Network Security VA/PT

Network VAPT is the assessment procedure that is conducted by safety experts on the user’s network for identifying possible vulnerabilities that the attackers might exploit. The primary objective of a network penetration test is to recognize the exploitable vulnerabilities in the systems, networks, network devices (i.e., switches, routers), and hosts before hackers can discover as well as exploit them.
IT Network Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing is the procedure to be conducted by safety experts for finding potential vulnerabilities prone to be exploited by the malicious attacks. As there is always a huge risk of networks attacks and cybercrimes, it is important for carrying out Network VAPT to protect the sensitive data. Depending upon the attack’s intensity, the attacker might gain knowledge of the network or manipulate the data for his/her advantage.

Computer security breaches are commonplace, and several occur around the world every day. Some are considered minor, with little loss of data or monetary resources, but many of them are considered major, or even catastrophic.
You might have heard about the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures’ network, which the FBI attributed to the North Korean government. More recently, Russian hackers have been accused of tampering with voting systems in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and with Ukranian businesses and governmental agencies.
Hackers are continuously looking for new vulnerabilities to exploit. When networks are not secured, information about organizations and individuals, and even our government are at risk of being exposed or leveraged against us.
Information security analysts develop and implement security measures to protect an organization’s computer networks. As the number of cyber-attacks increases, their knowledge and expertise are in growing demand.
If you’re considering a career in information technology, it’s important that you understand the basics of network security, that’s why CyberSRC^® giving you Network Penetration Testing.

At a high level, a network vulnerability assessment and penetration testing can be categorize into 2 different types.

Internal VAPT – In this, only the internal network is in scope. Internal servers, firewalls and data components such as database servers or file servers are of key importance from vulnerability scanning perspective. Since the test is to be performed from within the network, only vulnerability assessment is performed, while penetration testing is not performed. Internal security assessment can be performed by physically being inside the network premises or by performing a remote session into the network.

External VAPT – In this type, the external perimeter is scanned over internet. Since the testing occurs from outside the premises, the vulnerability assessment is certainly followed by a detailed penetration testing. In the former, the security bugs or problems are found out by vulnerability scanning while in the later, those bugs are tried for exploitation
Besides this, there are multiple other types of VAPT which mainly focus on the network components such as firewall VAPT, Servers VAPT etc.

Network security testing is important for any corporate to protect their intellectual property. Most of the attacks being internal, it is imperative to scan the networks periodically and fix the loopholes. This helps corporates achieve a better cyber security posture of their IT corporate network, by protecting their data from internal and external threats.

As an example, consider a famous bank in India, which got hacked by hackers who stole money via ATM skimming. In other cases, many manufacturing companies get targeted malware attacks or their internal employees steal data and sell it for profits. Below are few facts which become the key driver to perform a VAPT of IT systems. 

• As per Gartner, 78% of attacks happen from within the network
• External attacks become easily possible due to availability of hacking tools
• Firewall mis-configurations are one major cause of data leakage and hackings
• Server patching contributes into network security vulnerabilities to a great extent

• IT product companies to protect their code and data
• IT services companies to prevent external attacks
• Manufacturing companies to protect their designs, drawings and inventory data 
• Finance companies to protect their finance data, secure money transactions and records
• Pharma companies having their own patents about drug formulas and intellectual properties
• All firms and corporates who process or store their data as well as data belonging to their customers

When it comes to security, VAPT offers excessive benefits to an organization, let’s have a look on some of the benefits.

• Helps identify and prioritize the organization’s risks
• Minimizes the likelihood of data thefts and breaches
• Helps safeguard sensitive data and intellectual property
• Achieves a step towards various information security compliances such as ISO27001, GDPR, HIPAA etc)
• Helps organization to gain trust in their customer’s minds
• Put the teams in a discipline which helps increase productivity
• Identify known security exposures before attackers find them
• Create an inventory of all the devices on the network, including purpose and system information.
• Define the level of risk that exists on the network.
• Establish a business risk/benefit curve and optimize security investments.

Several methods like Google search are utilized for getting the target system data. You can also use the web page source code analysis technique for getting additional information about the plugin versions, software, and system. Many services and tools out there in the market can offer you information such as table names, database, software versions, DB versions, and many 3rd party plugins used in the target system, and hardware used.

As per the data collected in the First step, you can look for safety weakness in the target system. This helps the penetration testers for launching attacks using the identified entry points in the system.

This requires special techniques and skills for launching an attack on the target system. Professional penetration testers can utilize their skills to launch an attack on the system.

Testers of the right online VAPT provider understands the response of a target app to several intrusion attacks. Static as well as dynamic analysis is used in this situation. The former method is used to check whether the application code is behaving in the exact way it should be while running or not and the latter one involves its inspection in the running condition.

After penetration tests are done, detailed reports are prepared to take corrective actions. All the identified vulnerabilities as well as suggested corrective methods are mentioned in the reports. If you want, you can conveniently personalize the report format (XML, HTML, PDF, or MS Word) according to the needs of your organization.

CyberSRC^® Networks uses highly technical industry standard tools to perform vulnerability scanning, vulnerability assessment and the network penetration testing. While the tools certainly add value in saving time and automating the process, primarily a manual testing approach is used.

A team of certified experts capture logs, analyze those and Fix the vulnerabilities. This is done to mimic real life hackers, thus further increasing the accuracy of the results. Following a high level list of tools that we use in network pentesting.

• Kali Linux tools
• BurpSuit
• Nmap scanner
• Retina scanner
• Nessus scanner
• Nexpose scanner
• NSE scripts
• Telnet and other TCPIP tools
• Packet crafters and injectors
• And many more……