Penetration testing such as services provided by Alpine Security will include ethical hackers breaking down and getting in your cyber defenses and computer systems to expose possible network and system vulnerabilities. Letting hackers penetrate your network may not sound attractive, but it’s highly critical to protect your business from cyber attacks.

There’s a saying that preventive measures are better than solutions so you shouldn’t wait until your business becomes a victim of these cyber attacks before you work on solving them.

Here are 7 reasons how penetration testing services can help secure your business’ network and systems:

1. Business are prime targets for cyber attacks

Businesses have been prime targets of these attacks due to its vulnerability and financial capabilities. Research shows that 60% of businesses suffer from hacks and data breaches.

Furthermore, here are some reasons why cybercriminals target businesses:

  • Businesses, particularly in the financial sector, may have valuable data that can be used or sold for the benefit of a third party.
  • Businesses are involved with money and criminals want to gain access to large amounts of money.

If your business has valuable data that can be profitable for these cybercriminals, you may want to consider investing in a penetration test.

2. Expose vulnerabilities in your system

Having cybersecurity professionals hacking your system will expose your businesses weak spots against cyber threats. Rather than having those loopholes exploited by an untrusted party, you’ll have a professional service to show you precisely where your cyber defenses can be improved. This method will give you a chance to amend issues on your system and prevent future cyber attacks.

Here are examples of system vulnerabilities:

  • Weak passwords
  • Broken algorithm usage
  • Path traversal
  • Bugs
  • SQL injection
  • Missing authorization
  • Poor data encryption
  • Virus-infected software

3. Prevent financial loss from system downtime

If your small business becomes a victim of a real cyber attack, your system might be at risk of a total blackout. It can take a lot of time and money to make your system up and running again.  Here are some reasons how pentesting can prevent financial loss from system downtime:

  • Penetration tests can help your business in evading financial setbacks by addressing and proactively detecting security issues.
  • Penetration tests can avoid financial losses from remediation efforts and lowered productivity caused by a system downtime.

4. Tackle and prioritize risks

A penetration test can provide a detailed report of your business’ exploitable vulnerabilities. For example, a well-done penetration test can give an in-depth report on how hacking medical devices can affect your business.Vulnerabilities in your system will be categorized in order according to the difficulty of exploitation and possible impact on your business when data are exploited.

By prioritizing your risks based on the severity of the threat, you will be able to plan where to allocate your security resources and remediation efforts. For example, critical and high impact vulnerabilities should be addressed first before working on lesser impact and hard to exploit weaknesses. Here are examples of areas with high impact vulnerabilities:

  • Unsecured mobile devices
  • Cloud storage services
  • Third-party services
  • Employees

5. Cyber attacks can cause your businesses to shut down

According to statistics, about 60% of small business owners who suffered from a cyberattack shut down their business within 7 months. Yes, more than half of small businesses close its doors. This is also why you should seriously consider ramping your defenses against cybercriminals.

6. Protect your business reputation

Cyber attacks can compromise sensitive data from your business, which can lead to severe damages to your business’ image, and the loss of customer trust. Penetration testing will allow you to avoid data breaches that can put your business’ customer loyalty and reputation at stake.

7. Development of efficient security measures

The results of your penetration testing can be an essential asset to assess your current cyber defenses. This can provide your business with useful information on identified vulnerabilities, and its potential effects on the performance of your system. A well-done penetration test will include recommendations on optimizing your defense for both short-term and long-term.

The information will be used to create future cybersecurity measures. Here are some of the time-tested security measures that you can use:

  • Update your software
  • Backup your data
  • Two-factor authentication
  • Avoid common passwords
  • Employee awareness
  • Data encryption

Closing thoughts

There are plenty of reasons to conduct a routine penetration test on your business’ system. Penetration tests will identify your business’ vulnerability against cyber attacks and will help you plan for remediation efforts. Protect your small business against intrusions and data breaches by having a professional penetration test.