{"id":8633,"date":"2022-06-17T10:08:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T10:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/?p=8633"},"modified":"2025-07-09T01:32:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T01:32:41","slug":"penetration-testing-stages-and-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/penetration-testing-stages-and-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"Penetration Testing: Stages and Methods"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align:center\">What is penetration testing?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><em>Penetration testing is a method by which the security of computer systems and networks can be assessed by simulating a <a href=\"\/hacker\">hacker\u2019s attack<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">It is possible to attempt cracking systems and applications via penetration testing. It allows identifying vulnerabilities in applications&#8217; interfaces, application programming interfaces, or elsewhere in the system. If such vulnerabilities are not fixed on time, they are most likely to be attacked later through <a href=\"\/code-injection\">code penetration<\/a>. That justifies penetration testing, which is also called <strong>ethical hacking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\">Penetration testing stages<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\"><strong>Planning and reconnaissance<\/strong><br \/>\nthis step includes the following items:<\/br\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">Defining the purpose and scope of testing. The same applies to systems that require solutions, and include testing methods in the process.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">In order to better understand how the target works and its possible vulnerabilities, it is necessary to collect information about the mail service, network domains and other related things.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\"><strong>Scanning<\/strong><br \/>\nScanning will be the next step. This will help to understand how the targeted application reacts to intrusion attempts. It is important to do this by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">Static analysis &#8211; this code check helps to determine its behavior during operation. In one pass, these tools can scan the entire code.<\/li>\n<li>Dynamic analysis &#8211; this method is more practical, as it provides the application with real-time performance representation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\"><strong>Gaining Access<\/strong><br \/>\nIntersite scripting, backdoors and SQL injections are used to identify vulnerabilities in this attack on websites. To understand what the underlying damage can be, you should use vulnerabilities, by stealing data, intercepting traffic, increasing privileges and more.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\"><strong>Maintaining access<\/strong><br \/>\nThis phase aims to determine whether vulnerabilities can be used to allow an intruder to be present in the exploited system and to gain full access to the device. The ultimate goal, of course, is to steal confidential data by imitating persistent threats.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\"><strong>Analysis<\/strong><br \/>\nAs a result of Penetration testing, it is possible to obtain:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">\nSpecific vulnerability<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">Confidential data<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align:justify\">The time during which Penetration testing could go unnoticed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">The whole above described process is analyzed by the security system to decide how to fix the vulnerabilities in the system, configure the WAF (Web Application Firewall) parameters, and recognize similar attacks in the future.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9577\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9577\" style=\"width: 790px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-9577\" src=\"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/penetration-testing-works-300x190.webp\" alt=\"This diagram shows the stages and components of penetration testing.\" width=\"790\" height=\"500\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/penetration-testing-works-300x190.webp 300w, https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/penetration-testing-works-768x486.webp 768w, https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/penetration-testing-works.webp 790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9577\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This diagram shows the stages and components of penetration testing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\">Penetration testing methods<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:left\">External testing<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">An act of <strong>ethical hacking<\/strong> as it is. Through this method, external tester can access domain names, email servers, company websites, web applications and eventually extract all relevant information from them.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:left\">Internal testing<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">This method is <strong>simulated<\/strong>. An hacker imitates an attack that seems to have access to an application behind a firewall. It starts with the fact that the attacker, thanks to a <strong><a href=\"\/phishing\">phishing attack<\/a><\/strong>, steals the employee\u2019s credentials, and then, thanks to this data, imitates subsequent attacks.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:left\">Blind testing<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">In carrying out this attack, the <strong>tester knows only what will be his target company<\/strong>. But there\u2019s an advantage for the security team: they are expecting some sort of attack, and they can watch it in real time.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:left\">Double-blind testing<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">In this case, the security service will not be able to construct a defense before the hack, as it <strong>will not have advanced information<\/strong> about the attack.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:left\">Targeted testing<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">This method involves the work of the tester and security personnel together. It is a kind of an exercise wherein the <strong>security team receives a feedback<\/strong> from a hacker\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\">Penetration testing and Web Application Firewalls<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Penetration testing and WAF can be considered some <strong>mutually beneficial<\/strong> security measures. The employer of many testing methods will use just WAF data (use and detection of weaknesses, logs..) But this data is also beneficial for WAF administrators too, considering the right feedback is established. They can update the WAF after completion of the test and thus protect against weaknesses that were detected during the test itself.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9579\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9579\" style=\"width: 789px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-9579\" src=\"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/web-application-firewall-300x162.webp\" alt=\"Web Application Firewall\" width=\"789\" height=\"426\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/web-application-firewall-300x162.webp 300w, https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/web-application-firewall-768x414.webp 768w, https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/web-application-firewall.webp 790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 789px) 100vw, 789px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9579\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Web Application Firewall applies a set of rules to filter incoming and outbound traffic of the protected system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Penetration testing can also be useful for security audit procedures such as <strong>SOC 2<\/strong> and <strong>PCI-DSS<\/strong>. In the case of PCI-DSS 6.6, this can only happen when using a certified WAF. But this characteristic does not make Penetration testing less useful and does not reduce all of its above-mentioned abilities and benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is penetration testing? Penetration testing is a method by which the security of computer systems and networks can be assessed by simulating a hacker\u2019s attack. It is possible to attempt cracking systems and applications via penetration testing. It allows identifying vulnerabilities in applications&#8217; interfaces, application programming interfaces, or elsewhere in the system. If such [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[619,410],"class_list":{"0":"post-8633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-labs","8":"tag-cybersecurity","9":"tag-hacking"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/penetration-testing.webp","author_info":{"display_name":"Stephanie Adlam","author_link":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/author\/adlam\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8633"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9581,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions\/9581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridinsoft.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}