The objectives of penetration testing are very simple and straightforward; a penetration test gives the executives, architects, and product managers 360-degree birds-eye view of the security posture of the organizations. Penetration testing also helps the decision makers in understanding what an actual attack will look like and what will be its impact on business, revenue, and goodwill. The process involves rigorous analysis of security, technical, and operational countermeasures for any potential vulnerability that ranges from poor to improper configuration to network, to hardware, firmware, or software flaws. It also helps in focusing on what's important by narrowing down the security risk and knowing how effective the current security measures are. There are other principle reasons as well:
- As a starting point: To fix a problem, you need to first identify it. This is exactly what a penetration test does; it helps identify the problem and where it lies. It helps you understand where a breach is possible and what the exact reason for a possible breach is so that organizations can come up with an action plan to mitigate these security issues in future.
- Prioritizing the risk: Identifying the security issues is the primary objective of a penetration test. After learning that security issues exist, it also helps in prioritizing the security issues raised based on their impact and severity.
- Improving the overall security of the organization: Penetration testing not only helps identify technical security issues, it also helps identify the non-technical issues, such as how soon an attack can be identified, what actions can be taken if identified, how it is being escalated, to whom it is being escalated, and what to do in the event of a breach. It gives an idea of what an actual attack will look like. It also helps identify whether a gap is a technical gap or non-technical gap, such as users clicking on phishing e-mail giving access to attacks directly to their laptops, defeating all the network security devices and rules in firewall. This shows lack of employee security information training.