Physical Penetration Testing Methods – That Really do Wonders
Although many cybersecurity efforts are dedicated to protecting systems and networks, it is significant to not forget that physical security plays a vital role in any cybersecurity program. This is where physical penetration testing comes into play.
Physical penetration testing imitates the threat situation in the real world, where hostile actors try their best to harm the physical barriers of the organizations to acquire the access to infrastructure, buildings, sensitive systems, critical digital assets, and employees.
The purpose of physical penetration testing is to reveal the deficiencies in the overall physical defense of the enterprise. By identifying these flaws and defects, appropriate mitigation measures can be taken to enhance personal safety.
Penetration testing companies are putting in their 100% efforts to provide the consultation and testing services to the organizations those who are in dire need of it. Security must be a concern for every single organization for the sake of improving their software products before they launch them in the market.
Because the market is overflooded with the competition, every single business is initiated with an aim to provide the best ever user-experience. Therefore, to cope up with the increasing competition, organizations must pay well enough attention to their testing efforts.
Without ensuring that malicious actors cannot physically bypass their boundaries, companies cannot implement buoyant cybersecurity procedures. That’s the reason it is essential for organizations to conduct physical penetration testing, and having a method and framework to do so to ensure that you do not miss any critical aspects of physical security.
The following is a series of steps and methods that can perform physical penetration testing:
Map entrance and surroundings
First, map all possible entry points to the enterprise to identify insecure entry points. Attackers often find hidden or unguarded entrances to enter buildings. By drawing a map of doors, windows, and fire exits, you can begin to define houses that need protection and are vulnerable to attack.
Drawing a perimeter map involves an in-depth analysis of your surroundings and buildings, and represents the equivalent of the reconnaissance phase, which is carried out in all other types of penetration testing.
Lock claims
Nowadays, one of the most efficient ways to pass through doors and exits is to use lock picking technology. The main reason for this is that mechanical locks have not developed over time and can be easily removed with a little training.
Today, many organizations use electromagnetic locks to alleviate the peril of lock picking. However, scanning and copying ID cards used for electromagnetic locks require the same effort. If you want to avoid intrusion, then do consider using an electromagnetic lock with PIN authorized access from now onwards.
This will provide a two-factor authentication method. What you have (a card) and what you know (a PIN code).
Access of sensitive information
Telephotography is the way of capturing snapshots of the interior of a building from a distance either from a window or any other possible way, for the sake of having a view of sensitive information on the employee’s computer.
Even if it seems far-fetched, there are quite a large number of commercial buildings made almost entirely of glass windows that increase the risk of such attacks.
Just trying to take a picture of an employee’s computer from outside the office is enough to test whether this attack is successful against your company.
Test server room, wires, and cables
The server is said to be the most crucial part of any network, so it generally attain more attention in terms of security. If an attacker is able to acquire access to your server room, the entire organizational network will get in danger. Through this access, an attacker can infect your system, disable it completely, or may rob your most sensitive data.
Many organizations host their data and systems in a cloud environment or have an infrastructure that is usually stored in a data center. Because data centers host valuable website and company data, they usually require multiple layers of authentication, including biometric scanning, identification badges, and PIN codes to access. Moreover, servers are stored in rack-mounted racks, which require a key or PIN to physically access the server.
Final Thoughts
Many organizations are satisfied and merry to justify spending a major chunk of their finances or allocating resources to protect their networks from cyber attacks. Nevertheless, physical security is usually being ignored that can prove to be an entry point for malicious actors.
Via performing physical penetration testing, companies can expose all the loopholes in the physical security of their environment and can be able to demonstrate how easy it is for an attacker to gain physical access to the system simultaneously.
