Penetration testing and vulnerability assessments are vital for enforcing better security and ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations. Also known as pen testing, this service enables you to uncover how exposed your systems to wide range of quantifiable cyber threats, both externally and internally. SWK Technologies will help you get a more accurate measure of your cyber risk – governed by NIST standards – and manage the hidden cybersecurity gaps in your network to make sure you meet modern regulatory standards.
Here is a list of reasons why you need penetration testing, and how it solves your security and compliance needs:
How a Penetration Test Helps Enforce Security & Compliance
A simple explanation of pen testing is that it is a quick method of discovering if your systems are vulnerable, and if so, narrowing down exactly which are in danger. SWK’s comprehensive service includes an investigate approach that leads to an in-depth assessment of where your greatest vulnerabilities lie. After performing both external and internal penetration tests, we combine our findings with additional research into your business to mimic what hackers would be able to find, including leveraging Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) to gauge the impact of social engineering.
Network Vulnerability Assessment
Fully measuring the vulnerability of your network assets is critical to uncovering and understanding the challenges you face in maintaining security and compliance for your business. SWK’s vulnerability assessment will help map out where your systems and data are at risk, and how severe the danger is in each area.
External Security Assessment
SWK will scan and perform testing of your selected IP addresses, while also investigating outward-facing information sources to compare against recorded vulnerabilities that have been confirmed by multiple validation techniques. After threats have been quantified according to rate of vulnerability and sensitivity of data access, this information will be consolidated to produce your external security assessment.
Internal Security Assessment
Just with the external assessment, the internal security assessment includes a penetration test, investigative research and vulnerability validation but focuses instead on identifying and quantifying insider risks. These types of threats exist in cyber hygiene as well as in technology usage, meaning that practice is often the deciding factor in remediation and could make these dangers much more severe.
Threat Reporting & Visibility
Testing is followed by detailed reporting to ensure your business has complete visibility into identified threats and how much damager they could result in if not addressed. SWK will walk your team through the full extent of the risk in our assessment and provide recommendations for solving these issues as decisively as possible.
Reasons Why You Need Pen Testing
There are many security and compliance factors that make penetration testing an increasingly mission-critical service for protecting your organization’s data, reputation and profitability. Many of these are also feeding into each at growing rates, since regulators are desperately attempting to catch up with the modern realities of cybersecurity, while hackers are trying to get ahead of emerging technologies and improving education among would-be victims. A single overlooked gap can turn into a breach and follow-up fines if you do not address it as quickly and decisively as possible.
Data Security Regulations
There is a laundry list of data privacy and security regulations emerging on top of each other, and the number of agencies you need to report to can grow exponentially in certain industries, like financial services firms and defense contractors. Because of the various legislative paces between every regulatory body from municipal governments to international associations, several American companies are faced with multiple levels of compliance requirements. The good news is that quite a few of these share core obligations and standards, though it is vital that your organization knows for which of these pen testing is an absolute necessity.
International/Multinational
Retailers, service firms and other businesses that collect personal and credit data from clients need to mind the PII (personally identifiable information) and PCI (payment card information) they store. The European Union’s GDPR governs the collection and protection of the PII of its citizens, while the PCI DSS is applicable both in the EU and US (along with the ISO).
National
Although the US lagged behind others in passing broad national cybersecurity regulations, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 paved the way for creating a far-reaching data security standard among those labeled Critical Infrastructure Sectors by CISA. Under this law, a wide variety of businesses including certain manufacturers, service firms, educational facilities, real estate companies and more must report a security incident such as breach within 72 hours.
Regional
Many US state governments and individual agencies have taken it upon themselves to implement and enforce their own versions of data privacy regulations, including California’s CCPA and the New York Department of Finance’s (NYDFS) 23 NYCRR 500.
Industry
Besides the prominent state and now national-level regulations, industries such as healthcare, financial services and IT are also caught between federal and market regulators that oversee their sectors. Agencies like the SEC and FINRA are increasingly introducing cybersecurity guidelines, while HIPAA has long stipulated rules for PHI (protected health information) that inherently extend to the digital realm.
Threat Landscape Evolution
Cyber incidents have been almost ubiquitous in the news cycle, with reports of new breaches occurring daily quite often and shocking displays of sophistication, cunning and ruthlessness from hackers. Spear phishing, ransomware, double extortion and all the other popular forms of cybercrime have evolved into a robust ecosystem of malicious tools and actors willing to use them, with various levels of experience but no lack of enthusiasm among them. The common thread in virtually ever cyber attack is human error or negligence, which gives attackers the opportunity to strike where a breach is least expected.
Security & Compliance Gaps
Network security and regulatory standards are going through their own changes, as has been mentioned here already. The growing commercialization of cybercrime has increased education and intelligence sharing among hackers, at a time when many businesses are still trying to contend with huge technology shifts and the new requirements they bring. Something like an overlooked command in one legacy program can do overwhelming damage if you company if it is left unaddressed, but it takes the knowledge to know what to look for and a lot of time invested to uncover all of these potential vulnerabilities.
See Penetration Testing in Action
Penetration testing is increasingly one of many critical requirements of data regulations (alongside other solutions like MFA and backups), and to ensure both your continued compliance and security against outside and insider threats, your business must look into a solution that meets common cybersecurity guidelines. Reach out to SWK Technologies today to learn more about our pen testing services and see their potential impact for yourself.
Contact SWK here to learn more our penetration test and vulnerability assessment services, and see a successful test in action.
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