pentesting tool used for discovering vulnerabilities in web apps

Final Thoughts

Network security is usually considered an afterthought after securing web and mobile applications. However, network data breaches, like the one at Target, can lead to catastrophic data loss. 

Network pentesting provides organizations with vulnerability identification and remediation to prevent hackers from entering the system. Every company’s cybersecurity strategy should include penetration testing and continuous vulnerability scanning to create long-term security.

Organizations like Astra Security can greatly reduce your risk of becoming a cyberattack victim by implementing continuous network pentesting as part of your security measures. Investment in network security helps you stay protected and builds trust with customers and stakeholders.

Astra Pentest is built by the team of experts that helped secure Microsoft, Adobe, Facebook, and Buffer

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