The term "penetration testing" or "pentesting" might be familiar, but the different types available—and how each can enhance your business’s cybersecurity posture—are not always clear. In this blog, we dive into the specifics of manual penetration testing to help you assess whether this approach is the best fit for your organisation’s cybersecurity needs.
What is manual pentesting?
Manual penetration testing uses a hands-on approach to uncover complex vulnerabilities. It is used to identify vulnerabilities in your businesses’ cybersecurity infrastructure that could be exploited. This method is human-led to achieve thorough results.
It involves skilled testers actively seeking security vulnerabilities within a system, through a safe and documented process.
Once these vulnerabilities have been identified, the pentesters report back with their findings, providing valuable insights to inform your business’s future cybersecurity decisions and remediation efforts. Find out more about pentesting with our resource hub.
Why is manual pentesting important?
Manual pentesting remains crucial as it uncovers vulnerabilities that automated tools might overlook. This method, unlike alternatives, can leverage human pentesters’ knowledge and skills through an experienced understanding of a network’s target systems instead of using predefined algorithms which can often adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.
Manual pentesters with logic, skill, and human expertise on their side can think unconventionally to cover all areas of possible cyberattack, providing a far more comprehensive analysis of your cybersecurity posture.
It also eliminates any false positives that can be flagged by automated penetration testing tools, saving businesses time and valuable resources dealing with inauthentic vulnerabilities flagged by an algorithm.
Pentesters can use knowledge garnered from real-world attack scenarios to identify actual vulnerabilities, applying their understandings of ever-evolving security threats to provide detailed reports and aid in eliminating potential weaknesses.
What are the two types of manual penetration testing?
There are two main types of manual penetration testing. These include, 'focused manual penetration testing' and 'comprehensive manual penetration testing'. Both adopt thorough testing processes and provide results detailing vulnerabilities.
However, there are some discrepancies between the two:
Focused manual penetration testing
Focused manual pentesting targets specific areas for more detailed analysis.
It centralises around one specific aspect of your security- for example, your web application, mobile application, or internal infrastructure- and seeks to identify vulnerabilities that could exist there.
Focused manual penetration testing is best applicable when trying to find specific issues an automated, or more generalised- pentest will not find. However, its specificity can also sometimes limit businesses from achieving a more holistic understanding of their business's cybersecurity posture, due to its failure to investigate other areas of potential vulnerability on your overall network.
Comprehensive manual penetration testing
Alternatively, comprehensive manual penetration testing utilises a universal approach to your business's network infrastructure. With this method, vulnerabilities will be flagged as and when they exist, with a pentesting team working to both identify common vulnerabilities.
What types of vulnerabilities can manual testing detect?
Manual penetration tests can identify an array of vulnerabilities. With its human-led approach, complex or specific issues to your business's infrastructure can be identified, which is beneficial for strengthening your cybersecurity posture. The key vulnerabilities identified by manual testing include:
Authentication and Authorisation Flaws
Manual penetration testing can check the effectiveness of your business's authentication measures, including the strength of your two-factor Authentication (2FA)
Testers can also audit the permissions settings for your network, ensuring that only those necessary have access to your organisation's sensitive data. This is crucial in preventing unwanted individuals from bypassing your organisation’s boundaries and rendering damage by accessing confidential information.
Chained Exploits
Chained exploits are where a hacker uses a string of attacks on seemingly harmless vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access. While many automated pentesting tools cannot imitate chained exploits, manual pentesting provides both the flexibility and focus to identify these weaknesses in a controlled environment.
Business Logic
Business Logic refers to the logic and algorithms that create the foundations of your business software’s code. For example, your business might have some kind of payment flow for customers, or a multi-step process that could potentially hold sensitive information.
Manual pentesters will attempt to exploit these business logic systems to identify vulnerabilities- exploiting the app’s functionality rather than generic vulnerabilities. Business logic vulnerabilities cannot be identified with an automated scanner.
How does a manual pentest differ from an automated pentest?
Manual testing differs from automated pentesting through its approach, depth, and flexibility. Automated pentests rely on tools and algorithms to run predefined tests, searching for known vulnerabilities.
While they work well for repetitive and standardised tasks, this algorithmic approach can be poor in keeping up to date with emerging vulnerabilities, lacking the flexibility or logic to navigate more complex or individual situations.
Manual pentesting, on the other hand, uses human testers instead of an algorithm to probe and contextualise vulnerabilities. They test a system's defences using logic and creativity, often identifying risks that would be overlooked by an automated tool.
Because manual pentesting is human-led, testers can attempt unique attack vendors that might not be within an automated tool's capacity.
This flexibility and unconventional approach generally renders much more detailed results, allowing businesses to remediate vulnerabilities more effectively.
Who should consider manual penetration testing?
Manual pentesting is important for businesses of all sizes. A vulnerability assessment, no matter the scale of your business or sector, is critical in ensuring the safety of sensitive data and protected infrastructure .
While it can be appropriate to adopt automated pentesting methods for more surface-level checks, it is highly advisable that businesses also invest in at least one manual pentest annually to determine the strength of their security.
Manual penetration testing is an imperative cybersecurity measure for any organisation. Its thorough approach, led by the logic of human penetration testers, can identify vulnerabilities with a far greater nuance than alternative methods such as automated testing.
The quality and depth of information provided by a manual pentest can support your business significantly in remediating vulnerabilities. Be proactive in your endeavour for strong cybersecurity and book a manual pentest for your organisation today.
