Penetration Testing v/s Ethical Hacking – What is the difference?
Penetration Testing v/s Ethical Hacking
Ethical hackers
and penetration testers are both important roles in the cybersecurity domain,
but some confusion exists regarding the difference between them. In this
article, we’ll explain what ethical hacking and penetration testing involve,
including what differentiates them from one another. The two roles do share
certain similarities: Ethical hackers and penetration testers both identify
vulnerabilities in IT environments and work to prevent different types of
cyberattacks. The two professions also have comparable high salaries and growth
potential. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021) groups penetration
testers and ethical hackers together under the umbrella of “information
security analysts,” an employment category with projected growth of 33% between
2020 and 2030. According to PayScale (2021, 2022), the average annual salary for
an ethical hacker is $80,000, while the average annual salary for a penetration
tester is $87,750. However, despite these similarities, ethical hacking and
penetration testing are separate career paths that involve different skill
sets. Understanding the difference between the two roles is crucial,
particularly for cybersecurity professionals seeking additional credentials,
such as EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) certification.
Penetration
Testing or pen-testing is the formal/official process of assessing the maturity
and strength of the security systems in place. Regular penetration testing
enables businesses to find emerging security threats and vulnerabilities, gain
critical insights into the exploitability of security vulnerabilities, and
assess the security risks facing them. By mimicking real-life attack scenarios
under secure conditions, web application pen-testing, and other types of
pen-testing are helpful, not harmful processes. Pen-testing empowers businesses
to get the first-mover advantage in terms of security. Conducted by trustworthy
and certified security experts, pen-testing is a very planned process. It is
done after obtaining all necessary permissions from the management/ business
and without interrupting the regular flow of work.
Ethical
hacking is a broad, umbrella term that includes all hacking and cyberattack
methodologies and techniques. These are longer-term assessments conducted by
the ethical hacker with the necessary permissions to explore the IT
infrastructure more widely. Ethical hacking helps unearth security
vulnerabilities and flaws by intruding the system using a wide range of attack
vectors and attack types. The professionals conducting ethical hacking must be
differentiated from black-hat hackers who have malicious intent. Ethical
hackers, with their understanding of the system, will not just locate
vulnerabilities, but also study and suggest security-related methodologies to
implement.
As we’ve seen, then, penetration testing is a
form of ethical hacking but with a narrower
focus and limited scope. It is typically part of a commercial
arrangement, in which testing of the target is pre-approved by a
client organisation.
Penetration testing, in itself, is a type of security
assessment. A company hires a suitably skilled penetration tester to identify
real-world security vulnerabilities within its IT infrastructure, systems or
applications, using a combination of tools and manual exploit techniques.
At the end of the test, the tester shares a comprehensive
report. This will include the vulnerabilities found and guidance on how to make
the business more secure. This advice is based on the severity of the issues
identified, typically by referring to CVSS 3.1 and
the tester’s own real-world experience.
Within penetration testing, there are different types of
tests, focused on different aspects of an organisation’s IT estate, such as:
External network tests;
Internal network tests;
Web application tests;
Mobile application tests; and
Wireless network tests
Penetration tests are usually carried out an annual
basis, or after an organisation deploys new infrastructure or
applications (especially internet facing
systems). For organisations of all sizes, they are
an invaluable tool for improving
cyber security. By finding unpatched vulnerabilities in systems,
applications and networks, they provide independent validation that a company’s
security defences are resilient.
Ethical hackers can and do use penetration testing as one
of their many tools for diagnosing security issues in a client’s security
system. However, ethical hackers focus more heavily on building and improving a
client’s information security system.
In contrast, penetration testers are devoted solely to
carrying out tests that identify and exploit weaknesses in a client’s IT
environment and providing detailed reports on all identified vulnerabilities,
the risk those vulnerabilities pose to the organization, and suggestions for
remedial action. A penetration tester is not involved in fixing identified
vulnerabilities; likewise, ethical hackers do not produce penetration test
reports for clients.
Ethical Hacking
V/s Penetration Testing\
Ethical hacking differs from pentesting in a variety of
ways:
·
Pentesting clearly defines the scope of the test to a
specific network or computer system.
·
Ethical hacking utilizes any attack vector to breach a
system whereas a pentest will often define the attack vectors more specifically
before testing. For example, a pentest will often not include a phishing email
attack, whereas an ethical hack may.
·
Pentesting is required for some compliance frameworks
whereas ethical hacking is not.
·
Finally, while both services will often include a
timeline for the attacks, ethical hacking will often function more similarly to
a bug bounty program with no hard end date.
With these in mind, pentesting and ethical hacking offer
companies a different approach to a proactive cybersecurity program. That said,
they do not offer the same end-goals if those are better defined, such as with
compliance or to secure a specific system.
Ethical hacking enables you to locate
vulnerabilities and weak points in your business systems, applications, etc. It
also helps you learn whether or not your business conforms to the security best
practices.
Purpose: Pen-testing seeks to find security vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the
targeted IT system. It is usually not conducted on the entire application or IT
infrastructure. It seeks to tell the business how their security systems
respond to real-time attacks and suggest measures to strengthen the same.
Ethical hacking seeks to find as many vulnerabilities and security flaws as
possible in the IT environment using wide-ranging techniques and attack
vectors. It seeks to provide a holistic evaluation of cybersecurity. More
remediation and risk mitigation assistance are provided by ethical hackers in
comparison to pen-testers who submit a report with suggestions on the
completion of the testing.
