By Aladdin Elston, Head of Information Security, Altimetrik,
The growing reliance on digital to build resilience into business comes with a caveat: Your threat surface will grow offering new opportunities to black hats, malicious insiders, veteran hackers, weekend crackers, and even low-level script kiddies to break into your systems. Testing your IT (Information Technology) estate for vulnerabilities and continuous threat detection has therefore become just as important as investing in the right solutions to improve your security posture. Worldwide, cybercrimes have been estimated to cost US $6 trillion in 2021 (Compared to US $3 trillion in 2015) and are forecasted to hit US $10.5 trillion annually by 2025 along with untold loss of data, productivity, reputation, and business. Your organization does not want to be part of that statistic.
However, investing in security is a frustratingly difficult business. In a fast-changing technological landscape, new threats, vulnerabilities, and exploits emerge quickly. Security breaches can result from several factors ranging from broken authentication to the inability to keep pace with patch installation, subpar application and network configuration, and lack of encryption. To understand the nuances of each takes experience.
Current solutions may not always be able to identify and neutralize those threats. With the growing trend of Work from Anywhere (WFX), a remote workforce heightens the potential risk, resulting in an increased need for security surveillance and enhancement.
Continuous and point-in-time penetration tests for web and mobile applications, networks, infrastructure, and end-point devices are the answer. It is not surprising, therefore, to see forecasts which suggest the penetration testing market will double from US $1.6 billion in 2021 to US $3 billion in 2026.
Most organizations will choose Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) because it allows them to leverage sophisticated tools, complex models, and experienced talent that in-house security teams are not always privileged to have. By using a PTaaS provider the service can be performed anytime, 24X7, at the push of a button, resulting in a tailor-made test. The outcome: A comprehensive report uncovering vulnerabilities, education opportunities, discussions with our lead penetration testers and the provision of remediation plans and discussions that lead to security maturity.
