The Importance of Regular Network Audits and Penetration Testing
Proactive Security Measures
A network audit and penetration test (pen test) are essential proactive measures to identify security weaknesses before cyber criminals exploit them. These checks move beyond simple vulnerability scanning to provide a deep assessment of your network’s resilience.
Audit vs. Pen Test
- **Network Audit:** A comprehensive check of your network infrastructure, policies, and configurations. It verifies compliance with internal standards, checks asset inventory (hardware and software), and ensures data access rights are correctly assigned (e.g., has a former employee’s access been revoked?).
- **Penetration Testing:** This involves authorized hackers (ethical hackers) actively attempting to break into your system using the same methods criminals would use. The goal is to exploit known vulnerabilities to see how far they can get, simulating a real-world attack.
A regular pen test (annually) identifies patch gaps, weak firewall rules, and social engineering vulnerabilities, allowing your IT team to fix them before a breach occurs.