External Infrastructure Penetration Testing
Protect your digital assets: ensure your organisation’s defences are effective.
Partner with us knowing we have performed 1000's of engagements and built our expertise over two decades. Our team is local, accredited and has deep expertise in all external pen testing services in New Zealand.
How we can assist:
What is external penetration testing?
Why external penetration testing matters to your organisation?
What is external penetration testing?
Threat actors continuously probe systems searching for vulnerabilities they can exploit in order to steal data, compromise the operation of systems or damage your organisation's reputation. The definition of external penetration testing in New Zealand is to employ similar tools, tactics and procedures as malicious parties to search for potential weaknesses.
External penetration tests public-facing systems by simulating a malicious attacker on the internet. Public facing systems include servers that have public IP addresses which can be accessed by users on the internet, such as websites and email servers.
External penetration testing uses tools and methods that can detect issues such as identifying firewall misconfigurations, identification of unpatched vulnerabilities and locating and compromising administrative services and interfaces.
Why External Penetration Testing Matters to Your Organisation?
Penetration testing is the technology equivalent of ensuring the locks and alarm systems that protect your physical assets are safe and secure. Just as you wouldn’t want a thief to simply walk through an open door or one protected with a weak lock, external penetration testing looks for weaknesses that can be exploited by a threat actor.
Although there are a plethora of technology solutions for protecting your information and systems assets - everything from web application firewalls to advanced monitoring systems - those tools rely on people to ensure they are correctly configured and maintained. External penetration testing can find misconfigurations, unpatched systems and other issues that can be remedied in order to ensure your valuable data and system assets are protected from external threats.
Remain compliant with external pen testing
With compliance now a major issue for organisations to manage, external penetration testing in New Zealand carried out by an expert independent party can assist with remaining compliant with established regulations and security standards. For example, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) requires the organisations it oversees to conduct independent external penetration tests annually. Security standards such as NIST and ISO 270001 require penetration testing in order to be compliant.
Tesserent External Infrastructure methodology uses both manual and automated testing of your organisation’s public facing infrastructure (for example websites and email servers) to determine if an external attacker can breach your perimeter.
What you gain from external penetration testing
Allow your organisation to validate how your current security controls hold up against an external attack.
- Visibility as to how a remote attacker could compromise your public-facing systems.
- Insight into how to prioritise your security spend, based on actual risks.
- Understanding as to how an attack might occur, providing an opportunity to formulate an incident response plan that is relative to your likely risks.
- Uplifting of the security capabilities of your IT team through our recommended remediation.
- Confidence that you are closer to achieving your business’s compliance and regulation requirements.
How Can Tesserent Help New Zealand Organisations?
Tesserent is a highly regarded leader in external penetration testing. Its team has conducted external testing for a plethora of Australian and New Zealand organisations for many years across a wide variety of different industries. Tesserent’s experts start external penetration testing with reconnaissance and vulnerability detection and then move to actively exploiting those vulnerabilities.
Once a vulnerability is detected and exploited, Tesserents highly skilled penetration testing team shows how the vulnerabilities can gain a foothold in your organisation leading to the compromise of operations and exfiltration of data.
At the conclusion of the external penetration testing engagement, Tesserent prepares a highly detailed report that identifies the vulnerabilities and risks including the steps taken by its highly skilled team to find and exploit those weaknesses, their impacts and a suggested course of action to ensure the protection of your organisation's information and system assets.
You may also wish to engage in our internal penetration testing services. Tesserent internal infrastructure penetration testing is to simulate an internal attacker, potentially an employee or contractor, who has access to your internal network.
Client Story
Tesserent keeps Mirvac secure from cyber threats – supporting a future in smart buildings
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is External Penetration Testing important?
External Penetration Testing is important because it helps organisations identify vulnerabilities in their external-facing systems before cybercriminals do. By identifying and addressing these vulnerabilities, organisations can better protect their sensitive data and systems from potential cyber attacks.
What is the difference between External Penetration Testing and Internal Penetration Testing?
External Penetration Testing focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in an organisation's external-facing systems, while Internal Penetration Testing focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in an organisation's internal systems. Internal Penetration Testing is typically performed by internal security teams, while External Penetration Testing is often performed by third-party cybersecurity firms.
What are the steps involved in External Penetration Testing?
The steps involved in External Penetration Testing typically include reconnaissance, scanning, vulnerability assessment, exploitation, and post-exploitation. During reconnaissance, the tester gathers information about the target organisation's systems and network. During scanning, the tester looks for open ports and services that can be targeted for attack. During vulnerability assessment, the tester looks for vulnerabilities in the target systems. During exploitation, the tester attempts to exploit any vulnerabilities found. Finally, during post-exploitation, the tester looks for ways to maintain access to the target systems and exfiltrate sensitive data.
How long does External Penetration Testing typically take?
The length of time for External Penetration Testing depends on the scope of the test and the complexity of the target systems. Typically, External Penetration Testing can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to complete.
What happens after External Penetration Testing is completed?
After External Penetration Testing is completed, the cybersecurity company will typically provide a report detailing the vulnerabilities found and recommendations for remediation. The organization can then use this information to improve its cybersecurity defences and better protect its sensitive data and systems.
How often should External Penetration Testing be performed?
The frequency of External Penetration Testing depends on the organisation's risk profile and regulatory requirements. Generally, organisations should perform External Penetration Testing at least once a year or whenever significant changes are made to their external-facing systems.
Contact us
Speak with a Tesserent
Security Specialist
Tesserent is a full-service cybersecurity and secure cloud services provider, partnering with clients from all industries and all levels of government. Let’s talk.
