Social Engineering is a Crucial Part of Penetration Testing

Now that the eerie face of cyber-crime has finally revealed itself, people all over the world are more alert than ever in regard to the software applications they use be it web apps or mobile apps. Internet privacy, contrary to the claims of some hackers, may not exactly be a myth, but it does face a great danger due to these hackers.

Hackers or black hats as they are otherwise referred to, are not like other criminals like thugs and murderers committing the offense personally and taking the risk of getting caught. Black hats plan each of their moves meticulously and the worst part is that they have more than enough time to cover their tracks. By the time you figure out the IP address of the computer through which your mobile app was hacked, the hacker would already have extracted the information he/she needs. This is a critical issue and companies all over the world who deploy apps for varied reasons are trying to resolve it. External penetration testing so far has been the most widely adopted solution.

Penetration testing in simple terms, is the process of testing the security of a web application or mobile application by subjecting it to attacks. These attacks are engineered by professionals known as ethical hackers or pen-testers. Equaling black hats in technical proficiency, ethical hackers break security protocols of applications only with the intention of evaluating and improving them. It takes many punches for one to know how many punches he/she can take. Same is the logic behind penetration testing services.

Originally Posted on: https://medium.com/@Avyaan/social-engineering-is-a-crucial-part-of-penetration-testing-a37db36e91de#.wvp9sbzb9