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Testing Digital Defenses: A Comparison Between Simulated Attacks and Penetration Tests

The landscape of IT infrastructure and cybersecurity threats is constantly evolving, making cyberattacks more numerous, powerful and diverse. This, in turn, makes adversaries deploy increasingly sophisticated malware. The best hackers can mimic the actions of legitimate users and fly under the radar of protective measures. 

You need to see where threats are coming from, how they can move inside your network, where vulnerabilities in your defenses lie, find them and close them before cyber attackers take advantage of them.

What Is Cyber Attack Simulation? 

Cyberattack simulation (red teaming exercise) can be defined as the process of testing the effectiveness of your cybersecurity through the elimination of defense bias by applying an adversary lens on your organization. Red teaming occurs when ethical hackers are authorized by your organization to replicate an attacker's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) against your own systems. Red teams utilize attack simulation methodologies. They simulate the actions of a sophisticated attacker (or advanced persistent threat) to determine how well your organization's people, processes, and technology can withstand an attack aimed at achieving a specific goal. 

These simulations are a security risk assessment service that your organization can use to proactively identify and fix IT security gaps and weaknesses. By conducting a red team exercise, your organization can see how well your defenses hold up against real-world cyberattacks.

What Is Penetration Testing? 

Penetration testing is a cybersecurity forensics technique used to assess an organization's network perimeter and internal cybersecurity defenses. It involves pen testers hacking into systems and determining where vulnerabilities and weaknesses exist.

Penetration testing, also known as pen testing, involves a team of cybersecurity professionals attempting to breach a company’s systems, networks, or applications using a variety of methods that a real-world attacker might use. The goal of pen testing is to identify vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of security controls, ultimately improving the security posture of the company.

Cyber Attack Simulation vs Penetration Testing

Cyber-attack simulation and penetration test are two related concepts, but they have different focuses and objectives. Here are the key differences between the two:

• Main Objective:

  • Cyber Attack Simulation: Aims to simulate a cyberattack and test an organization's readiness to deal with threats. This simulation puts more emphasis on testing the organization's overall response, recovery and readiness to cyberattacks.

  • Penetration Test: Aims to actively evaluate the security of a system or network by attempting to penetrate layers of security to identify weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities.

• Scale and Scope:

  • Cyber Attack Simulation: It can include a series of attack scenarios involving various methods and tactics. The goal is to provide an overall picture of how well an organization can respond to a cyberattack.

  • Penetration Test: It is usually more focused on penetration or specific testing of systems, applications or networks to find concrete security weaknesses and risks.

• Process and Approach:

  • Cyber Attack Simulation: More akin to an emergency drill where the organization faces a series of emergency situations and must respond according to established security procedures.

  • Penetration Test: It is more technical in nature and involves active efforts to exploit the discovered security flaws, focusing on identification and escalation of access rights.

• Results and Recommendations:

  • Cyber Attack Simulation: Generate insights into how well the organization can respond to attacks and provide recommendations to improve readiness.

  • Penetration Test: Provide a detailed report on the weaknesses found, the level of risk, and recommendations for remediation and security reinforcement.

Protect Your Organization from Cyber Attacks

Both can complement each other in an effort to improve the cybersecurity of an organization. Often, organizations use a combination of both to get a more complete picture of their readiness and security levels.

We can integrate an established framework for consistency and reliability by prioritizing repeatability in our activities, ensuring that each test delivers consistent and reliable results. This approach guarantees that repeated exercises under the same conditions will deliver comparable results. Contact Us

Author: Ghea Devita

Marketing Communication PT Perkom Indah Murni