The first rule of surviving a cyberattack—penetration testing.
We often get asked to assess a company’s risk when building data infrastructure and ‘close the gaps’ to make everything as secure as possible. The truth is that AI-backed cyberthreats are leaving organisations at more risk than gap assessments, risk audits and standard procedures can ever manage. Companies need to keep a step ahead to survive cyberattacks—this is where penetration testing comes in.
You have to think like an attacker to defend yourself.
Pen testing requires us to think about how best to attack your business and put our thinking to the test. Basically, it’s ethical hacking. Pen testers are professionally trained and certified to hack your business and find the doors that open, allowing them to walk through undetected. What damage might this do to your organisation and how can we prevent that? Written protocols and assessments have a role to play, sure, but if you don’t put it into practice, you won’t know how to properly defend yourselves when these threats happen in real time. Understanding how your business operates but also what attackers are looking for and how they will operate is key to this process and often benefits from an outside perspective.
Now you’re going to want to arm yourself with actionable insights.
Risk is one of those difficult topics that speaks in hypothetical scenarios and can be difficult to prioritise when it comes to resources and taking action. Why deal with future issues that may never happen when we could be investing in what is happening right now? Well, penetration testing makes a future problem feel pretty real. If we can hack you in these ways and it only took us this long, imagine what you might be waking up to tomorrow. Pen testers deliver clear-cut insights that consider probability and costs to your company so you can make educated decisions on how best to prioritise defence actions.
And finally, be prepared to rinse and repeat for good hygiene.
Hacking is now a sophisticated enterprise equipped with affordable technologies that are changing the rules of the game every day. If you want to keep a step ahead, you need to embrace the testing mindset as part of your company’s risk management. It’s not enough to test the one time while hackers limber up and find new reasons and ways to attack. Wherever there is risk there is a need to defend and that requires a modern approach to cybersecurity. It doesn’t have to be a scaled-up operation each time, just a manageable cycle of testing that stands up to your company’s risk posture.
If you’re ready to talk next steps, our certified penetration testers are just a phone call away and can give free impartial advice to any organisation interested in finding out more.
Reach out now to learn more about how QuoVadis can help secure your business.