Penetration Testing

Square One Technologies Inc cybersecurity and penetration testing service evaluates the security of an organization’s network (internal and external), web applications, WIFI, web services and/or cloud deployments (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). The main goal of the penetration test is to discover and attempt to exploit any vulnerabilities that may exist on an organization’s internal or external systems. For our internal penetration testing services, we simulate an attack that has already bypassed the security perimeter. This highlight and identifies what an attacker (or an insider) can see and what they can do internally, such as moving from one network to another, and intercepting internal communications. For our external penetration testing service, we simulate the ability of an attacker to gain access from external resources to the internal network or to retrieve sensitive data from public-facing resources, such as web applications, web services, cloud, or servers. Our penetration tests can be performed internally or externally without disrupting organizational functions. After the penetration test has been completed, a report is provided that details the test’s findings. The report contains recommendations for remediation of the identified security vulnerabilities to help mitigate financial and reputational risks.

Our Focus Areas

Web Application

Web Application Penetration Testing combines automated scans and expert manual techniques to uncover vulnerabilities in web systems. It evaluates key areas like authentication, data handling, and business logic to ensure strong, real-world security.

Social Engineering

Social Engineering Testing targets the human side of security by simulating phishing and vishing attempts. It evaluates how effectively employees recognize and resist manipulation designed to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Mobile Application

This type of testing is specific to native mobile applications with respect to Android, Apple and iOS devices.This includes security assessments and penetration testing specific to static analysis, dynamic analysis, malware analysis, and API testing.

Wireless/Wi-Fi

This type of testing involves identification of weaknesses in wireless architectures. This type of testing also involves internal touch points, access control tests, information gathering, vulnerability and packet capture, and miss configuration tests.

Network

This type of penetration testing assesses the network with respect to open ports, running services, patch levels, improper configurations, flaws in design, and effectiveness of security controls.

Cloud

Cloud Penetration Testing assesses the security of cloud environments across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. It examines vulnerabilities in compute, storage, applications, APIs, and network configurations to ensure robust protection against potential breaches.

Test Approaches

Our penetration testing comes in three main approaches: white box, grey box, and black box.

White Box Penetration Test

With this type of penetration test, our penetration tester will have full-disclosure, which includes knowledge of IP addresses, source code, network protocols, user access, and architecture diagrams.

Grey Box Penetration Test

This requires the target URL(s) and credentials to access the target system. Additionally, architecture diagrams or other information are provided, if needed.

Black Box Penetration Test

This requires no previous information and usually takes the approach of an uninformed attacker. In a black box penetration test, our penetration tester has no previous information about your organization’s network (internal and external), web applications, WIFI, web services and/or cloud deployments (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).

Test Methodologies

Our Penetration Test Methodology consists of five major phases of testing.

Intelligence Gathering: Using various degrees of open source intelligence (OSINT) and scanning to gather information about the target environment.

Threat Modeling: Reviewing information about the target environment and similar environments to determine major assets and possible threat agents and motivations.

Vulnerability Analysis: Probing guided by gathered intelligence to determine and rank potential weaknesses in the environment.

Exploitation: Leveraging vulnerabilities to access sensitive information and locate potential pivot points for post-exploitation.

Post-Exploitation: Collecting information on potential additional targets, from which the cycle may be repeated.

Every test will be different, but all will follow the same basic workflow below

Benefits of Penetration Testing

Helps to achieve and maintain compliance with applicable International and Federal regulations (NIST 800-53, HIPAA, PCI, etc).

Due to the fact that penetration testers attempt to exploit the identified vulnerabilities, an organization can see what an attacker could do if those vulnerabilities were exploited.

Quantifies the risk to the internal and external systems with confidential data (PHI and PII).

Penetration testing measures how well an organization’s security team detects and responds to simulated attacks. It also evaluates the effectiveness of defense tools like intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, and web application firewalls.

Protects the integrity of assets in case of existing malicious code hidden in any of them.

Provides detailed remediation steps to detect existing flaws and prevent future attack.