External IP Addresses to Include in Pentest: Best Practices for Security Testing

Carrying out a pentest correctly is important for finding and fixing security holes in a company. Including useful external IP addresses is an important part of pentesting. Hackers can get into a company's network and possibly take advantage of vulnerabilities by using these addresses as entry points. Companies can make sure their pentests are thorough and useful by carefully choosing and ranking which external IP addresses to test.

The facts are:

• As the places of entry for attackers into a company's network, external IP addresses are very important for thorough pentesting.
• Pentests can be incomplete if they don't include important external IP addresses. This can cause vulnerabilities to be missed.
• For pentesting to work, the organization's network structure and systems that connect to the outside world need to be carefully studied to find the right external IP addresses to include.

This post will go into detail about the best ways to find external ip addresses to include in pentest. We will talk about why external IP address testing is important, how to choose external IP addresses, and the risks that might come from leaving out important addresses. We will also give you advice on how to do successful pentests using external IP addresses, such as scanning, enumeration, and vulnerability assessment techniques.

Companies can improve the results of their pentests and make their general security stronger by using the strategies explained in this white paper.

Because they are the points of entry for attackers into a company's network, external IP addresses are very important for thorough pentesting. Companies can find vulnerable spots that could be open to outside threats by checking these addresses.

Pentests can be incomplete if they don't include important external IP addresses. This can cause vulnerabilities to be missed. Attackers might be able to use external IP addresses that aren't part of the tests to take advantage of security holes. This can pose a big threat to security and lead to possible data leaks.

Checking your network's security from the outside is like checking your front door locks and office alarms on a regular basis. It makes sure that no one else can get into your network without your permission. The outside penetration testing services are an important first step toward better protection.

Trusting trusted cloud security providers and next-generation firewalls can make you feel safe, but security holes are often caused by human error or bad setup. Our suggestions for yearly testing can be changed depending on how experienced and consistent your internal IT team is.

Many businesses have to follow rules like APRA and do actual penetration testing every year by a third party. These tests are meant to find holes that could let people get to, change, or delete private data without permission.

• Visibility: Know how an attacker from far away could get into your systems that people can see.
• Prioritization: Learn how to spend your security budget wisely by looking at the real risks.
• Incident Response Planning: Think about what could go wrong during an attack and make a plan for how to handle it.
• Getting better at something: Improve the security skills of your IT team by doing what we suggest.
• Compliance Assurance: Feel confident that your business is meeting all of its legal and compliance requirements.

• External security testing is a must if you want to find vulnerable spots in your network.
• Because of human factors, relying only on security goods might not be enough.
• It is best to test on a regular basis, but the regularity can be changed depending on things like how mature the team is and how stable the network is.
• Penetration testing is often required for compliance reasons.
• External penetration testing has many benefits, such as providing information about threats, setting priorities, planning how to handle incidents, improving skills, and ensuring compliance.

Network Penetration Test: Our services are built around our Network Penetration Test, but you can also add other types of tests if you want to. The price for this includes important extras like time spent validating the scope and writing reports. We can change the price to cover basic extra costs if you need a different type of test that doesn't include a Network Penetration Test.

As part of external network addresses for testing, firewall configurations are looked at. This can include stateful analysis and standard firewall bypass testing. We also look into problems with switching and routing, as well as IPS evasion and DNS attack assessments, such as zone transfer tests. As part of this type of testing, all ports are scanned, and then all services on any host that has been marked as a target are tested in detail. It comes with common services like SSH, SQL Server, MySQL, SMTP, FTP, and more. If black-box testing is found, it will also be done on well-known web apps like the login pages for Microsoft Outlook and the management interfaces for firewalls, printers, and other systems.

However, outside network IPs for testing does not include thorough testing of applications that were built specifically for you or that are owned by you. For those, you need to take a Web Application Test. In the same way, our basic Network Penetration Test doesn't cover custom non-web apps or services because they need more information. Also left out of this package are wireless penetration testing and social engineering.

It is possible to do Network Penetration Testing from either the inside or the outside.

Web Application Penetration Testing: Because web applications are so complicated and need thorough tests that take a lot of time, we don't include Web Application Testing in our normal Network package. The OWASP Testing Guide lists a lot more vulnerabilities than just the "top ten." All of them are tried in web applications.

The price of Web Application Testing may change depending on things like whether ActiveX, Silverlight, or Java Applets are used. Pricing can also be affected by what is considered a single web service. There is no way that a flat rate would cover checking all of Google.com, for instance. But most of the time, we will stick to the prices that are listed.

We might be able to test both the web app and the web service API for the same price if your app uses or offers a web service API. This depends on how the API is built and how it is used.

Web Application Penetration Testing can be done from either the inside or the outside.

Wireless Penetration Test: The main goals of our Wireless Penetration Testing are to find weak protocols, rogue access points, weak or default administrator credentials, and weak Pre-Shared keys. We also check for common attacks like mis-association and dissociation attacks and look at how the client station is set up incorrectly.

Because our equipment needs to be close to your wireless network for this type of test, an internal engagement is generally needed.

Social engineering: There are two types of social engineering: physical and remote.

Remote social engineering includes spear-phishing attacks that target up to 100 people and other electronic attacks that are meant to trick network or security staff. For this test, you need to do a lot of study on each target and think carefully about morale and safety issues, especially when putting electronic payloads into action. Our price sheet includes the cost of remote social engineering, which is usually done along with an external penetration test.

Physical social engineering includes testing that is done physically, like dropping infected media, trash diving, pretending to be someone else, and checking the physical security measures. We don't offer a flat-rate price for this testing because there are a lot of factors that can change. Get in touch with us to talk about your needs, and we'll send you a personalized price. Most of the time, physical social engineering happens during an internal interaction.

Including external ip addresses to include in pentest is important for finding security holes and making your system more secure. Organizations can better protect themselves from outside threats by following best practices, like carefully choosing IP numbers and making sure they cover everything. Your security methods will continue to work as long as you keep your IP lists up to date and adapt to new cyber threats. Consider working with SafeAeon for full security solutions if you want expert advice on how to improve your penetration testing approach and keep your network safe.