Google Cloud Penetration Testing: What It Is and How to Do it
A new trend in the cybersecurity industry is penetration testing. Penetration testing, also known as pentesting, is a process that can be done on anything from web applications to mobile devices. This article will give you all the information you need about how Google Cloud's pentesting services work and what they can do for your business.
What Is GCP?
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is an enterprise-level web hosting platform used for building websites as well as other business applications such as those pertaining to marketing analytics, networking infrastructure management, online storage/backup services, data warehousing & processing among many others. This means there are a wide variety of services GCP can provide your business with, not to mention the fact that it's highly customizable and very scalable! If you find yourself in need of anything from an online store to a financial institution, they will most likely be able to accommodate this on their platform
What is Google Cloud Penetration Testing?
Google Cloud Penetration Testing is a process that can be done on Google Cloud applications. It consists of testing for vulnerabilities in your application to see if it would withstand an attack from outside sources or hackers trying to break into the system. This helps you determine areas where your app's security needs improvement and how vulnerable it might actually be once real threats begin targeting these weak points. So, essentially, penetration testing looks at all angles of the business' apps so they can identify potential errors before someone else does!
Why is Google Cloud Pentesting important?
GCP pentesting is important because it will help you to secure your company's information. Some of the key things they look for when performing penetration testing are:
● Technical debt
● Application security issues in third party applications used by your business
● Authentication and authorization vulnerabilities within cloud environments
● Security misconfigurations affecting GCP services such as Identity & Access Management (IAM) or Google Compute Engine (GCE). For example, if unauthorized users can access virtual machines running on a developer machine without their knowledge, this poses serious risks. This could be an issue with general configuration errors that are not properly set up. As another example, cross account billing allows resources created in one to be billed against other projects automatically if the billing settings are not set up correctly.
Why should you hire a pentester?
A pen tester can help your business to be more secure against cybercrimes that target weaknesses in security systems and data breaches, which could potentially compromise or destroy sensitive information about your company's operations. This is especially helpful if you have never done this before as it gives an outside perspective on all of these issues so they may have experienced professionals handle them for you instead!
Google Cloud Pentesting Process
The key features involved with Google Cloud Penetration Testing are "Non-Disruptive" & "Discoverable".
Non-disruptive means that nothing will actually happen to any live applications during penetration testing; rather, GCP uses software agents that can simulate attacks without disrupting the live environment. This is helpful because you don't need to worry about any apps going offline or out of service as a result - it's all automated!
The second feature, "discoverable", means that these agents will reveal vulnerabilities in your app by themselves and then provide information on how they worked their way into finding those issues so you know exactly what needs improvement upon completion!
What are Google Cloud Penetration Testing Services?
There are three main penetration testing services available from GCP:
1. Network Service Scanning (NSS) which detects devices connected to its networks
2. Vulnerability Analysis for Applications & Networks (VAAN) which simulates human attackers with different levels of expertise targeting specific systems
3. Vulnerability Analysis for Networks & Applications (VANA) simulates cyberattacks from hackers with different levels of expertise targeting specific systems
What is Network Service Scanning?
Network service scanning uses a software agent that can automatically scan your company's network and look for devices connected to it. It detects the type of device, operating system running on it, port used by each connection and even any vulnerabilities associated with them! This allows you to get accurate information about what kinds of vulnerabilities exist in your current environment so you know exactly where they are coming from when deciding how best to resolve or improve these issues. Google Cloud Penetration Testing also offers NSS through GCP Marketplace which means there is no need to set up an account before purchasing.
What is Vulnerability Analysis?
Vulnerability analysis simulates human attackers with different levels of expertise targeting specific systems. It can help you to understand your company's weaknesses and how best to strengthen them so the risk level associated with cyberattacks against it will be lower in real life scenarios. GCP penetration testing provides a wide range of vulnerability analyses through VAAN which runs automated tests based on industry-standard benchmarks that have been used for decades by professionals when performing this kind of work! This allows you to completely eliminate any guesswork from this process as there are no worries about false positives or inaccurate test results due to software agents not being able to follow instructions properly, etc.
What Can You Do With Google Cloud Penetration Testing?
There are many things you could do with pentesting services through Google Cloud Platform (GCP). For example, let's say your company sells products online through their website but you want to hire a third party company to do your pentesting. This would be beneficial because you can have them test the security of your website and help you determine what areas need improvement before someone gets into it without permission! Another example is if you own a new startup that has just developed an app for customers, but they don't know how safe it really is from outside threats. In this case, Google Cloud Penetration Testing services could give them the information necessary to make their business more secure or even shut down until they become safer on all fronts.
How Do You Get Started With Google Cloud Pentesting?
Google offers penetration testing through GCP as one of its many cloud-based technologies, so there's no need to worry about hiring an outside company to do the work for you. All it takes is some time and patience before you get started, but once your pentesting begins on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), all of the information will be right there at your fingertips!
How Can You Get Started?
There are a few steps that need to be followed in order to get started with GCP's penetration testing services:
● Create an account through their website or by contacting someone who already has one.
● Once the above step is complete, sign up for any courses they might offer on how to use these technologies properly so nothing goes wrong during pentesting.
● Then contact GCP support if necessary; let them know what kind of business data would be tested i.e., web applications, mobile apps, etc. and what you want them to look for during testing; vulnerabilities or weak points that can be taken advantage of by hackers.
● Once the pentesting begins (usually within a few days), all information gathered will then go into Google's secure cloud storage where it is monitored every day until everything has been tested and no more work needs to be done on your end; once this happens, they will let you know.
Summing Up...
Your Google Cloud Platform's security is an important consideration on the path to digital transformation. If your organization has not yet completed a penetration test, we recommend you do so immediately. A good first step towards achieving our goal of 100% uptime for google cloud platform infrastructure is securing it with strong cybersecurity practices like penetration testing and vulnerability scanning. Don’t let hackers steal away what you've worked hard to create