Scope: Given the budgetary and time constraints, penetration testing is often
conducted on specific aspects/ parts of the IT system defined for testing, not
the entire environment. The assessment provided by pen-testing is targeted and
point-in-time. As a result, security flaws and weaknesses are identified only
in the targeted systems at a given point in time. Ethical hacking has a broader
scope and assesses the IT environment holistically over longer periods of time.
So, there is scope to find as many security flaws and vulnerabilities as
possible in the environment. Penetration testing is a subset/ function of
ethical hacking.
Permissions
Required: Since web application pen-testing and other types
of pen-testing are targeted, the testers require access and permissions only
for those targeted systems/ areas they are testing. While in ethical hacking,
the tester needs access and permissions to a whole range of systems and areas,
based on the defined scope.
The Role of a Penetration Tester
A penetration test is a coordinated assessment carried out by an independent team
contracted by an organization, with the client organization defining the scope
of the test. The test scope describes what systems need to be tested and what
methods the tester will use. The penetration tester then attempts the client’s
system according to the scope outlined by the client. The tester exploits any
weaknesses they encounter so that they can quantify the risk these
vulnerabilities pose to the client.
After testing is complete, the penetration tester
prepares a report that includes an executive summary of the test parameters
along with vulnerability classification documents and suggestions for
remediation. Testers generate a risk score by pairing the penetration test report
with the business value of the targeted systems to calculate the level of risk
that a cyberattack would pose to the client. The report’s end goal is to
provide the client and their stakeholders with information about any security
vulnerabilities in the system and outline the actions required to resolve those
vulnerabilities.
Penetration
testing has many applications in security maturity modeling and
risk management. Businesses frequently use penetration testing to identify
vulnerabilities in their security infrastructures that cybercriminals can
exploit when launching cyberattacks (EC-Council, 2021c). Organizations also use
penetration testing for audit compliance to ensure that their operations adhere
to relevant laws, regulations, and company policies. For example, if a company
is subject to SEC filing requirements, an independent security audit using
penetration testing is needed to validate the integrity of the organization’s
security infrastructure
The Role of an Ethical Hacker
While penetration testers focus solely on carrying out
penetration tests as defined by the client, ethical
hacking is a much broader role that uses a greater variety of
techniques to prevent different types of cyberattacks (EC-Council, 2021b). Ethical
hackers may be involved in:
·
Web application hacking
·
System hacking
·
Web server hacking
·
Wireless network hacking
·
Social engineering tests
·
Forming blue and red teams for network exploitation
attacks
An ethical hacker’s responsibilities are not restricted
to testing a client’s IT environment for vulnerabilities to malicious
attacks. Ethical
hackers also play a crucial role in testing an
organization’s security policies, developing countermeasures, and deploying
defensive resolutions to security issues. When employed by a company as
in-house cybersecurity professionals, ethical hackers may help build the
foundations of an organization’s cybersecurity system or augment app, tool, and
protocol communication networks (EC-Council, 2021a).
While ethical hackers may use penetration testing in the
process of identifying vulnerabilities in a system and quantifying the threat
that cyberattacks pose to an organization, penetration testing is just one of
the many tools that they use. In short, an ethical hacker’s methodologies and
roles are more varied than those of a penetration tester.
The Core Differences Between Ethical Hacking and
Penetration Testing
Below is a summary of the key
differences between a penetration tester and an ethical hacker
(EC-Council, 2021a).
·
Penetration testers assess the security of a specific
aspect of an information system according to an outlined scope. Ethical hackers
carry out many types of cyberattacks on an entire system using multiple attack
vectors without being restricted by a scope document.
·
Penetration testers carry out a one-time,
limited-duration engagement. Ethical hackers have a continuous engagement that
generates more in-depth and comprehensive results.
·
Penetration testers need a robust knowledge of the domain
or area that their penetration tests will target. Ethical hackers need detailed
knowledge of hacking tactics, techniques, and procedures so that they can
imitate a cybercriminal’s steps.
·
Penetration testers are not responsible for the client’s
security configuration and incident handling. Ethical hackers are required to
assist blue teams and incident handling teams in incident containment and
validation for different types of cyberattacks.
·
Penetration testers must be proficient in writing
foolproof reports. Ethical hackers generally do not need to be well versed in
report writing.
Which
one is right for you?
The
short answer is, both – because penetration testing is a form of ethical hacking.
A penetration test is an assurance exercise for your organisation. These tests
should form part of your vulnerability management programme. They should
include regular vulnerability scanning and patching in line with vendor
guidance. Carrying out penetration testing provides peace of mind.
It also helps demonstrate compliance with regulatory and legal obligations.
Importantly, it provides your customers with confidence that their data is
secure in your systems. If your organisation has public infrastructure and
collects and works with personal or sensitive data, then you may
also be subject to ethical hacking by security researchers. You won’t
know about their research unless they find a vulnerability and, even
then, you should validate the nature of the vulnerability yourself. There
is growing trend where scammers contact organisations to
highlight an insignificant matter and request payment. With
this in mind, it is worth adding a security.txt file to your
website, which provides researchers with contact details for
notifying the organisation about vulnerabilities, to ensure the
disclosure gets to the right people in your business. Likewise, you
can include your public key to enable the researcher to disclose
information in encrypted form, to help prevent it falling into the
hands of a malicious party.
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