Is Penetration Testing Must for Your Business?

The burden of cyber security lapses is becoming increasingly heavier for the country. According to a CSI/ FBI report, on an average, each US organization loes a whopping $350,000 to standard security breaches. Whether you have a strong market presence or are just a start-up, if you are in a business that has to deal with a lot of customer’s data, you must invest in penetration testing. Several IT consulting companies in Tampa can help you. With more and more companies realizing the importance of this service, private sector penetration testing market has evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry across the US. No wonder, many Tampa-based IT firms today offer pen-testing as part of their IT service package. 

What Is Penetration Test?

It refers to a planned software attack on a computer system. The scheme is aimed at detecting security loopholes and vulnerabilities. But instead of stopping there, it goes one step ahead to proactively simulate attacks in order to find out real-world attack vectors against an organization’s data assets. The findings are reported to the system owner with test reports assessing potential impacts to the organization and recommending countermeasures to cut down the vulnerability.
If your start-up belongs to an industry which mandates the use of pen-testing, the followings are the reasons why you should invest in it:

• Understanding the possibility of different types of attack that may hack disparate systems or the entire network
•  Sorting out high-risk vulnerabilities from lower-risk ones
• Identifying vulnerabilities that may be otherwise impossible to detect with software
• Assessing the financial impact of successful attacks
• Meeting compliance 
• Re-create an attack chain to validate the upgraded security system in order to avoid a similar attack in the future

Pen-testing is a high-risk endeavor. Ensure that you only hire a reputable IT consulting company in Tampa, one with enough domain knowledge and satisfied clientele. Hire it wrong and it is going to be all false alarms without any positive actionable result. So hire a team that comes up with a solid test plan and assessment of risks.