VAPT is an acronym for Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing. It's a service through which corporate IT networks are scanned and tested for the presence of security loopholes. Leaving such loopholes can result in the exploitation and hacking of the data, which should ideally be protected by the IT networks.
TYPES OF NETWORK VAPT
At a high level, network vulnerability assessment and penetration testing can be categorised into two different types.
Internal VA: In this, only the internal network is in scope. Internal servers, firewalls, and data components such as database servers or file servers are of key importance from a vulnerability scanning perspective. Since the test is to be performed from within the network, only vulnerability assessment is performed, while penetration testing is not performed. Internal security assessment can be performed by physically being inside the network premises or by performing a remote session into the network.
External VAPT: In this type, the external perimeter is scanned over the internet.
Since the testing occurs outside the premises, the vulnerability assessment is certainly followed by detailed
penetration testing. In the former, the security bugs or problems are found by vulnerability scanning, while in the
latter, those bugs are tried for exploitation. Please refer to the links page for more information.Besides this, there
are multiple other types of VAPT that mainly focus on the network components, such as firewall VAPT, server VAPT, etc.
WHY NETWORK VAPT IS DONE?
Network security testing is important for any corporation to protect their intellectual property. With most of the attacks being internal, it is imperative to scan the networks periodically and fix the loopholes. This helps corporations achieve a better cyber security posture for their IT corporate network by protecting their data from internal and external threats.
As an example, consider a famous bank in India that got hacked by hackers who stole money via ATM skimming. In other cases, many manufacturing companies get targeted malware attacks, or their internal employees steal data and sell it for profits. Below are a few facts that become the key drivers for performing a VAPT of IT systems.
As per Gartner, 78% of attacks happen from within the network.
External attacks become easily possible due to the availability of hacking tools.
Firewall misconfigurations are one major cause of data leakage and hacking.
Server patching contributes to network security vulnerabilities to a great extent.
COMPANIES WHO SHOULD GET VAPT DONE
While there cannot really be an exception to the industry sectors needing cyber security, the below examples can demonstrate the real need for vulnerability assessment services. It is highly advised to get a VAPT done by one of the top cyber security companies or the best network security company.
- IT product companies to protect their code and data
- IT services companies to prevent external attacks
- Manufacturing companies must protect their designs, drawings, and inventory data.
- Finance companies must protect their financial data and secure money transactions and records.
- Pharma companies have their own patents about drug formulas and intellectual properties.
- All firms and corporations that process or store their data as well as data belonging to their customers
VAPT SHOULD BE PERFORMED? HOW FREQUENTLY
There is no definitive answer to this question. However, a thumb rule says that the greater the sensitivity and criticality of the data, the higher the frequency. Typically, organisations choose a six-month cycle, while the finance sector chooses quarterly pentesting of their IT infrastructure. There had been cases whereby the data was so critical that the organisations chose to perform weekly testing just to be very sure of their cyber security posture.
As another thumb rule, the frequency is directly proportional to the size of the network as well as the hacking or data leakage incidents occurring within the organization. Any critical change in the network devices ideally calls for a VAPT of those components.
WHEN TO PERFORM NETWORK VAPT ?
Whenever there is a change in firewall configuration, server patching, application changes, or addition or removal of IT infrastructure, a detailed vulnerability assessment is required to be performed. In many cases, if the change is internal only, a vulnerability assessment is good enough.
For example, a change in the entire firewall should call for a detailed VAPT to be performed internally and externally. Whereas a set of servers patched can call for an internal-only vulnerability assessment. It is an art to decide when to perform vulnerability assessment only and when to further go for penetration testing.
VERACITY NETWORK PENTESTING APPROACH
We bring years of expertise and experience to our service offerings. Veracity is a reputed top network pentesting company because we follow a carefully designed approach that varies from customer to customer. Below are a few differentiators that make us the best pentesting company in India and abroad.
- • Customised vulnerability scanning
- • Technical network security checklist
- • Industry-standard tool
- • Non-destructive methodology of network scanning
- • Internal and external vulnerability assessment
- • Detailed penetration testing with proof-of-concept
- • A risk assessment-based approach
- • A highly technical vulnerability assessment report with evidence
WHAT ARE THE 4 TYPES OF IT SECURITY ?
Every organisation has some data to protect. The data, if stolen, can cause huge damage to an organisation, both reputational and financial. Hence, it becomes vital to secure all the paths via which one can access data.
Here is when IT security comes into play. It is nothing but deploying strategies that can guarantee end-to-end security to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data, whether it is in transit or at rest.
1. Application Security:
With almost the entire population being dependent on one or another kind of application to get their job done, it has really become important to tighten the security around them. Applications can be of any kind, such as websites, mobile apps, cloud-hosted apps, and so on and so forth.
