The critical role of Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT) in cybersecurity

Cyberthreats and attacks are becoming ubiquitous and more prevalent. Over 72% of organizations worldwide experienced at least one ransomware attack in 2023, and attackers managed to bring in over $1 billion, an all-time high nearly double their 2022 take. The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) recorded an average of 7,000 cybercrime complaints daily in May 2024. This was a significant increase of 113.7% compared to the period between 2021 and 2022.

Earlier this year, the Indian government agencies and the energy sector were targeted in a cyber espionage campaign. Hackers impersonated the Indian Air Force, sending malicious files to various departments responsible for national defense and IT governance. The breach led to compromised financial documents, employees’ data, and sensitive information on oil and gas drilling activities.

A robust cybersecurity strategy should include key components like Vulnerability Assessment (VA) and Penetration Testing (PT) to identify and remediate or mitigate potential security threats before attackers can exploit them

Such incidents highlight the critical importance of cybersecurity in an era where businesses rely heavily on technology. Organizations are increasingly vulnerable to attacks from malicious actors seeking to exploit system weaknesses. Therefore, adopting proactive cybersecurity measures is crucial. A robust cybersecurity strategy should include key components like Vulnerability Assessment (VA) and Penetration Testing (PT) to identify and remediate or mitigate potential security threats before attackers can exploit them.

VA is the systematic and continuous process of detecting, prioritizing, and evaluating security weaknesses within an organization’s information systems. This involves scanning networks, applications, and devices for known vulnerabilities. PT, also known as ethical hacking, goes a step further by attempting to exploit these vulnerabilities to uncover flaws and assess their severity, allowing organizations to prioritize their remediation efforts effectively.

VAPT – key phases & techniques used

Reconnaissance

The Reconnaissance phase, the initial step in VAPT, involves gathering comprehensive information about the targeted system or network. This includes active scanning and collecting details such as victim identity, network configurations, and other relevant data. During this phase, testers also engage in phishing attempts to acquire sensitive information, search through closed and open technical databases, explore publicly accessible websites, and domains, and examine any victim-owned websites to gather as much intelligence as possible before proceeding to the next stages of the assessment.

Resource and Use Cases Development

This involves several critical techniques to enhance the tester’s ability to conduct an effective assessment. These techniques include acquiring and compromising infrastructure, which may involve setting up or taking control of servers and other assets needed for the test. It also involves compromising accounts to gain unauthorized access, developing and staging various tools and capabilities required for exploitation, and establishing accounts that can be used to maintain a foothold within the target environment. These steps collectively ensure that the tester is well-prepared to identify and exploit vulnerabilities effectively.

Initial Access

This phase focuses on gaining a footing within the target system using various techniques. The methods include drive-by compromises, where malicious code is delivered through legitimate websites, exploiting vulnerabilities in public-facing applications, and accessing external remote services. Other strategies involve adding hardware to the target environment, conducting phishing attacks, spreading malware through removable media, compromising the supply chain, exploiting trusted relationships for unauthorized execution, and using valid accounts to bypass security controls.

Execution

The Execution phase involves actively running malicious code or commands within the target environment to achieve specific objectives. Techniques used in this phase include executing commands and scripts, utilizing interpreters, and issuing container administration commands to deploy or manipulate containers. Additionally, testers may engage in inter-process communication to facilitate interactions between different software processes, create scheduled tasks or jobs to automate malicious activities, manipulate system services, and trigger user execution to run unauthorized actions. These methods allow testers to assess how well the target environment can withstand active exploitation.

Other related phases are Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evaluation, Credential Access, Discovery, and Lateral Movement.

Collection

This phase focuses on gathering valuable data from the target environment using various techniques. Automated collection processes may be employed to gather data efficiently, while browser-session hijacking and clipboard data capture provide access to sensitive information. Additionally, testers may extract data from cloud storage objects, configuration and information repositories, local systems, network-shared drives, and removable media. Techniques also involve collecting emails, capturing user inputs, and recording video, all of which contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the target’s vulnerabilities and potential data exposure.

Exfiltration

The Exfiltration phase involves transferring collected data out of the target environment using a variety of techniques. These include automated exfiltration, which streamlines the data transfer process, and implementing data transfer size limits to avoid detection. Data can be exfiltrated over alternative protocols, through command and control (C2) channels, physical devices, or web services. Additionally, testers may use scheduled transfers or transfer data to cloud accounts to ensure the data leaves the target system discreetly and securely, completing the exfiltration process.

Impact

The Impact phase of VAPT focuses on demonstrating the potential consequences of a successful attack by using various techniques. These techniques include removing access to critical accounts, destroying or encrypting data to cause disruption, and manipulating data to alter its integrity. Other methods involve defacing websites, wiping disks, causing endpoint denial of service, and corrupting firmware. Additionally, testers may inhibit system recovery, launch network denial-of-service attacks, hijack resources, stop essential services, or initiate system shutdowns or reboots. This phase highlights the severity of vulnerabilities by showing how they can be exploited to cause significant damage.

The findings from VAPT are documented in a detailed report, which includes a description of the vulnerabilities exploited, the potential impact of the exploit, and recommendations for remediation.

In today’s evolving cyber threat landscape, VAPT is essential for a robust cybersecurity strategy. By simulating real-world attacks, VAPT helps organizations identify hidden vulnerabilities, understand their security posture, and evaluate potential threats. Regular VAPT enhances risk detection and mitigation and also ensures compliance with industry standards. This proactive approach builds a resilient cybersecurity framework that protects sensitive data, maintains brand reputation, and nurtures stakeholder trust, enabling organizations to stay ahead of cyber adversaries.

Guest contributor Subhash Muthareddy is the Vice President to lead the Threat and Vulnerability Management (TVM) Practice at Inspira Enterprise, a global cybersecurity and data analytics and AI services provider with a presence in North America, ASEAN, Middle East, India, and Africa regions. Any opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author.

Guest Author