Network security has emerged as one of the most essential parts of the general cybersecurity as companies develop their digital ecosystems. Each device, server, and connection presents possible points of attack to attackers. Although firewalls and antivirus software constitute the portion of your protection, it is not impeccable. To provide complete resilience, the organization should conduct external network penetration testing and internal network penetration testing. These two types of tests give a 360 View of your network that reveals the vulnerabilities that are on the outside and the vulnerabilities that are on the inside.
What Is External Network Penetration Testing?
External network penetration testing imitators an external cyber-attack that is initiated outside the walls of your company. It is aimed at detecting the vulnerabilities that can be used by external hackers to obtain unauthorized access.
In this test, the ethical hackers study your publicly accessible resources, including web servers, VPNs, routers, and email gateways, to know their level of security.
Typical tests involve:
• Port Scanning: The intervention of open ports that make the services accessible on the internet.
• Firewall Testing: Testing the effectiveness of your firewall settings to filter malicious traffic.
• DNS and SSL Analysis: Determining weak or old encryption protocols.
• Vulnerability Exploitation: Testing the found vulnerabilities in reality.
External testing will make your organization secure, compliant, and threat-ready by identifying these problems before they can become the targets of criminals.
Internal Network Penetration Testing
Whereas the external tests focus on the external threats, the internal network penetration testing is used to simulate the attacker that already has a partial access to your internal environment. It may be an unhappy employee, a stolen computer, or even a hacker outside who has found the loophole to get around your gates using phishing.
Internal testing focuses on:
• Privilege Escalation: Is the low-level account able to access administration?
• Lateral Movement: How far would an attacker go between connected systems?
• Data Exfiltration: Do they have critical files that are under protection or are they easily removable?
• Patch and Configuration Review: Are Routers, databases and servers properly upgraded?
This test identifies vulnerabilities that could not be identified by conventional firewalls or intrusion prevention systems like unmonitored endpoints, weak credentials, or bad network segmentation.
Why Both Tests Are Essential
Only one form of penetration testing would not give a complete picture. Outside testing would help secure your perimeter but inside testing would secure your core. Combining them provides complete insight into the ways attackers would use any loophole in your protection.
Benefits include:
• Detailed Risk Awareness: Be aware of all levels of vulnerabilities.
• Better Response Options: Check how fast your SOC team identifies and responds to intrusions.
• Regulatory Compliance: ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA and SOC 2.
• Less Downtime and Loss: Eliminate data breach before it disrupts.
Companies that invest in either of the two testing types tend to learn about previously unnoticed vulnerabilities and significantly increase resilience.
The process of testing in Aardwolf Security
Our ethical hackers at Aardwolf Security are guided by an organized approach in line with the latest standards in the industry (NIST SP 800-115 and OWASP Testing Framework).
The process includes:
1. Scoping: This is getting to know your network architecture and testing parameters.
2. Reconnaissance: Mapping services, access points and mapping systems.
3. Exploitation: Doing safe attack simulation to assess real risk impact.
4. Reporting: Providing prioritized remediation advice.
5. Post-Test Consultation: Why support your team in areas of weakness and adopting long-term security controls.
We do not only aim to discover weak points but improve them in a more efficient and sustainable manner.
How Often Should You Test?
Network penetration testing is not a project. The threats keep on changing, and so should your defence mechanism. What is best practice is to perform testing:
• As an annual risk management strategy
• Upon significant infrastructure or software modifications
• After mergers, takeovers or network growth
• When the compliance audits or incidences require a more thorough examination
Continuous testing can give you a constant confirmation that your security posture is in line with the prevailing threats.
Conclusion
The external network penetration testing and internal network penetration testing is effective and can constitute an effective defense mechanism. They identify threats that are seen and those that are not visible, and they make certain that your systems are strengthened on all angles. By collaborating with Aardwolf Security, you can establish control over your cybersecurity stance building resilience, asset protection and maintenance of uninterrupted business operations in the ever-growing complex threat environment.
