Site security can be considered one of the most important and main things for an internet site. In fact, when the security of your site is questioned, it can be said that all the things related to the site are disrupted and you cannot be sure of the correct functioning of a software element that does not have security, and you have to wait for it to collapse at any moment. If we use new methods of site design and management and have a powerful host, the security of our site can be established. Of course, the issue of trust can be much more troublesome than these words, and the issue of whether our site is really safe or not is one of the things that many site managers and internet business owners are looking for. This is where site penetration testing can come in handy and provide us with ways to ensure this.
In computer networks and web servers, the best thing to do to maintain security is to perform penetration testing, which has different types, and the purpose of doing it is to identify and check all weak points. In the rest of this article, we are going to investigate what penetration testing is and introduce you to the steps to perform it so that you can use them to check the weak points and use the best solutions to fix it, so stay with us until the end of this article.
What is website security?
Security is one of the most familiar words in human societies, which can be seen from the entrance doors of offices to the most complex software modules, and it must be said that it is one of the issues that has always been of great importance. Security in a general sense means that anyone or anything does exactly what is expected and allowed, and in case of violation of the law, it should be punished in due time.
But in computer science, the term security is used in a relatively different way and it means that someone who does not have permission to enter a system cannot enter it, and it can be ensured that someone does not have permission to access and will not enter. did In addition to security, there is another topic called Protection, which is complementary to security and is necessary to ensure the correct operation of a computer system, and is responsible for ensuring that the user who enters the system based on security conditions, by establishing high-level control rules Our system has only access to the information that it is allowed to access.
In general, these two issues can guarantee the coexistence of a system, which is very important in software applications, and by using this, we can be sure that our system can do its purpose properly. In fact, the reason for the duality of the security and micro-inspection steps in the computer and the fact that it is paid much more attention than other security elements such as an office building will be very important.
The purpose of the security of a computer system is to be sure that this system continues to work as it should, and it can be said that if there is a breach in the security conditions of this system, then the system will continue to do the same for us. will give, is not acceptable. This is an issue that cannot be said in other cases, and for example, if a person who does not have permission to access and enter a building may remove important information or do vandalism that the entire complex seeks to fix. But if a software is changed from the inside, one cannot be sure of its future functions and hackers may change its entire nature.
Therefore, it must be said that establishing security in a computer system can be one of the most important options to verify the operation of this system, and this issue has its own levels, and one of the most important ones, which is always in danger and is often attacked, is online programs. are. The largest category of online and web-based programs is made up of sites, and it must be said that many online businesses are based on these sites, and if you are a webmaster who manages one of these sites, you should know that it is necessary to do many things for Pay attention to the security of your site.
But the question that arises here is how can we know that our site is weak in terms of security and we need to pay more attention to it, or that things are fine and we won’t have any extra work to do? . One way is to listen and wait for attacks to develop and see how your site’s security will be over time. Obviously, this is not a good thing at all and we may face such an attack in the meantime that will destroy everything.
But there is another method, and that is to look for ways to break into the site and to check what faults our system has. Site penetration testing is one of the cases that can be used to do this, and we will continue to fully examine what site penetration testing is.
What is site penetration testing?
As we said it is necessary to know if our site can do what is asked of it in terms of security and if we can be sure that it has maintained its integrity or not, it needs a thorough overview. to be done on it in different periods so that we can be sure that this site is working properly for us.
The site penetration test helps us to have a complete assessment of our site’s situation and to know whether there is a possibility of penetration to our site or not. Regarding the field of site penetration testing, we must say that site penetration testing is a general investigation for the possibility of site penetration, which includes the most trivial holes.
Maybe there are many things on the site that the site cannot be hacked with, but the site penetration test can also find these things for us. If this question has come to you that hacking the site does not mean hacking, we must say that it is not the case and attacks on sites and applications can be successful at different levels. The most superficial part that an attack can achieve is system penetration or Penetration, as we talked about site penetration testing. In fact, this type of attack only allows the attacker to enter the site, and the hacker may enter the site like a normal user without special access.
The next level that attacks can access is known as Crack, which allows the attacker to use the program and site as an administrator and based on the principles that are included in the design. and manipulate the content or fully exploit the program. Such as applications that can be hacked to access premium features or games that will be fully opened. After the crack is the hack, which gives the attackers the power to change the system for themselves against what it was designed for. For example, they can move a large amount of money by hacking a banking system without the money being traceable or the transactions being reversible.
