Pentesting is one essential part of the entire compliance process. Companies can validate their cyber risks and mitigate them using Pentesting. This is significant for companies that deal with sensitive data and are prone to cyber attack.
Cyber threats are evolving at an alarming rate. Hence, compliant firms are increasingly pressured by investors and regulators to protect their products against data breaches such as malwares, phishing, and ransomware. While these companies are open to assess greatest technology tools to help curb these breaches, penetration testing remains a vital tool that can aid in detecting and identifying vulnerabilities that are troubling a company’s overall security posture.
Therefore, in this article, we will outline what penetesting is, why it is important, and the benefits of pentesting in relation to compliance.
What is Pentesting?
Pentesting, also known as penetration testing, is a process of testing a computer system, network or web application to find potential vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.
Penetration testing is more rigorous than vulnerability testing. Penetration testing stimulates an attack to exploit weaknesses in order to improve the security in your systems, while Vulnerability assessment is not enough to test systems against all the possible options of exploitation that malicious hackers have.
In a penetration test, a qualified ethical hacker is allowed to scale the cybersecurity wall the company has built and discover the weak areas. Hence, this test or upgrading are vital to the security of a company so as to meet its regulatory requirements.
Why Is Pentesting Important For Your Company?
Miri Adjiashvili’s quote and mantra, addresses the importance of continuous penetration testing by emphasizing that ‘once is not enough’.
Since threat actors always target organizations and never stop discovering new vulnerabilities, it is important for companies to implore continuous penetration testing models.
That said, these are the reasons your company needs pentesting:
● It shows you the strength of your defense
● It helps your team detect and respond to threats better.
● It gives your organization and team more confidence.
● It strengthens customer trust and loyalty.
● It gives you an opportunity to fix vulnerabilities before an attacker does.
● It uncovers major vulnerabilities and prioritizes them into critical, low and medium.
5 Benefits of Pentesting in Relation to Compliance
Pentesting in relation to compliance is in different aspects. It depends on your company’s profile and regulatory requirements.
Since every business works in different ways, some organizations may fall within the scope of regulatory standards like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Acts (HIPAA) and SOC2 that may help mitigate threat and secure compliance.
In addition, whether regular or annual testing is performed on a company’s security system, the most vital part is to manage the risk properly and help your company meet compliance requirements.
However, the question is what are the 5 benefits of pentesting in relation to compliance?
Here are the common benefits:
1. Risk Prioritization: Pentesting identifies your high risk vulnerabilities so you can prioritize your remediation activities.
2. Security Culture: Pentesting aids in demonstrating mature security culture within the business.
3. Meet Standards: It helps meet regulatory and compliance standards, such as PCI DSS and ISO27001 .
4. Data Security: Pentesting shows your clients that securing their data is important.
5. Protection from financial damage: A simple breach of the security system may cause millions of dollars of damage. Penetration testing can protect your company from such damages.
Conclusion
Pentesting is a better option if you want to ensure your company is protected against cyber threats. Hence, penetration testing in relation to compliance is very important for organization security regulation.
To enhance your company’s security, it’s not only important to identify the vulnerabilities but you need to take quick action to address them. Our penetration testing service at A&D Forensics, provides clear remediation advice to help protect your systems.
To speak with our expert for a consultation about our penetration testing, you can reach out to us here.
Contributor: Loveth Odije
