Penetration testing, or pentest for short, is an exercise to identify exploitable vulnerabilities in applications, infrastructure, networks, devices, physical facilities, and users. However, applications and networks are the most common in the scope of pentests. It s performed by skilled professionals, often referred to as ethical hackers or White Hats. Ethical hackers use a combination of automated and manual tools to identify vulnerabilities. The goal of this exercise is to identify and address security risks before unethical hackers, or Black Hats, do.

Most companies cannot permanently retain ethical hackers, so, penetration tests are usually performed by third parties. The tests also help to simulate real hackers as close as possible because just like hackers, third party testers have no or limited knowledge of the company’s people, processes, and technologies.

Any organization that has sensitive data on its applications and system that needs to be protected from unauthorized access or destruction has to conduct periodic penetration testing. Testing applications and networks for vulnerabilities is the best way to protect a company from data breaches.

Additionally, many enterprises contractually require their third-party service providers to conduct periodic penetration tests and timely address identified vulnerabilities. 

Planet 9 has partnered with Cobal.io, a Pentest as a Service platform, to provide penetration testing services to its clients. Planet 9 will manage the pentest from start to finish, including:

• Define the pentest scope based on a company’s risks and requirements
• Prepare the test environment
• Engage with Cobalt.io and initiate the testing
• Prioritize identified vulnerabilities
• Develop a remediation plan
• Assist with retesting addressed vulnerabilities
• Implement processes to prevent vulnerabilities in infrastructure and code