Penetration Testing on Cloud Environment

Penetration Testing on Cloud Environment

Penetration Testing on Cloud Environment

Penetration Testing on Cloud Environment

Penetration Testing on Cloud Environment

Have you recently moved all the workloads of your organization to the cloud? Assuming you have, there is still the responsibility of securing this data. While Penetration Testing on the Cloud Environment does not vary much from any other Penetration Test, it is more focused on where the data resides.

Let’s say, for instance, your workloads are stored in a hybrid Cloud Environment. You need to ensure that all of them are secure whether they are in the cloud or the local storage. The key is to know where the information is and secure that area with some vigilance.

Through Penetration Testing, Software Testers look for weaknesses in the security system and aim to expose the areas that can be breached by hackers and other cybercriminals.

If an organization stores sensitive information like financial records and medical records for their customers, not only is it responsible for safeguarding all this information, it is also responsible for ensuring all its outsourcing hubs are following essential protocol.

As one of the Top Software Testing Companies, we run vigorous Penetration Tests to ensure proper security is being rendered to safeguard workloads at our client’s end.

Here is a brief elaboration of Pen Testing

How is a Typical Pen Test Performed?

  • Pen tests usually begin with an exploratory approach where software testers become ethical hackers and gather the information that they will use to plan a simulated attack.
  • Once this is established, testers look for ways to gain and maintain access to the target system. This requires a set of tools that are accumulated in the form of software designed to run robust attacks.
  • Hardware that is specifically designed for pen testing in place. This hardware refers to small boxes that can be plugged into a computer and allow the hacker to gain remote access to the network on the computer.
  • Ethical hackers might also use social engineering skills like sending phishing emails to employees and disguise themselves as delivery people to gain access and find vulnerabilities.
  • The ethical hackers cover their tracks once hacking is completed and leave the target system exactly in the same they found it.

What Happens After the Implementation of a Pen Test?

After the Testers complete a Pen Test, they will share their findings and their reports with the security team of the target company. These reports can be used effectively to bring in security upgrades and work on the vulnerabilities that are found in the test.

The necessary upgrades include rare limiting, new WAF rules, DDoS mitigation, and tighter form of validations and sanitizations.

How is Penetration Testing Performed in a Cloud Environment?

Here are the phases of Pen Testing execution on a Cloud Environment:

Understanding the Policies of the Cloud Provider

Public clouds have certain policies when it comes to Penetration Testing. In most cases, Testers need to inform the service provider that they are running a Test and the provider places restrictions on what they can do while running it.

Not following the process or restrictions laid out by the provider could result in your Pen Test looking like a genuine attack and it could shut down your account. All cloud providers monitor their infrastructure for DDoS attacks and other anomalies, which is why your account shuts down automatically.

Hence, understanding the policies, procedures, and legal requirements of a cloud provider is crucial to carrying out Pen Testing on the Cloud.

Creating a Plan

Creating a plan is an important step not only for Testing a system in the cloud environment but also otherwise. The plan for Pen Testing on the Cloud Environment must be agreed to by the Testers and each part of the plan must be followed.

Selecting Pen Testing Tools

While there are several Pen-Testing Tools in the market, pen-testing of cloud-based apps on-premises tools is very popular. However, Cloud-Based pen-Testing Tools are known to be more cost-effective.

These Tools are said to be efficient in simulating an actual attack. They also do not require any huge hardware footprint as it involves a Cloud Pen Testing a Cloud.

Summary

To conclude, it can be said that Penetration Testing is imperative for every Cloud-Based Application. It is the only way of ensuring your applications and data are secure and it is safe to allow the maximum amount of user access.

We possess experienced and skilled Software Testers who specialize in carrying out thorough Testing of Cloud-Based Applications. From ever since we started, we have completed more than 100 successful projects in this domain.

Let’s work together to make your business journey successful.