There are many methodologies you can choose from, there is no such thing as "the right or best methodology". Every penetration tester has his own approach to testing, but each one uses a methodology, in order for the test to be carried out professionally, effective and less time consuming. If a tester has no methodology to use in his test, then that might result to: -
- Incomplete testing (example the tester might not fulfill all of the requirements).
- Time consuming (example a lot of time will be spent to reorder your test to).
- Waste of effort (example the testers might end up testing the same thing).
- Ineffective testing (example the results and the reporting might not suit the requirements of the client).
A penetration tester must necessarily follow certain methodology so as to successfully identify the threats faced by an organizations network or information assets from a hacker and reduce an organizations IT security costs by providing a better return on security investments.
Important: Methodology is a map using which you will reach your final destination (end of test) and without a methodology the testers might get lost (reach the abovementioned results).
The methodology describes and structures the performance of a commissioned penetration test. A test should always be receptive to the client’s objectives and care must be taken not to neglect this perspective. This means, for example, outlining the test steps required to achieve this objective or explaining whether a penetration test is suitable for achieving them at all. A methodology should also include measures for complying with the legal provisions and for observing the conditions regarding organization and personnel for performing penetration tests. It should take account of the limited time available and must include an assessment of the potential risk or a costbenefit analysis. The methodology is presented as a sequence of tasks that are organized and ordered according to the logical relationship between them. As far as possible, these relationships are highlighted in the task descriptions. However, in practice you will frequently need to think imaginatively about the direction in which your activities should go and allow these to be guided by what you discover about the application you are attacking.
What is Penetration Testing Methodology
- This is th Phase of Penetration Testing Methodology, In general this is the main Methodology
- Planning
- Exploitation
- Reporting
Planning
Planning Critical to a successful security assessment, the planning phase is used to gather information needed for assessment execution such as the assets to be assessed, the threats of interest against the assets, and the security controls to be used to mitigate those threats and to develop the assessment approach. A security assessment should be treated as any other project, with a project management plan to address goals and objectives, scope, requirements, team roles and responsibilities, limitations, success factors, assumptions, resources, timeline, and deliverables.
Exploitation
This step exploits vulnerabilities found to verify if the vulnerabilities are real and what possible information or access can be obtained. Exploitation separates Penetration Testing services from passive services such as Vulnerability Assessments and Audits. Exploitation and all the following steps have legal ramifications without authorization from the asset owners of the target.
Reporting
The final phase of penetration testing is reporting. This is where we convey our findings to the customer in a meaningful way. We tell them what they’re doing correctly, where they need to improve their security posture, how you got in, what you found, how to fix problems, and so on. Writing a good pentest report is an art that takes practice to master. You’ll need to convey your findings clearly to everyone from the IT staff charged with fixing vulnerabilities to upper management who signs off on the changes to external auditors.
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