Tag Archive for: Penetration

Top 5 Best Penetration Testing Companies in 2024

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Jules R. , Tech Times

man in black jacket using computer
(Photo : KeepCoding / Unsplash)

Businesses in every industry are under threat of data breaches as threat actors discover new ways of pinpointing weaknesses in the IT infrastructure. Companies are under pressure to fortify their defense before cybercriminals can exploit them. They need the help of penetration testing companies who know the right tools and methods to ensure the defenses remain strong.

Why is penetration testing important?

Penetration testing involves simulating cyberattacks on a company’s systems and network. It verifies the security controls to assess if a company is ready for real-life cyberattacks as the service uncovers vulnerabilities and weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them.

Penetration testing services help companies obtain information about the different ways cybercriminals conduct their malicious activities, which can cause irreversible damage to the financial health and reputation of an organization. IT personnel can learn how to handle any type of break-in with insights into which channels or applications are most at risk, thereby preparing an effective and appropriate response to a cyberattack.

Read further to learn how the top 5 best penetration testing companies in 2024 address security concerns and fortify their clients’ security posture.

Silent Breach
(Photo : Silent Breach)

Overview

Silent Breach specializes in network security and protection of digital assets. They provide cutting-edge services and expertise across many industries in the private and public sectors. They are an award-winning provider, delivering a level of service that far exceeds industry standards.

Silent Breach employs real-world methods that closely mimic the behavior of determined hackers, including a blend of automated and manual testing to provide the broadest coverage. Their penetration testing services support a wide variety of tests, including web apps, mobile, wireless, physical, social, cloud, and more.

Back in 2021, Silent Breach…

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Making The Most Of A Penetration Test: The Organizational Perspective

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to grasp why cybercriminals prioritize attacks on organizations. These folks are notoriously keen on taking shortcuts, and the average enterprise environment is a goldmine of quick exploitation opportunities that range from ransomware extortion and data breaches, to industrial espionage and botnet activity.

Once a trespass has happened, hackers move laterally across the infrastructure to stretch the attack surface by plaguing multiple endpoints in one go. What’s particularly unsettling, they may maintain the foothold for months without being detected. In the aftermath of this, companies face downtime, loss of customer data, financial repercussions, and regulatory issues, let alone long-term reputational damages.

It comes as no surprise that proactive security is gathering steam today, wherein penetration testing (pentesting) is a Swiss Army knife strategy. In plain words, it’s about breaking bad for a while to simulate a real attacker’s actions. This offensive approach can be an eye-opening experience to enterprises in terms of their vulnerabilities and applicable fixes.

The internet is rife with information about penetration testing types and methodologies, so this article will zoom in on a few key aspects, including those that call forth confusion and misconceptions among organizations that decide to jump on the pentesting bandwagon.

Knowing the objectives is half the battle

Emphasis on the goals is a cornerstone of preparing for an offensive cyber stress test that will yield positive security dividends rather than being a waste of time and resources. This is first and foremost because the motivation defines the methods for conducting a pentest.

Risk mitigation is a common objective. The impulse to minimize the odds of a security incident is often fueled by a recent attack that wreaked havoc in the industry the company represents. The impetus for reducing risks may as well stem from corporate decision makers’ forward-thinking philosophy geared toward best security practices, which is a commendable route to take.

Compliance is another driving force throughout the penetration testing…

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Cyber security breaches are up multiple times as Internet penetration grows

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With the rise in Internet penetration and use of digital banking in the country, the number of cyber attacks or cyber security incidents in India have gone up multiple times over the last few years.


 


Data accessed by IANS said that cyber security incidents related to government institutions have increased significantly, particularly in 2022.


As many as 54,314, 48,285 and 1,92,439 cyber security incidents related to government agencies, institutions and undertakings were observed during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively.


According to official data, total number of cyber security incidents tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) during the year 2019 was 3,94,499, which spiked to 11,58,208 in 2020 and further increased to 14,02,809 in 2021. Similarly, 13,91,457 cyber security incidents were observed in 2022.


The cyber attack, which put the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi out of order on November 23 was one such example. Multiple agencies were roped in to resolve the issues.


Similarly, cyber attackers on December 1 briefly hacked the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Twitter handle. This was the second major cyber attack on a government site after AIIMS Delhi’s server was majorly hacked.


A Parliamentary standing committee in its report observed that with the advancement of technology, cyber crimes have emerged as a major issue across the globe. The cyber crimes transcend geographical boundaries, which make it tough to track the criminals.


The Committee expressed its deep concerns over the rising trend of cyber crimes in the country. It felt that on this issue, both the Central and state governments need to get together on the same boat to tackle the growing menace of cyber crime.


“The committee observed that traditional training of the police personnel is not sufficient to deal with cyber crimes as these criminals are tech-savvy and are following new modus-operandi on a regular basis,” said the report ‘Police -Training, Modernisation and Reforms’ tabled in the Parliament this month.


The committee in the…

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Hackers Use Excel Add-Ins as Initial Penetration Vector

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Cisco Talos analysts say that hackers are now using Excel add-ins to infiltrate victims’ systems and networks.

After Microsoft began blocking VBA macros in Office documents downloaded from the Internet (marked as Mark Of The Web), attackers had to rethink their attack chains: for example, now hackers are increasingly using Excel add-in files (.XLL) as an initial compromise vector.

According to experts, Office documents distributed using phishing emails and other social engineering remain one of the most popular attack vectors for attackers. Such documents traditionally suggest that victims enable macros to view supposedly harmless content, but in fact activate hidden malware execution in the background.

To address these abuses, earlier this year, Microsoft began blocking VBA macros in Office documents downloaded from the Internet. Although the company admitted that they received negative feedback from users because of this and were even forced to temporarily reverse this decision, as a result, the blocking of VBA macros was still continued.

We also wrote that Hackers use the .NET library for creating malicious Excel files, and also that Weak Block Cipher in Microsoft Office 365 Leads to Message Content Disclosure.

Despite the fact that the blocking only applies to the latest versions of Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Word, attackers have begun experimenting with alternative ways to infect and deploy malware. One such “innovation” is the use of XLL files, which Microsoft describes as “a kind of DLL file that can only be opened in Excel,” the researchers report.

XLL files can be sent via email, and even with normal malware scanning mechanisms in place, users can open them without knowing that such files may contain malicious code.writes Cisco Talos.

Hackers use Excel add-ins

Although Excel warns about the potential dangers of XLLs, these warnings are usually overlooked by users.

According to experts, hackers combine add-ons written in C++ with add-ons developed using the free tool Excel-DNA. And if the first such experiments of hackers were noticed a few years ago, then in 2021-2022 such attacks began to develop much more actively.

Hackers use Excel add-ins

The researchers write that the Chinese hack groups APT10 and TA410…

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