By Chris Reid, Cybersecurity Strategist
As the season starts to change, the atmosphere seems to take on a whole new character. That physical shift in the air is always a great reminder to look ahead and see what I need to think about in the coming months.
As we look ahead to the changing season, one thing that is often pushed aside until the last minute is mandated yearly cybersecurity testing. With the sheer volume of critical action items in our day-to-day activities, routine tasks like this can sometimes take a back seat.
However, this is my seasonal reminder to you to schedule those now to make sure you don’t create more work for yourself and your organization in the long run. The cost and effort to fix a vulnerability after a breach is exponentially greater than discovering and remediating it before it occurs.
The Importance of Penetration Testing
Most organizations are mandated to conduct at least an annual test in either their internal or external networks and sometimes even against their web applications. It’s best to schedule your tests now to avoid the inevitable backup as the end of the year approaches.
For organizations of all sizes, penetration testing is a critical element of your cybersecurity program, giving you an effective way to pinpoint vulnerabilities in your systems along with valuable insights to enhance your cybersecurity program. Benefits include:
- Vulnerability Identification: Pen tests help uncover weaknesses in your systems, applications, and networks that malicious actors could exploit.
- Risk Mitigation: By identifying vulnerabilities before attackers do, you can take proactive measures to mitigate potential risks, reducing the likelihood of security breaches.
- Security Enhancement: Penetration testing provides guidance on how to improve your security measures, allowing you to strengthen your overall security posture.
- Compliance Assurance: Pen tests are an important part of ensuring that your organization complies with industry-specific regulations and security standards, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.
- Threat Simulation: Penetration tests simulate real-world attack scenarios, helping organizations better understand how their defenses would fare against actual threats.
- Cost Savings: Identifying and addressing vulnerabilities early can save you significant costs associated with data breaches, downtime, and reputation damage.
- Continuous Improvement: Regular penetration testing fosters a culture of ongoing security improvement, adapting to evolving threats and technologies.
- Peace of Mind: Knowing that your systems have been thoroughly tested and are secure provides peace of mind for your organization and its stakeholders.
Why You Should Schedule Your Penetration Testing Now
Through decades of security experience, we still see organizations of all shapes and sizes wait until the very last minute to try and get it taken care of, which causes a couple of problems:
- First, all the other organizations that postponed their pen testing are trying to perform them at the same time, which causes a scheduling nightmare.
- Triggering the second issues, finding a provider to help perform the assessment will be challenging and cost you a fortune.
Whether it’s an internal, external, or web app test, now is the time to schedule them. Not in a month, but now. Booking your pen test now for a future date guarantees your spot on the calendar, prevents stress, and saves you money.
At MicroAge, we work with multiple penetration and cybersecurity test providers. So, no matter what test you need, we can easily scope and schedule the best provider based on your specific needs, saving you endless phone calls and providing you with meaningful results.
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Contact us today at (800) 544-8877 to find out more about our penetration testing and other services.
“Chris Reid has over a decade of experience working with and for Information Security service providers. He has worked with businesses of all sizes and verticals, architecting security programs for all of them. He is a dedicated strategic advisor to his clients and takes pride in knowing they are seeing value in not only the services he recommends but also the products he supports.”
Chris ReidCybersecurity Strategist
