What Is Penetration Testing?
Ric Messier · Apress eBooks · 2016
Penetration testing is an art. You can learn a lot of techniques and understand all of the tools, but the reality is that software is complex, especially when you start putting a lot of software systems together. It’s that complexity that means that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to finding ways to get into systems. An attack that may work against one Web server may not work for the same Web server running on a different system. Sometimes, you can try a particular attack a number of times without success before it suddenly starts working and you find a way to break into the system. A skilled and successful penetration tester has not only the technical skills necessary to run the tools and understand what is happening, but also the creativity necessary to try different approaches. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.