Which term is associated with authorized testing of a systems vulnerabilities?

Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is a specialized form of security control assessment in which the security assessor assumes the role of an attacker and attempts to overcome the security measures in place intended to safeguard the information system. Penetration testing can be employed for new information systems prior to authorization, or for operational systems as part of routine security testing or when significant changes have occurred in the system’s operating environment or in the set of potential threats faced by the system [34]. Penetration testing is not applicable to every security control, but it can be used to assess a variety of administrative, operational, and technical controls, using attack scenarios including simulated hacking by outside attackers, social engineering attempts, or insider threats that might try to circumvent security controls. Penetration tests often involve the simultaneous assessment of multiple controls, since attack scenarios and tools used for penetration testing seek to compromise the information system security in any way that might be attempted by an actual attacker. Penetration testing may require skill sets beyond those possessed by conventional security control assessors, due to the complexity of the tests and extensive set of tools and techniques that might be employed to simulate an attack. Special Publication 800-53A gives special emphasis to penetration testing in Appendix E, but cautions that such assessment methods should not be viewed as a way to verify an information system’s security posture, but instead to identify weaknesses in current controls and to provide information to the organization about the system, its security controls, and the level of effort that might be needed to defeat or circumvent the security controls that are implemented [35].

Publisher Summary

Penetration testing can be defined as a legal and authorized attempt to locate and successfully exploit computer systems for the purpose of making those systems more secure. The process includes probing for vulnerabilities as well as providing proof of concept (POC) attacks to demonstrate the vulnerabilities are real. Penetration testing should play an important role in the overall security of an organization. Just as policies, risk assessments, business continuity planning, and disaster recovery have become integral components in keeping an organization safe and secure, penetration testing needs to be included in the overall security plan as well. Among the most well known of the penetration testing distributions is one called “Backtrack.” The entire distribution is built from the ground up for penetration testers. The distribution comes preloaded with several security tools that are installed, configured, and ready to be used. Navigating to the Backtrack link allows choosing from either an .iso or a VMware image. If one chooses to download the .iso, it is required to burn the .iso to a DVD.

Book Overview and Key Learning Points

Penetration testing is often considered an art as much as it is a science, but even an artist needs the right brushes to do the job well. Many commercial and open source tools exist for performing penetration testing, but it’s often hard to ensure that you know what tools are available and which one to use for a certain task. Through the next 10 chapters, we’ll be exploring the plethora of open source tools that are available to you as a penetration tester, how to use them, and in which situations they apply.

While commercial tools certainly exist in the penetration testing space, they’re often expensive and, in some cases, too automated to be useful for all penetration testing scenarios. There are many common situations where the open source tools that we will be talking about fill a need better and (obviously) more cost effectively than any commercial tool. The tools that we will be discussing throughout this book are all open source and available for you to use in your work as a penetration tester.

Which of the following test is required to identify the vulnerability of a system?

What are methods of testing for security vulnerabilities?

Which test provides actual vulnerabilities present to a system?

Which testing is used to test and detect the application security vulnerabilities?