A Pen Test is used to identify any exploitable vulnerabilities on your network. It can be used in other areas of the business as well. Like on your website, with your emails, and any remote equipment. The person who setup the network should not be the same person who runs the test. A third-party pen tester should run the test.
Outside vendors are more likely to find vulnerabilities the internal team hasn’t located. DIY network pen testing by unskilled professionals can lead to low performance, downtime, or even a system crash leading to major business disruption. The third party can also provide clients with the assurance of expert online security in critical areas like storage, transactions, and data access. Having a third party will ensure pen tests are performed by actual experts and skilled auditors (rather than inexperienced employees) who conduct such exercises on a regular basis, using best industry practices.
Pen Tests should be done once or twice a year. After running the test, you should retest it. Retesting involves running the same exact tests as the previous pen testing session in order to verify that remediation efforts were successful. Sometimes changes are made to resolve security weaknesses, but it’s just assumed that these measures sufficiently fixed these issues.