What is Penetration Testing?
What is Penetration Testing? In a penetration test or pen test for short, authorized hackers simulate an attack on a specific application, site or set of apps and sites to assess their security. A pen test is designed with a specific goal in mind, such as to gain privileged access to a sensitive system or to steal data from a system that is believed to be secure1. It's the process to identify security vulnerabilities in an application by evaluating the system or network with various malicious techniques. The weak points of a system are exploited in this process through an authorized simulated attack. The purpose of this test is to secure important data from outsiders like hackers who can have unauthorized access to the system. Once the vulnerability is identified it is used to exploit the system to gain access to sensitive information. A penetration test is also known as the pen test and a penetration tester is also referred to as an ethical hacker. We can figure...