Imagine receiving a penetration test report that has more questions than answers. Questions like: “Have all the functionalities of the web application been tested?” or “Were there any security issues that could have been discovered during testing?” often remain unresolved, raising concerns about the thoroughness of security testing. This frustration is common among many security teams. Pentest reports, while critical, often lack the depth and detail needed to truly evaluate a project’s success.
Even with years of experience working with cybersecurity teams and managing ethical hacking projects, we’ve often encountered the same challenges. Whether partnering with external pentest providers or managing our own projects as founders Hakratwe have often encountered difficulties in ensuring that the testing is as complete as it needs to be.
This realization inspired us to be creative HackGATEa managed gateway solution built to provide transparency and control in pentesting projects, ensuring that no question about the quality and thoroughness of penetration testing projects goes unanswered. We sought to not only solve our own problems, but also provide the cybersecurity industry with a powerful tool to increase visibility in their ethical hacking projects.
Common problems in penetration testing
1. Lack of visibility and control
A recent poll on pentest projects revealed that 60% of security professionals find it difficult to measure the success of their pentests. In addition, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents rely solely on information provided by the pentest provider. This highlights a significant gap in the cybersecurity landscape: the lack of a solution that provides visibility into pentest activity. Without such a solution, security forces struggle with limited understanding of important aspects of the testing process, including the overall scope and duration of tests, the specific techniques and attack vectors used, and the detailed steps taken by ethical hackers.
2. Dependence on the pentest final report
Most companies that outsource pentests depend on the final report and their trust in the pentest provider to gauge success. Without concrete evidence of various aspects of testing, security teams are left with security challenges and blind spots, facing obstacles in both understanding their security testing projects and communicating their results to management and stakeholders.
3. Coordination in remote groups of pentesters
Managing a globally distributed team, especially when working across time zones, adds to these challenges. This can lead to delays in communication and coordination, resulting in missed deadlines and missed tasks. Ensuring that all team members are held to the same standards across locations is also challenging. Conflicting practices can lead to gaps in pentest coverage, leaving critical vulnerabilities undetected.
How HackGATE solves these problems
1. Improved visibility and detailed information
HackGATE provides real-time visibility into pentest activity. For example, it details the security testing traffic sent to targets, highlights the target areas of testing, and describes the techniques used by ethical hackers. This transparency ensures that you can effectively track your security testing process.
2. Creating a quality framework for ethical hacking
To ensure the quality of the testing process, it is very important to establish control based on the analyzed data. Ethical hackers use guidelines and best practices, such as the OWASP guidelines, to provide a structured approach to identifying security risks. While the OWASP framework offers a thorough evaluation of web applications, auditing of security tests is still necessary to ensure that pentesters are actually following the guidelines.
HackGATE ensures penetration test efficiency by setting baselines for minimal test traffic that includes both manual and automated testing activities. This ensures thoroughness and consistency of assessments.
3. Consolidated and visualized data
Penetration tests generate large amounts of data that can be difficult to analyze and understand using traditional Security Operation Center solutions. Teams need a centralized dashboard that consolidates key information, showing the most important metrics so that all stakeholders can easily monitor progress and monitor ethical hacking activities.
HackGATE’s unified dashboard addresses this need by bringing together critical information into a single view. It includes features for project management, analytics, and a detailed overview of pentesters’ activities. This allows all stakeholders to easily access and understand key metrics without sifting through multiple sources.
4. Better coordination of distributed security teams
By providing a unified interface for all team members, HackGATE ensures that everyone adheres to the same standards, reducing inconsistencies in pentest coverage. The platform also supports extensive coverage, enabling accurate and detailed reporting, ensuring that all assigned assets are verified and documented.
HackGATE also improves accountability by automatically generating detailed reports, providing evidence of testing. Not only does this help hold team members accountable, it also simplifies the audit process by ensuring regulatory compliance with a clear and accessible audit trail.
The HackGATE approach
To ensure successful penetration testing initiatives, security teams must embrace the “Trust, but verify” principle of penetration testing. This means that instead of relying solely on the pentest vendor’s report, they should be able to verify the quality and thoroughness of the testing. But how can they achieve this? A “trust but verify” approach requires accurate data, effective controls and detailed reporting. Most companies are still struggling due to lack of methodology and tools.
Conclusion
To ensure your penetration testing projects are complete and compliant, consider integrating innovative monitoring tools like HackGATE into your cybersecurity strategy. To get a deeper understanding of how it can meet your specific needs, schedule a consultation with our technical experts – no sales pitch, just a detailed exploration of how our solution can improve your pentesting approach.
Visit st HackGATE website to initiate or arrange a personal technical consultation.
