External Penetration Testing Service

Finding Vulnerabilities in your network is a never ending process and you should be performing regular vulnerability scans in order to be aware of the threats. We recommended performing scans on a quarterly basis or after a major network change as a minimum as this minimises your exposure.

Wizard Cyber can offer a fully managed solution or a one off scan but they both include the same great service and results.

To defend your business critical assets, it’s vital to identify and respond to security vulnerabilities before cyber criminals can find and exploit them. All too often traditional vulnerability scans just inundate already overstretched security teams with reports that are too granular or not specific enough to be actionable which leaves your business exposed.

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Benefits of External Penetration Testing with Wizard Cyber

Experienced Consultants

With over 15 years combined corporate expertise in the field of information assurance & penetration testing

Bespoke penetration testing

We will develop a test that fits your business needs

Testing Tools

We use open source and commercial tools and our own testing apps developed by our in-house software development team

Fully accredited

Certified by CREST and with qualifications from EC Council, Offensive Security and SANS

Reporting

Clear and easy to understand reports including recommendations for remediation and improvement

Fair Pricing

Fixed price proposals with fully detailed project scope and no unexpected costs

Talk to us, before you need us

If you would like your internal or external network tested or you have a web application/portal that requires testing then we can help with any pen-testing project.

The benefits of an external penetration test

Our penetration tests will help you:

Gain real-world insight into your vulnerabilities;
Identify what information a rogue employee could exploit;
Determine whether partner organisations access more internal resources than you intended;
Identify any patches that need to be installed;
Harden your access controls; and
Enable encryption or choose a more secure protocol.

Is an external network penetration test right for you?

If you are responsible for your internal network, you should ask yourself:

Are your workstations and devices secure?
Is there a risk to your network from weak/default passwords?
Can someone on the inside gain access to the entire internal network?
Do you suffer from information leakage?
Have you assessed your intranet application for vulnerabilities?
Are your systems adequately patched?
Is your third-party access robust?

Penetration Testing Services Available

Wizard Cyber offer a range of penetration testing services to fit your requirements. Please click on the links below to find out more information about each pentest service.

Other Penetration Testing Services

Build Review

Build review examines the configuration and security controls of any given asset

Wireless

Designed to assess your wireless network for vulnerabilities

IoT

Identify and validate security vulnerabilities within IoT devices

VPN

Secure access for remote workers to your internal network

Code Review

Detailed code analysis to find security flaws in product source code

Our Process

The 5 steps below are broad categories and can generally be applied to multiple infrastructure assessment types, regardless of whether it is internal, external or some other combination.

Initial Scoping

The first phase in the methodology is an initial scoping discussion to set the parameters for the project. This ensures that all the critical parts of the network that need to be included in their assessment are identified at the outset, avoiding potential problems later in the process.

Reconnaissance

The Reconnaissance step will utilise both Passive and Active Information Gathering. Our consultants will utilise public sources and intelligence to collect information about your organisation and the network. We will interrogate search engines and public records to collect information, which will help in the assessment of the target network.

In the case of an internal assessment, passive information gathering will also include sniffing wired and wireless networks to collect network protocol information, address details, and user credentials.

Information discovered during the passive information-gathering phase is used to start probing the network, map the network, and identify the active hosts. Once the active hosts are identified, further probes are used to detect any open ports and what services they are running before using fingerprinting techniques to identify the operating system running on the host.

Assessment

The assessment phase aims to check known vulnerabilities against the operating systems and services that have been identified as present in the network. Any medium level vulnerabilities and higher that are identified are manually confirmed, preventing false positives from being reported. Attempts are also made to exploit common operating system vulnerabilities to check the privileged access level that can be achieved.

Our consultants will attempt to access these resources both with the default password and commonly used username and password combinations for services that require a username and password authentication.

In practical terms, the assessment phase typically comprises internal, ‘White Box’ and ‘Black Box’ tests.

Reporting

At the end of the discovery and assessment phase, clients are presented with an executive summary and a more detailed report. The summary lists the key findings along with the top ten recommendations for remedial action. A table of hosts is provided together with the total number of vulnerabilities identified at each severity level.

The full assessment report goes into greater detail for each host, including the open ports identified, services available on those ports, identified vulnerabilities and remediation advice.

Presentation

Once the executive summary and full assessment report are created, they are sent to the customer securely for review before scheduling a de-brief call or if required a face to face meeting. The de-brief call or meeting is an opportunity for you to discuss any major issues arising from the assessment with the lead consultant, who will formally present the report’s findings.

