Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner and a Penetration Test

By Kate Bailey


Just because you think your data is safe does not mean your database of sensitive organization information has not already been cloned and is resident elsewhere ready to be sold to the highest bidder. To make matters worse, only recently, it has been discovered that hackers are not simply selling your information they're also selling the fact that you have vulnerabilities to others be they hackers, industrial spies or terrorists. An Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner can help.

To quote from the book "Achieving PCI Compliance" page 245,"A Vulnerability Scan is a simple test that looks for and reports on any vulnerabilities found within your network infrastructure. That is the extent of a vulnerability scan: Identification and reporting.

A Penetration Test is often times conducted after the vulnerability scan. A penetration test attempts to exploit one or more of the vulnerabilities identified during the vulnerability scan. A penetration test attempts to verify if an identified vulnerability is actually susceptible to being exploited."A PCI Scan is a vulnerability scan that includes not only a report of the potential ways that hackers could use to gain access to the website, but it also outlines a solution for repairing or removing the vulnerability. If you run it, and there are no security issues, a penetration test is not necessary.

For PCI scanning to be compliant, at a minimum it must be run against the internal and external networks on a quarterly basis. It also must be run after any significant changes in the network like installations, changes in network topology, firewall rule modifications, product upgrades, etc. It is important to have some kind of vulnerability scanner if you have a business online.

One line of defense includes the Restriction of Error Messages. Error messages are normally generated in HTML which an attacker will be able to view. The details of all error messages should be logged in database or file on the server and displayed through a dynamically produced error page. It is important to have the proper website security when you have your own business online. Using a vulnerability scanner is a smart idea. Don't forget to have your site scanned with an Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment