What is Penetration Testing?
Authorized simulated attacks on a system to evaluate its security and identify vulnerabilities before real attackers find them.
Also known as: Pen Testing
Penetration testing is the practice of attacking your own systems to find weaknesses.
Types
- Black box: Tester has no prior knowledge (simulates external attacker)
- White box: Tester has full access to source code and architecture
- Gray box: Tester has partial knowledge (simulates insider threat)
Scope
- Network: External and internal network testing
- Web application: Testing websites and APIs
- Mobile: Testing mobile applications
- Social engineering: Testing human vulnerabilities
- Physical: Testing physical security controls
For Privacy
Privacy tools should regularly undergo penetration testing. Signal, Tor, ProtonMail, and other privacy tools commission independent security audits. Check if a tool has been audited before trusting it with sensitive data.
Related Terms
Attack Surface
The total number of points where an unauthorized user could attempt to enter or extract data from a system.
Bug Bounty
A program where organizations pay security researchers for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities, encouraging ethical hacking rather than exploitation.
Zero-Day Exploit
An attack that exploits a previously unknown software vulnerability, giving defenders zero days to prepare a patch before it's used in the wild.
Have more questions?
Use our guided flow to get the right next privacy step for Penetration Testing.
Open Guided Flow