Penetration testing as a service (PTaaS)

What is penetration testing?

As you saw in the previous paragraphs, we used the words "penetration testing," "pentesting," and "pen testing." This is common in this context, but they all refer to the same concept: security testing of information systems by simulating genuine attacks with the authorization of their owners to detect security issues.

Penetration testing is where a security analyst simulates or investigates an IT system with the aim of finding any exploitable vulnerabilities. It is not uncommon to perform penetration tests on the application layer; however, it also extends into the network, cloud, IoT, and API layers, offering full-stack visibility into potential attack paths.

Penetration testing is part of an offensive security posture in which the predominant idea is that the best way to deal with malicious attackers is to think and act like them. This is done by security experts, known as white-hat testers, ethical hackers, or, more precisely, pentesters, using various tactics, techniques, and procedures. It enables organizations to learn how a threat actor perceives their current security posture and how existing security measures handle a real-life cyberattack.

In their penetration and exploitation results, these experts disclose to owners and interested parties where and how to make adjustments to protect their systems.

Manual vs. automated testing: the hybrid advantage

The continuous progress in cybercrime and the accelerated evolution of technology make it necessary to evaluate system security time and again. Mistakenly, many organizations believe that implementing automated tools is the perfect solution, and that the more tools they have, the better. Automation fulfills the so-called vulnerability scanning. This, however, acts only as a first layer within a strategy of comprehensive security testing. Systems are checked through this method to quickly detect previously known security problems in them. Not including an active layer of human intervention in a security testing project, precisely with manual pen testing, is a blunder.

We ask you to be aware of our emphasis above on "manual." We speak of manual penetration testing because, in the context of cybersecurity, automatic tools are also attributed the capability of performing pentesting. We do not dispute that tools can infiltrate or find their way into various nooks and crannies of a system. But proper penetration testing should not be limited to automation. Pentesting without human intervention ends up being mere vulnerability scanning.

Human expertise offers flexibility and creativity to support security testing in detecting sophisticated and zero-day vulnerabilities that scanners overlook, such as complex flaws in business logic (e.g., bypassing purchase workflows or manipulating user permissions). Unlike what pentesters can achieve with detailed, in-depth inspection, vulnerability scanning often yields high rates of false positives and, above all, false negatives, which ultimately must be validated and uncovered by these security professionals. (To see a real comparison of accuracy between tools and humans, we invite you to read our report "Boosting AST accuracy through pentesting.")

How is pentesting performed?

A penetration testing service can include among its targets web and mobile applications, networks, IoT devices, infrastructure as code, containers and other information systems. It seeks to detect problems in user authentication and authorization controls, exposure of sensitive data, secure coding errors, and weaknesses in defense mechanisms, among many other security issues.

The pentesting process can usually be broken down into the following phases:

Planning and scoping

To begin with the penetration, the pentesters must get the approval of the system owner, who may set certain scope limits. This stage is essential for defining the objectives of the tests, determining which IT components are inside and outside the attack surface, and establishing communication protocols, service level agreements, and report delivery deadlines, among other issues.

Information gathering and reconnaissance

First is passive reconnaissance, where pentesters collect information about the organization and the targets without interacting directly with them. What takes place is the use of external and open sources. Then there is active reconnaissance through direct interaction with the targets. The pentesters seek deep profiling with more intrusive information gathering. They identify the technology used and how it works. Furthermore, they determine possible entry and attack vectors.

Vulnerability analysis and exploitation

Subsequently, pentesters use scanning tools and manual methods that contribute to the identification of vulnerabilities. They analyze through various factors the level of risk and the impact that the exploitation of each security issue may generate. After all the planning, the pentesters try to exploit the vulnerabilities in a creative way (something that an automatic tool cannot do), preferably within a staging environment.

The goal is to assess how deeply an attacker could penetrate the system. The pentesters get access to the target with different methods (e.g., privilege escalation and lateral movement), at varying levels of depth, in order to determine real impacts. The post-exploitation phase assesses the impact of the breach and the extent of an attacker's potential actions once inside the system.

Reporting and remediation

Once the task is completed, the pentesters compile their results in technical and executive reports. These present to the stakeholders details on the vulnerabilities detected and exploited, the system's responses to the penetration, the data they accessed, and all other information about the simulated incident. Additionally, they provide evidence of the security issues and recommendations for their remediation.

What is penetration testing as a service (PTaaS)?

Before cloud computing, pentesting was usually contracted to be carried out as a one-shot assessment between extensive time intervals, for instance, on an annual or semi-annual basis. (However, if they apply it at all, many organizations still request it this way.) In this model, results are delivered to the client only in a final static report that might already have outdated data. Traditional pentesting is typically reactive, labor-intensive, and fails to keep pace with the sophisticated rate of change in modern software development.

PTaaS emerged as a new delivery model for penetration testing to eliminate previous limitations. It's tailored to today's development speed and performed continuously while the software evolves at a certain pace in the SDLC (software development lifecycle). It is an outsourced solution that provides on-demand, scalable, and continuous penetration testing through a cloud-based platform that integrates directly into your SDLC.

The core of the PTaaS model

• Continuous engagement: Results are delivered incrementally based on new findings made by the pentesters involved. PTaaS allows organizations to perform penetration tests on a daily basis, or even after every change to their applications or other systems.

• The platform: PTaaS uses a single cloud-based control panel where results can be viewed, monitored, and analyzed continuously. Instead of cumbersome PDF reports, which are common in traditional one-shot pentesting methodology, results are stored, searchable, and easily available to members of the development and security teams of PTaaS client companies on this centralized platform.

• Hybrid approach: In PTaaS, there must be automated and manual pentesting. This model recognizes that human creativity is still indispensable in the assessment of systems. If it were only the former, we would end up talking simply about software as a service (SaaS). Continuous manual penetration testing is combined with vulnerability scanning to enjoy the benefits of both solutions. Experts and tools can ensure that a wide variety of security testing methodologies are used. While automated tools concentrate on the fast detection of known vulnerabilities, pentesters engage in discovering more complex and even previously unknown vulnerabilities. Pentesters also correlate their results and validate those delivered by the tools, making sure that the final report is correct and that nothing was missed.

PTaaS in the SDLC: shifting security left

The value of PTaaS is how it seamlessly integrates into the SDLC, directly supporting DevSecOps teams.

• Early detection and cost efficiency: PTaaS helps support DevSecOps teams when shifting security left. Testing applications at an early phase and assessing repeatedly enables teams to solve security problems as they occur. As a result, developers can create a more secure application without going through costly rebuilding during late SDLC stages.

• Fast feedback loop: The client can achieve successful vulnerability management since this new steady model helps solve the problem of prioritization and remediation caused by the previous model, in which all vulnerabilities, old and new, are left to be reported at a single point in time. PTaaS shortens the feedback loop dramatically, delivering findings in real-time, complete with exploitability scoring and remediation guidance. Security teams can fix issues before attackers can exploit them.

• Collaboration: Another difficulty solved with PTaaS is the limited or non-existent collaboration between developers and pentesters. The latter can now support the former frequently, resolving their doubts and providing them with remediation recommendations or instructions. This constant collaboration and access to experts ensures vulnerabilities get fixed without draining the resources of in-house teams.

Benefits of PTaaS

From a proficient PTaaS provider, you can expect the following:

• Hybrid testing for higher accuracy: An integration of automation and ethical hackers or pentesters that improves the efficiency and accuracy of security testing. This combination ensures the thorough detection of complex vulnerabilities based on business logic.

• Real-time visibility: A single pane of glass with all relevant data during the penetration testing that gives you broad and convenient control for vulnerability management. The data are always available and continuously updated as your system assessment progresses—a procedure that remains alert to recent changes.

• Accelerated remediation: Vulnerability remediation can be performed soon after identification, following a prioritization. You avoid going into production with a high risk of being harmed by successful cyberattacks. PTaaS gives security teams continuous visibility into exploitable vulnerabilities and recommendations for their fast remediation.

• Enhanced collaboration: Their model enables constant, respectful, and effective cooperation between the group of pentesters and your development and security teams.

• Unlimited retesting: Once you have remediated a vulnerability, you can request verification of the effectiveness of the implemented solution. This on-demand retesting without engaging expensive consultants is a major boost to operational efficiency.

• Scalability and customization: PTaaS scales effortlessly to meet the security needs of growing organizations and is highly customizable to cater to different security requirements and industry-specific mandates like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.

Potential challenges and what to look for in a PTaaS provider

While PTaaS offers significant advantages, organizations must choose their provider carefully to maximize benefits.

PTaaS by Fluid Attacks

In line with the above, whether you are attempting only to comply with standards such as PCI DSS, NIST, GDPR, HIPAA, etc., or aim for a broader commitment to the security of your company and customers or users, at Fluid Attacks, we offer optimal PTaaS.

We provide continuous in-depth assessments by our pentesters, which focus on the discovery of both known and zero-day vulnerabilities in your software with a risk assessment closer to the real threat landscape.

• Our expertise: Real pentesting is not an automated but a manual process. Ours is performed by experts who simulate threat actors' techniques on a continuous, not a point-in-time, basis. Our team holds more than 50 certifications on offensive security, such as OSCE³, OSCP, PWPP, eCPTX, CRTM, CAPenX, eWPTX, and others. The Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) has validated that Fluid Attacks has sufficient expertise, methodologies, and knowledge to perform comprehensive and reliable PTaaS.

• Holistic coverage: We test in safe mode (i.e., without affecting the availability of your services) the security of your web and mobile applications, microservices, cloud infrastructure, and other IT systems. We combine our automatic tools with manual penetration testing by our cybersecurity experts, who possess a wide range of offensive security skills. In this way, we obtain minimum false positive and false negative rates. The PTaaS model superbly complements vulnerability scanning. Our pentesters identify vulnerabilities that are off the tools' radar and meticulously verify the authenticity of the findings.

• Integration and remediation: We integrate PTaaS into your SDLC from the start and test your software at the pace of your development team and their micro changes. On our platform, you continuously receive detailed reports as the continuous pentesting advances. These make it easy for you to understand your risk exposure and prioritize security issues for their remediation. Our pentesters can exploit flaws in your software and then provide evidence of the attack vectors and impacts on data and operations through videos and images.

• Developer support: Your developers can maintain communication and collaboration with our pentesters, from whom they receive clear and tangible evidence and fixing recommendations. In addition, our team offers you unlimited reattacks to verify that your vulnerabilities have been effectively closed. Moreover, our CI Gate breaks the build to prevent vulnerabilities from going into production if they remain open, in accordance with your organization's policies.

This solution is part of our Continuous Hacking. We invite you to contact us if you are interested in experiencing the benefits of our penetration testing as a service (PTaaS). If you want to get started with our security testing services using automatic tools, we have a 21-day free trial of our Essential plan at your disposal.