While automation is transforming many aspects of cybersecurity, there’s no substitute for the insight and adaptability of human experts. Today, we’re focusing on the crucial role of manual penetration testing in the cybersecurity ecosystem.
Manual pentesting leverages the experience, intuition, and creativity of cybersecurity professionals. These experts navigate systems, searching for vulnerabilities and potential exploits. This process involves more than just identifying weaknesses; it’s about understanding how these vulnerabilities might be exploited in a real-world scenario.
The real value of human pentesters shines through when dealing with complex, customized systems or applications with unique business logic. Automated tools may struggle with these environments, but a skilled pentester can understand the system’s individual nuances, identifying vulnerabilities that automated tools may overlook.
In addition to identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities, manual pentesters are responsible for documenting their findings and communicating them effectively to stakeholders. This process often involves creating a detailed report that explains the identified vulnerabilities, the risks they pose, and the recommended mitigation strategies.
However, manual penetration testing has its challenges. It’s a labor-intensive process requiring a high level of expertise, and it can be time-consuming. As such, it’s often used in combination with automated testing, where the speed and consistency of automated tools are supplemented by the in-depth analysis of manual pentesters.
In the final installment of our series, we’ll tie everything together, exploring how organizations can strike a balance between automated and manual pentesting. This balance is crucial to establishing a robust cybersecurity posture capable of defending against the evolving landscape of cyber threats.
In this appendix, we look at several important facets of manual penetration testing:
- Authorization Testing: Manual testing can help identify whether there are vulnerabilities in the authorization mechanisms of a system, such as directory traversal/file inclusion and privilege escalation.
- Session Management Testing: Human testers can attempt to bypass session management controls, inspecting for exposed session variables and testing for session fixation vulnerabilities.
- Business Logic Testing: Skilled manual testers can also check the business logic of an application for possible vulnerabilities, such as the ability to forge requests and circumvent workflows.
- File Upload Vulnerabilities: Manual testers can check file upload functionalities for vulnerabilities, determining if it’s possible to upload malicious files.
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