Setting New Standards for Visibility and Control in Penetration Testing Projects

Imagine receiving a penetration test report that leaves you with more questions than answers. Questions like, “Were all functionalities of the web app tested?” or ” Were there any security issues that could have been identified during testing?” often go unresolved, raising concerns about the thoroughness of the security testing. This frustration is common among many security teams. Pentest reports, while crucial, frequently lack the depth and detail necessary to truly assess the success of the project.

Even with years of experience working with cybersecurity teams and managing ethical hacking projects, we frequently encountered these same issues. Whether collaborating with external pentest providers or managing our own projects as founders of Hackrate, we often faced difficulties in ensuring that the testing was as comprehensive as it needed to be.

This realization inspired us to create HackGATE, a managed gateway solution built to bring transparency and control to pentesting projects, ensuring no questions are left unanswered about the quality and thoroughness of the penetration test projects. We aimed to not only address our own challenges but also to provide the cybersecurity industry with a powerful tool to enhance visibility in their ethical hacking projects.

Common Challenges in Penetration Testing

1. Lack of visibility and control

A recent survey on pentest projects revealed that 60% of security professionals struggle to measure the success of their pentests. Additionally, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents rely solely on information provided by the pentest vendor. This highlights a significant gap in the cybersecurity landscape: the lack of a solution offering visibility into pentesting activities. Without such a solution, security teams struggle with limited insight into crucial aspects of the testing process, including the overall scope and duration of the tests, the specific techniques and attack vectors employed, and the detailed steps taken by ethical hackers.

2. Dependence on the final pentest report

Most companies that outsource pentests depend on a final report and their trust in the pentest vendor to assess success. Without concrete evidence of the various aspects of the testing, security teams are left with concerns and security blind spots, encountering obstacles both in understanding their security testing projects and in communicating their outcomes to leadership and stakeholders.

3. Coordination in remote pentester teams

Managing a globally distributed team, particularly when working across different time zones, adds to these challenges. This can lead to delays in communication and coordination, resulting in missed deadlines and incomplete tasks. Ensuring that all team members adhere to the same standards across various locations is also challenging. Inconsistent practices can lead to gaps in pentest coverage, leaving critical vulnerabilities undiscovered.

How HackGATE Addresses These Challenges

1. Enhanced visibility and detailed insights

HackGATE provides real-time visibility into pentest activities. For instance, it details the security testing traffic sent to targets, highlights targeted testing areas, and outlines the methods used by ethical hackers. This transparency ensures you can track the security testing process effectively.

2. Establishing a quality framework for ethical hacking

To ensure the quality of the testing process, it is crucial to establish controls based on analyzed data. Ethical hackers use guidelines and best practices, such as the OWASP guidelines, to provide a structured approach to identifying security risks. While OWASP’s framework offers a thorough evaluation of web applications, auditing the security tests is still necessary to verify that pentesters are truly following the guidelines.

HackGATE ensures the effectiveness of penetration tests by establishing baselines for minimum testing traffic, which includes both manual and automated testing activities. This ensures thoroughness and consistency in assessments.

3. Consolidated and visualized data

Penetration tests generate large volumes of data, which can be difficult to analyze and understand with traditional Security Operation Center solutions. Teams need a centralized dashboard that consolidates key insights, showing the most important metrics, so all stakeholders can easily keep up with progress and monitor ethical hacking activities.

HackGATE’s unified dashboard addresses this need by consolidating critical insights into a single view. It includes features for project management, analytics, and a detailed overview of pentester activities. This allows all stakeholders to easily access and understand the key metrics without sifting through disparate sources.

4. Better coordination across distributed security teams

By providing a unified interface for all team members, HackGATE ensures that everyone adheres to the same standards, reducing inconsistencies in pentest coverage. The platform also supports comprehensive scope coverage by enabling accurate and detailed reporting, ensuring that all intended assets are tested and documented.

HackGATE also enhances accountability by automatically generating detailed reports, providing evidence of testing. This not only helps in holding team members accountable but also simplifies the audit process, ensuring regulatory compliance with a clear and accessible audit trail.

HackGATE approach

To ensure successful penetration testing initiatives, security teams need to adopt the ‘Trust but Verify’ principle in penetration test. This means that instead of relying solely on their pentest provider’s report, they need to be able to verify the quality and thoroughness of the testing. But how can they achieve this? The ‘Trust but Verify’ approach requires accurate data, effective monitoring, and detailed reporting. Most companies still struggle due to the lack of methodology and tools.

Conclusion

To ensure your penetration testing projects are comprehensive and compliant, consider integrating innovative monitoring tools like HackGATE into your cybersecurity strategy. For a more in-depth understanding of how it can address your specific needs, schedule a consultation with our technical experts – no sales pitch, just a detailed exploration of how our solution can enhance your pentest approach.

Visit the HackGATE website to get started or arrange your personalized technical consultation.

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