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FAQs

If you have any further questions about our penetration testing service that are not answered below please feel free to call us on 0333 311 0121 or book a meeting with one of our cyber security experts

What is penetration testing?

Penetration testing is where someone takes on a hacker’s role and attempts to compromise or gain unauthorised access to a network or an application. Also known as white hat hacking, a qualified professional will use automated tools and manual processes to uncover any vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that present a cyber-security risk. A penetration test will give companies an overview of their security posture, highlighting flaws and allowing them to be patched before malicious hackers target them. Also known as white hat or ethical hacking, penetration tests are a vital part of an effective security strategy and are a mandatory component of many compliance schemes.

What are the different types of penetration testing?

Several types of penetration testing can be defined as either black, white or grey box testing. It’s also worth specifying there is a difference between an application test and an infrastructure test. As the name suggests, an application test is where a tester looks for flaws within an application to see if there’s any way to get at data or manipulate functionality in a way that wasn’t intended. This can involve cookie theft, XSS, man-in-the-middle attacks etc. On the other hand, infrastructure tests are where the tester attempts to gain entrance to a corporate network.

Black box testing
Black box testing is the closest simulation of real-world hacking in that the tester will know very little, if anything, about the target other than what is publicly available. These are often the least time-consuming tests as it relies solely on the tester discovering vulnerabilities in outwardly facing components. However, whilst these tests accurately represent real-life situations, they will not pick up any vulnerabilities, or misconfigurations present internally. Therefore, they cannot predict what damage an internal threat may cause.

White box testing
White box testing offers the most thorough security test. The tester has a full understanding of the application or infrastructure, how it works, and access from various levels. Likely, they’ll even have access to the source code or have a full detailed map of the internal infrastructure. The tester will probe for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations to gain access from an external position and look to see what damage can be done from an internal perspective.

Grey box testing
Grey box testing is a blend of black and white box testing and is often the most popular test type. The tester will have limited knowledge of the target, potentially including some documentation. They will often have basic user-level access, allowing for partial testing of the target’s internals.

What is the difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test?

The terms penetration test and vulnerability assessment are often wrongly used interchangeably. A vulnerability assessment uses an automated tool to scan a network or application for known vulnerabilities. A penetration test is more involved and encompasses many aspects, providing you with a more comprehensive overview of your overall security.

A vulnerability scan may well be used in the initial stages of a penetration test to see any easily exploited flaws to work with. The tester will then go a step further, using brute-forcing, code injections, social engineering and other methods to exploit the vulnerability to gain access.

What are the stages of a penetration test?

All penetration test projects will start with an accurate scoping. Once the boundaries have been agreed upon and a goal decided upon, testers will begin some reconnaissance. This is the starting point for any hacker and the beginning of the cyber kill chain. This may include looking for any related URLs or domains that could be considered in scope and increase the attack area or conducting some vulnerability scans on their target. If social engineering is included in the test, recon activity may include searching publicly available sources for staff contact details, staff pass designs or email address formats.

The testers will then attempt to exploit any weakness found to gain unauthorised access. This can often have a trial and error-based approach. If successful, the tester will find out the extent of a hacker’s potential reach, compile some evidence and then provide a detailed report along with remediation advice.

Tests will often follow these steps:

Scoping
Reconnaissance
Active Scanning and Vulnerability Analysis
Mapping and Service Identification
Application Analysis
Service Exploitation
Privilege Escalation
Pivoting
Reporting & Debrief

Do I need a penetration test?

It’s recommended that businesses perform penetration tests at least annually or whenever a significant change is made to the environment. Certain compliance packages, such as PCI DSS, make regular penetration tests mandatory. If you want good cyber security, you need a penetration test.

What will I find in my penetration test report?

The content of a report will always depend on who has written the report. Wizard Cybers reports always contain a high-level business executive summary before drilling into an in-depth breakdown of each vulnerability, weakness or misconfiguration discovered, along with the mitigation and remediation advice. We will provide this in order of severity and priority.

How often should penetration testing be carried out?

Penetration testing should be conducted at least once per year.

We would also recommend conducting a penetration test any time you make significant changes to your infrastructure or network, such as when you make an upgrade to software or move to a new office. Our team can advise the best solution for your organisation.

Contact us for more information

Please fill out the form below or call us directly on +44 (0) 333 311 0121.

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