Why Website Penetration Testing is Imperative for your Company

Cybersecurity is really crucial, especially in today’s world. The world is connected through a network that deals with banking, internet, IT and the government infrastructure and has a lot of third-party apps, cyber criminals and more that are on the rise.

According to research, global cybercrime has seen an increase in the last couple of years and a number of companies have fallen victim to phishing, malicious software, and other types of cybercrime. Once attacked the company takes around 23 days just to resolve one of them, which is quite serious as the customers’ and brands’ private information can be compromised. Penetration testing or pen testing is a method used to evaluate the security of an information system by simulating an attack from a malicious source. It establishes how weak your organization’s cybersecurity is and what measures you can take to make it stronger. Sadly, most companies are not really looking to reassess their security budgets and fall victims to cybercrimes. Here are a couple of reasons why you need to reconsider the security of your company and hire a penetration tester.

Risk assessment-

Ask yourself, how much is your brand worth today? And how much would it cost if your IT infrastructure and personal data were compromised even for a bit? Basically, this is a risk assessment for your brand and it uncovers the risk you are exposed to and its impacts. You can either choose to do it on your own or hire an expert to conduct an assessment for you. By doing this assessment it should provide you with a list of objectives and results you need to follow in order to properly secure your brand.  Depending upon the threat and the impact it has on your brand, penetration testing has to be one of your top objectives and should be properly addressed to ensure your brand and your customers are safe.

Regulations and compliance-

During risk assessment, you will assess the impact of what happens if you do not conform to certain laws and regulations and do not perform a penetration test. Not going ahead with this test can be risky to your company and can cause you to lose your license, cost you a hefty fine, or even worse. It’s important that you seek counsel to assess local laws and regulations as well as ensure that your company follows those regulations. Under certain laws, your company needs to perform a security assessment on their IT applications and infrastructure. With data privacy getting more attention and regulators from various countries implementing strict data laws to protect their people, customers need to take note of companies who have passed the data check.

Reputation-

With website penetration testing, your company’s reputation won’t suffer and there will be no data breach that occurs. A data breach can lose your customers’ confidence in the brand and will reduce your sales and conversions in the process. Customers will not recommend your brand and this in turn can affect your data privacy and cause loss to the company. Penetration testing is needed to safeguard your client’s data, your customers’ cards, and personal information, and your company as a whole.

Competition-

Losing your company’s data will be disastrous, especially if your data is in the hands of your competitors. While they may not hack into your system, there are ways they could access this information if your company isn’t protected. Cybercriminals can hack into your site and post this information on the web and your competitor can get hold of this information. A penetration test on your IT security audit can assure that your data is not impacted.

The Bottom Line

Penetration testing can help to avoid the above risks and assure that your business is safe. The best security practices should be adopted in order to secure your brand and address any threats towards it.