Penetration Testing a Must to Keep Cyber Criminal’s off Your Doorstep
The first time I heard the term “Penetration tests”, I had just entered the security industry 40 years ago and was referring to the attempt to breach the “perimeter and infrastructure” of a government installation under the protection of our company. We have Security Officers in several places strategically located in and around the Facility with our pre-established “Two Bandits” trying to gain access. In today’s security landscape, the words “Perimeter and infrastructure” have expanded to the organization’s internal operating systems. Today on a global level, we are experiencing daily security breaches within the IT infrastructure of all organizations and the term Penetration Testing has become critically important. Did you know that Cyber Crimes last year in the United States have cost our country more than 455 billion dollars? This translates into the loss of more than 200,000 jobs and rarely catch these cyber thieves. So, the question we must ask ourselves is: “What can we do as an organization to avoid exposing our information and compromising the data of our customers?” It does not matter if it is a small, medium or large company; It is imperative that you perform “penetration tests” on your internal operating systems. No organization, regardless of its size, is immune and it is more than likely that Cyber Thieves will at some point attempt to penetrate and take advantage of proprietary information about your company and its customers. Do not wait for the probable and inevitable experience that I have described. Perform a series of penetration tests quarterly to ensure the protection of your company’s proprietary information and your “bottom line”!