A penetration test is a simulated cyber-attack against the computer system to check the vulnerabilities. This security saves the technique organizations use to identify, test, and high vulnerabilities in their security. This post will discuss the benefits of penetration testing for the healthcare industry.
What is a Penetration Test?
Penetration tests are known for that testing approach in which analysts identify potential weaknesses and try to reduce vulnerabilities. For penetration testing, MRI is the best-suited test for your organization. It is the place for security testing according to your requirements that you believe and evidence of problems of your system securities.
- Cyber Security Penetration Testing
Penetration testing is one for your security and can help you reach Health Insurance Probability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance. The white paper will help you learn the basics of penetration testing, best practices to prepare for cyber security penetration testing, and the cost of penetration testing.
- Network Penetration Testing
The user may need to do both an internal and external penetration test for security. An internal penetration test has been done when penetration test systems (without PHI access) are within your organizational network. The external network penetration testing is preferred when testers test from an open public network (Internet) outside of the user’s corporate network.
Penetration Testing for Healthcare Industry
Healthcare organizations may have technology and procedures to secure your data from hacking when discussing healthcare organizations. But sometimes, it creates difficulties for organizations to find every security weakness.
To save your network’s data and electronic patient healthcare information (PHI), it is required to examine your environment the way a hacker would. Ethical hacking or penetration testing is the art of analyzing network environments, identifying potential vulnerabilities, and trying to exploit those vulnerabilities just like a hacker would. But the difference is that people are on your side.
How Pen Testing Helps the Healthcare Industry?
If we discuss penetration testers, we will first run automated scans and then manually test your website, patient portal, or other internet-facing networks and applications to check the simple way into your patient data using standard hacker tools. If any hackers are found, the testers report these notifications to the user with preventive recommendations to create a better way to defend the systems.
Penetration Testing Includes
Penetration testers essentially need an authenticated penetration test. It means that the user must provide the penetration tester with your credential to access the system. However, the user may get a request to penetrate their system blindly.
Benefits of getting penetration test
The IT organization’s environment influences the several attacks to which they are susceptible. Some of the following examples can allow attackers to access a domain, such as web browsers, software, operating systems, and server interface defects.
Thus, every security testing plan is a tailor-made solution for each network environment. Independent penetration testing can expose many weaknesses in application code. It is the best course to defend in identifying weaknesses before deployment.
How to get a penetration test?
Firstly, you need to establish the establishment of your organization which is considered a significant change. The major change to a smaller organization is only a minor change in a large environment. The user brings new hardware for any organization size or starts accepting patient data differently, which constitutes a significant change.
Preparation for Penetration Test
There is a need to perform the penetration test. Penetration testers should be in:
- Methodologies of black hat attack (e.g., remote access attacks, SQL injection)
- Testing both internally and externally (i.e., the perspective of someone within the network, the perspective of hacker over the Internet)
- Front-end web technologies (e.g., Javascript, HTML)
- Programming languages for web applications (e.g., Python, PHP)
- APIs for the web (e.g., restful, SOAP)
- Technologies used in networks (e.g., firewalls, IDS)
- TCP/UDP, SSL, and other networking protocols
- Computer operating systems (e.g., Linux, Windows)
- Languages for scripting (e.g., Python, Pearl)
- Instruments for testing (e.g., Nessus, Metasploit)
- Testing for segmentation
Network Segmentation
Nowadays, healthcare organizations often set up an extensive flat network; you can check for everything. They may have one firewall at the in one networking solution. Usually, many industries have access to their industries, such as patient information and other information related to your industry.
Penetration testing for governance
Cyberattacks are mostly cheap in conduct, but it is expensive for some organizations that they hit. Botnets are inexpensive to hire, hacking software is widely available, and even persons with little technical or practical experience can buy attacks as a service.
Attacks can cripple a firm’s systems, result in hefty fines and harm to a company’s reputation, and the cheap cost required to carry out an attack means that no organization is too small to be attacked.
This is where penetration testing (also known as “pen testing”) comes into play. It’s essentially a controlled kind of hacking in which a professional pentester working for a corporation uses the same techniques as a criminal hacker to look for flaws in the company’s networks or apps.
Ways to perform segmentation checks
Network segmentation can be sometimes tricky, in that time when it works without technical security, thus the perform segmentation checks annually and whenever you may change to your network environment.
Segmentation checks are a set of tests that ensure less-secure networks can’t communicate with high-secure networks related to patient data. Segmentation checks are essentially penetration tests that ensure the network segmentation has isolated networks with and without access to PHI.
Penetration testers check segmentation by executing a port scan (typically with Nmap) inside the network without PHI access to find an IP address within the PHI environment. If they can’t find IP addresses inside PHI-enabled networks, the network segment is considered properly segmented (or isolated from PHI access).
After scanning, the expected result is that the tester should not find any open services within the secure zone.
Penetration Testing Consultancy
Penetration tests drive us as a penetration consultancy to identify potential vulnerabilities in your websites and web applications and provide recommendations for improving your industry security. This test can help meet the PCI DSS and ISO certification requirements.
Cost of Penetration Testing
The cost of any security service can vary greatly depending on several factors, including:
- Complexity: The size and complexity of your environment and network devices are likely the most critical elements in determining the cost of a penetration test. A more complicated environment necessitates more time and effort to practically stroll over the network and expose web apps in search of every probable flaw.
- Methodology: Each penetration tester conducts their penetration test in a unique method. Some people use more expensive tools than others, potentially raising the price. That isn’t always a terrible thing. More costly tools may help you save time and get better results from your exam.
- Experience: More experienced penetration testers will be more expensive. You have to maintain one thing that you get what you pay for. Be wary of penetration testers who offer too-good-to-be-true pricing. They aren’t likely doing a thorough job. Look for penetration testers with certifications such as CISSP, GIAC, CEH, and OSCP.
- Onsite: While most penetration tests may be performed remotely, in rare circumstances involving extremely large or sophisticated environments, an onsite visit may be necessary to thoroughly test your company’s security. If you want physical security or social engineering penetration test, you’ll need to come on-site.
- Remediation: Some penetration testers incorporate remediation and retesting as part of their package.
CONCLUSION
Penetration tests should be performed whenever you need tests makes a big network update. Determine what kind of penetration testing your environment requires (e.g., segmentation checks, internal and external penetration tests), as well as who should do these tests. For top-notch pen testing services, contact Avancer Corporation.
