Comparing Two Penetration Testing Methodologies. Penetration Testing Dissertation

Comparing Two Penetration Testing Methodologies. Penetration Testing versus Vulnerability Assessment - Dissertation Example Penetration testing methodology explains the roadmap by defining the practical ideas and practices that have been proven and have to be applied with great care so as to ensure that the security system is assessed correctly. This penetration testing process can be conducted either independently or as an IT security part of risk management included in regular lifecycle development such as Microsoft SDLC. It is important to consider that a product’s security depends on both the IT environment related factors and the specific security practices. This includes appropriate security requirements implementation, risk analysis performance, modeling threat, reviews on code, and security measurements that are operational. PenTest is regarded as the final and the most aggressive means of security assessment practiced by professionals who are best qualified either without or with prior information on the system being examined. This process can be used in the assessment of all the infrastru cture components of IT including network devices, applications, communication medium, operating systems, human psychology as well as physical security. The penetration testing output normally includes a report that is usually divided into sections that are filled with information on the weaknesses identified in system’s current state and the section is then followed by the appropriate counter measures and the possible recommendations. This means that penetration testing methodological process offers benefits that are extensive to the pentester ensuring a better understanding and enabling a critical analysis of the integrity of the existing defenses in every testing stage (McGraw, 1999, p. 45) Penetration Testing versus Vulnerability Assessment Since the start of the rapid growth of the IT security industry, there has been an increase in the intensive diversity numbers when it comes to understanding as well as practicing the most suitable security assessment processes and term inologies. That trend has not left out non-commercial organizations and companies who in most cases confuse or misinterpret the process and regard the process as contradicting specific security assessment types. Vulnerability assessment is regarded as the process through which both the external and the internal security controls are assessed through the identification of the threats that may result in serous exposure of the assets of a given organization. This infrastructure process technically evaluates the points indicating existing defenses risks and goes ahead to recommend as well as prioritize the possible strategies that can be applicable for remediation. A vulnerability assessment carried out internally offers a securing assurance for the internal systems while the assessment conducted externally demonstrates the perimeter defenses security. In both this testing, each network asset undergoes a rigorous testing that is normally against attack vectors that are multiple in an ef fort to identify threats that are unattended to and try to justify the reactive measures. Depending on the assessment type, unique sets of tools, processes and techniques used in the testing are followed in order to identify and detect information assets vulnerability in a fashion that is automated. This is easily accomplished through the use of a vulnerability management podium that is integrated enabling it to manage vulnerabilities database that