It is always better to introduce security early in the development of an application rather than do it later. It is also important to conduct a timely evaluation of your application against vulnerabilities.2. Network Security:
Once the attacker is in your network, there is no way to stop him from doing the damage. Hence, network security, both internal and external, becomes crucial to the well-being of an organization. It makes sure to restrict access to only those who are supposed to be accessing the network.
A detailed vulnerability scan of your network can help analyse the loose points one can exploit.3. Cloud Security:
The cloud came as a blessing to many organisations that were investing a great deal of resources just to maintain servers. It helped a lot of organisations strengthen their business continuity plans. With organisations moving their entire data to the cloud, it has become a favourite target of attackers.
It is vital to configure the cloud securely and in the best interest of the business. There have been recent cases where AWS S3 buckets were leaked and a lot of data was gone due to making them accessible to the public. A cloud access security broker can be used to tighten cloud security.4. Internet Security:
It involves protecting the data that is coming in and going out of your device, browser, etc. It makes sure that the data is not altered or spoofed, thus maintaining its integrity. This can be achieved by encrypting the data in transit. Firewalls can be used and deployed on the device to filter out traffic that could pose a threat to the security of the data.
WHAT ARE CYBER SECURITY RISKS?
A cyber security risk is a risk that could potentially harm the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data through an attack on an asset, network, or application.
The most common cyber security risks are listed below:
- • Ransomware:
The ransomware attack has been active for a while. It has the potential to do great volumes of damage to an organization. A lot of organisations have gone bankrupt and had to shut down their businesses.
The attack involves encrypting data on the machine. The data is held hostage until some price demanded by an attacker is paid. - • Phishing:
It is a kind of social engineering attack that involves persuading someone to click on a malicious link to steal credentials and data. This attack is very well crafted and can be spread through email attachments and links.
Awareness plays an important role here. It is important to verify the source of a message or email before downloading or clicking on anything. - • Man in the middle attack:
The attacks involve hijacking active communication between two systems or two entities. Once hijacked, an attacker can either steal the information that is being shared or modify or alter the content, affecting its integrity.
Some of the ways to prevent this would be to encrypt the data in transit by using a stronger encryption algorithm, enforcing https, and making sure that only a private network is used for communication and exchange of data. - • SQL injection:
Since databases have their own language, this attack makes use of carefully crafted SQL queries to interact with the backend database and fetch data from it. It is crucial to filter the data that is being injected into input fields so as to prevent it from interacting with the database. - • DDOS attack:
This attack attempts to overwhelm the target with a constant flow of requests, either from one or different sources. The end goal is to make the target slow and unavailable to people using it.
WHAT IS NETWORK VAPT SCAN ?
Network scanning is one of the critical steps in vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. The sole purpose of scanning is to list out IP addresses, hosts, operating systems, and ports that are open. The network scanning process is usually very detailed and time-consuming and incorporates TCP and UDP scanning. The outcome of scanning is used for the next step of finding or mapping vulnerabilities. As an example, the scanning will find that port 25 is open for a particular host. Whereas the next step finds that port 25 (SMTP) is vulnerable to SMTP service-related attacks. The penetration testing phase actually exploits the SMTP vulnerabilities and proves the findings of the scanning and vulnerability assessment phases. A network VAPT scan needs to be highly accurate in order not to miss any open ports or mappings of services and operating systems. This makes network scanning an important phase. Typically, network scanning is performed using tools.
WHAT IS NETWORK VAPT AUDIT?
A network audit is a different approach to vulnerability assessment. While most of the steps in a network audit are the same as for VAPT, there is a subtle difference. A network VAPT audit takes into consideration the network diagram from a security architecture perspective. While performing a network VAPT, only the technical tools come into play. Whereas in the case of a network audit, it goes beyond just the tools and gets into the design aspect. A network audit also includes a verbal inquiry session that percolates into how the network is built, how it grew, and what its security challenges are. This information is then used while performing the network vulnerability assessment and penetration testing processes.
WHAT IS NETWORK VAPT?
Optimising the Potential of Continuous Penetration Testing for Every Need
- Network VAPT is a type of security testing that can be done either manually or by using tools to ensure that the network is not exhibiting any means of evasion.
- Vulnerability assessment involves finding security holes, i.e., vulnerabilities, by scanning the entire network.
- Penetration testing involves exploiting the found vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access to the network.
HOW DO YOU PERFORM A NETWORK VAPT TEST ?
Network VAPT can be done in two ways: manual and automatic, by using tools. To ensure the security of a network, it should be scanned thoroughly both internally and externally.
The network includes all the network devices, such as firewalls, switches, routers, and all the devices that are connected within a network or outside.
A detailed assessment can shed light on the unwanted ports that are open, unsupported firmware, unpatched systems, poorly configured firewall rules, outdated software versions, weak password policies, and so on and so forth.
Once the vulnerabilities are found, they can be further exploited to see the extent of damage they can do to the organization. This step is to be done very carefully since a wrongfully executed test can do more harm than good to the network.
