Penetration Testing on AWS: The Importance of Security in the Cloud

Penetration Testing on AWS: The Importance of Security in the Cloud

As businesses move their applications and data to the cloud, the importance of security in the cloud becomes more evident. One of the best ways to ensure the security of your AWS environment is through penetration testing. Penetration testing is the process of simulating an attack on your systems in order to identify vulnerabilities and fix them before they can be exploited by a malicious actor. In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of penetration testing on AWS.

A few years ago we had the ‘OWASP Top 10’ as an ethical hacking framework. Now we have the ‘OWASP Top 10 Web’, ‘OWASP Top 10 API’, and ‘OWASP Top 10 Mobile’. Attack vectors are increasing and so penetration testing is as crucial as ever.

We will start off this blog with a brief overview of the different types of AWS penetration testing, followed by an explanation of each type. Next, we'll go over how you can help protect your environment from security threats such as data breaches. Finally, we will conclude this blog post with some further tips on how to prevent security risks before they happen!

Penetration testing is one of the most important things you can do for your organisation's computing environment. It helps identify vulnerabilities in web applications that could potentially lead to data breaches or other types of attacks. The recommended form of security testing is monthly vulnerability scans followed by annually, half-yearly or quarterly penetration testing. There are some clever vulnerability scanning tools out there now that badge themselves as ‘automated testing’ services however, software will only test automatically. The automated testing software doesn’t understand the logic of the app, the software blindly fires exploits and payloads against the app without being able to ‘think’ why or if it makes sense. Many vulnerabilities are missed with automated testing.

Automated testing cannot cover: API testing, Business Logic, IDORs and most information leaks. It requires a person to understand the app, flow and impact. This is why bug bounty programs pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hackers. The best software purchased by the world’s richest companies cannot replace human testing. Automated testing is a lot cheaper but it will never find Business Logic issues or IDORs and the like.

The first type of penetration testing is black box testing, which is also known as "external" testing. Black box testing is conducted from outside the organisation's network without any login credentials and simulates an attack by a malicious actor. It is the most common type of penetration testing and is used to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a hacker.

The second type of penetration testing is white box testing, which is also known as "internal" testing. White box testing is conducted from within the organisation's network and simulates an attack by a malicious insider. It is used to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker who has access to the internal network.

The third type of penetration testing is grey box testing, which is a combination of black box and white box testing. Grey box testing is conducted from outside the organization's network but with limited information about the internal network. It is used to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a malicious actor who has access to some parts of the system or organization but not all of them (e.g., an attacker who knows your username and password, but not where they are stored).

An AWS penetration testing service helps you protect your environment from security threats and can help you avoid costly data breaches. Our penetration testing service is designed to identify vulnerabilities in your systems so that they can be fixed before they can be exploited by a malicious actor. We offer both black box, grey box and white box testing so you can choose the type of testing that best suits your needs. In addition, our service includes a detailed report that outlines the findings of the test and provides recommendations for how to fix any vulnerabilities that were identified.

If you're concerned about the security of your AWS environment and you’re looking for a way to protect your organisation's Amazon Web Services, penetration testing is the solution, so that know exactly where your weaknesses are. Our penetration testing service can help identify vulnerabilities in your systems so that they can be fixed before being exploited by a malicious actor.

To get started with our penetration testing service, contact us today! Our team will work with you to assess the security of your environment and provide recommendations for how to improve it. Contact us now!