Generally, the attacks that are carried out on different sites are of the type of penetration and they can be controlled. In some cases, by using some techniques such as brute force attacks, your site is fully available to the attackers.
What a good site penetration test should do for us is to scan our site completely and check all the possible intrusions from the lowest levels and the most minor attacks to the highest ones and wherever a change is needed, it is for We apply In fact, the site penetration test should find and provide us with everything that may damage our site.
Conducting a site penetration test is not an easy task and it can be said that it has its own problems, that’s why security companies have been thinking about organizing it for a long time and it can be said that it has reached good places. In general, it is possible to divide the site penetration test into four general types, which are determined based on the methods, which we will examine together in the following.
Types of site penetration testing methods
Black Box site penetration test
The black box test can be considered one of the main and most important tests that are used during the site penetration test, and if the site encounters problems at this stage, it can be said that the site’s security situation is messed up and it should be seriously thought about. In fact, the black box means that the attackers are deprived of what technologies the site uses and what its strengths and weaknesses are, and they only attack the site with the view that they are doing this on a site that they know nothing about. They do.
In this type of attack, all the possibilities that intruders can use are taken into account, and in fact, the test team blindly moves towards the target and tries to penetrate this site by any method it knows.
White Box site penetration test
This type of site penetration test is exactly the opposite of the black box test, where everything is provided to the test team. In this method, from the site penetration test, information such as important IPs, source codes, and sometimes even passwords that have limited and public access will be given to the site penetration test team, and this time the test will be done consciously and with the content they want. What site is being attacked and infiltrated? Most of the attacks carried out by honest hackers are of this type, and usually no one attacks without evaluating the site.
Regarding the white box attack, it should be said that this type of attack is extremely broad and can be carried out on local networks to the operating platform and even searching for specific software resources such as templates and plugins that are used for some content management systems such as WordPress. They will continue.
Double Blind site penetration test
This type of test can be introduced as one of the most famous tests for checking penetration resistance. In this type of test, none of the parties have any knowledge about what they are dealing with, and usually senior managers go to these tests. In this test, none of the security officials know that a test is going on, and the site’s penetration test team has little information about the target site and attacks with all its might.
Here, a two-way conflict takes place, and usually with the first warnings, the security experts do their best to stabilize the site and end the attack and ban the attackers, and on the other hand, the site penetration testing team is working hard Obstacles to penetrate the site. In this site readiness test, it is checked exactly like a real attack.
Of course, it should be said that this attack requires coordination with the organization’s network and hosting officials, because the public of these attacks can have a legal burden, and sometimes part of the data may be lost.
Gray Box website penetration test
In this method, site penetration testing is done using various attacks that are a combination of black box and white box attacks, and it should be said that site penetration testing is done in both ways with this method. In fact, these methods have a high variety and it is usually done in such a way that a specific penetration method will be given to the site’s penetration testing team, but they are not told what methods have been used to prevent these attacks and the fact that these specific methods In this particular case, how effective and practical they can be is one of the main goals that will be expected by the site penetration test using the Gray Box method. In general, it can be said that any method that cannot be placed in the above categories can be placed among the categories of site penetration testing in the form of Gray Box.
What are the advantages of using site penetration testing?
Using site penetration testing can help the penetration testing team to check all the security weaknesses of a site and take action to fix them. In general, site penetration testing has many advantages, some of which we will discuss below.
The advantages of using site penetration testing are the following:
- Site penetration testing is effective in maintaining the information of a company or organization and prevents their disclosure.
- Site penetration testing is an efficient method to manage damages and fix them.
- By conducting a site penetration test by the penetration team, you can check the power of the network infrastructure.
- Performing a site penetration test can identify all the site’s security weaknesses, which you can avoid the costs of network outages by fixing them.
There is an important issue about penetration tests and that is the standards that are mentioned for these tests. In the following, we will fully review these standards and their features.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed in detail the site penetration test and the methods by which this test is performed, and we saw what we need to do in order for the site penetration test to be performed on our site and what is the purpose of this test. Site penetration testing helps you to identify and prevent all possible methods of penetration into your site. These tests are performed in different ways, which can be divided into four categories: black box, white box, gray box, and double blind, which we talked about in detail above.
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