DOES VAPT INCREASES ROI ON IT SECURITY?
It is said that the value of an asset is determined by the value of the data being hosted by it. The more critical the data, the more critical the asset.
To ensure the safety of the data, it is important to secure the asset first. This can be done by calculating the risks and their impact if they are exploited. Vulnerability assessment does just the same. It analyses the asset, be it a network asset such as a firewall or a simple asset such as a desktop, for underlying risks and fixes them before an attacker can reach to them.
A timely assessment of vulnerabilities can help an organisation decide which vulnerabilities to prioritise first based on the harm they can cause to a system. A good amount of investment in quality tools and skilled manpower can now tremendously benefit an organisation in the long run.
This can also benefit an organisation by gaining new customers and clients. VAPT builds a certain level of confidence among the organisation due to a good sense and understanding of how far an organisation is when it comes to security.
WHAT IS A NETWORK VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT TOOL ?
The Network VA tool automatically scans a network for underlying threats and vulnerabilities such as outdated software versions, unsupported firmware, open ports, service discovery, unpatched systems, protocol vulnerabilities, etc.
Following is a list of industry-recognised tools one can use to perform VAPT.
- Nmap
- Nexpose
- Metasploit
- Burp Suite
- Nessus etc
THE NEED OF NETWORK SECURITY AUDIT
IT networks keep changing based on business needs. It is often found that various changes performed by multiple technical teams usually lead to vulnerabilities from a cybersecurity standpoint. It is advised to conduct network security audits occasionally to ensure network health. Upon completion of such an audit, the firm gains a stable, scalable, and secure IT network infrastructure.
Regularly scheduled network vulnerability scanning can help an organisation identify weaknesses or security holes in their network security before hackers can plant an attack. The purpose of running a vulnerability scanner or conducting an external vulnerability assessment (VAPT or pentesting) is to find network devices that are open to known vulnerabilities without actually compromising your systems.
VAPT CHECKLIST
An assessment of your network security will make sure that the business you conduct and the data you store remain strictly between you and your customers, without the threat of third-party breaching, data loss, or malware.
The Network Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) is an assessment procedure conducted by security experts on your network to identify possible vulnerabilities that attackers may exploit. VAPT auditors utilise proven and standard assessment methodologies, consulting, and project management methodologies to deliver accurate and timely results for your organisation's IT department. With our Network VAPT capabilities, it allows you to manage a prioritised list of identified vulnerabilities in your network and understand how to fix them so that you are sure to be one step ahead of possible attackers.
WHAT IS VA
What is Vulnerability Assessment?
From a corporate network security perspective, the focus of threats to company security is changing with the implementation of strong perimeter defence solutions. These include firewalls, intrusion detection systems, content filtering, and two-factor authentication, as increasingly more breaches are occurring within the company.
Many companies are now finding out that their internal security is being increasingly compromised by the numerous and rapidly growing number of simple methods that enable legitimate users to create a back door into the company network. These methods, which can be downloaded from the Internet and then run to circumvent all of the existing gateway security products, pose as great a threat as attacks from outside the corporate network.
WHAT IS PT
A penetration test, also known as a pen test, is an authorised simulated attack on a computer system that looks for security weaknesses, potentially gaining access to the system's features and data. The following steps typically form the penetration testing. The primary objective of a network penetration test is to identify exploitable vulnerabilities in networks, systems, hosts, and network devices (i.e., routers and switches) before hackers are able to discover and exploit them.
Network penetration testing will reveal real-world opportunities for hackers to be able to compromise systems and networks in such a way that allows for unauthorised access to sensitive data or even take over systems for malicious or non-business purposes.
VAPT STEPS
Penetration testing is also commonly referred to as a pen test (or ethical hacking) and is a method used to perform security testing on a network system used by a business or other organisation. Pen tests involve a variety of methodologies designed to explore a network to identify potential vulnerabilities and test to ensure the vulnerabilities are real.
When penetration testing is performed properly, the results allow network professionals to make recommendations for fixing problems within the network that were discovered during the pen test. The main purpose of the pen test is to improve network security and provide protection for the entire network and connected devices against future attacks. Penetration testing helps identify vulnerabilities within a network. This means there is a distinct difference between penetration testing and performing a vulnerability assessment.
VAPT REPORT
Pen test deliverables include a series of reports that reveal how security issues were identified and confirmed during the test to determine how the issues should be fixed. Once a penetration test has been completed, the report reveals a list of all network vulnerabilities that were discovered during the test. In most cases, the report will also provide recommendations on how to fix the issues.
A typical penetration testing report will include a complete review of the project, the techniques and methodologies used during the test, security risk levels in order of priority, recommendations for fixing the issues, and suggestions for tightening up network security as a whole.
There is also a report for presentation to management that explains in non-technical terms how the risks can affect business continuity and potential financial losses that can be incurred as the result of a breach. This part of the report may also include the IT investments that may be necessary to improve network security.