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What is Penetration Testing?

An authorized simulated cyberattack on a system to evaluate its security defenses and identify vulnerabilities.

Penetration testing (pen testing) mimics real-world attacks to find security weaknesses before malicious actors do. Phases include reconnaissance, scanning, exploitation, post-exploitation, and reporting.

Types include black box (no knowledge), white box (full access), and gray box (partial knowledge). Tools include Metasploit, Burp Suite, Nmap, and OWASP ZAP. Regular pen testing is essential for security compliance and risk management.

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Related Terms

Security Hardening

The process of reducing a system's attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, applying patches, and configuring security controls.

Secret Management

The practice of securely storing, accessing, and rotating sensitive credentials like API keys, passwords, and certificates.

JWT (JSON Web Token)

A compact, self-contained token format used for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)

An attack that floods a target server or network with traffic from multiple sources to overwhelm it and deny service to legitimate users.

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)

An access control model where permissions are assigned to roles, and users are assigned to roles rather than getting permissions directly.

The process of converting readable data into an unreadable format using algorithms, reversible only with the correct key.

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