Day 27: Cyber Careers – Who or What is a Penetration Tester ?

To evaluate the security of a company’s systems and software, a penetration tester must attempt to find bugs and vulnerabilities through systematic hacking. To assess the danger in each situation, penetration testers use these vulnerabilities. The business can then use these insights to address problems and stop a real-world hack.

What is the Salary of a penetration tester?

According to Glassdoor, the average yearly salary for a penetration tester in the United States is $110,628.

What Skills should a penetration tester have?

• Exploits and Vulnerabilities Outside Tool Suites: Successful pen testers need to be able to adapt existing exploits to make them work in particular networks for testing.
• Willingness to Continuously Learn: They must be engaged students who get practical experience. Therefore, rather than merely reading someone else’s write-up, they should test out codes to observe how they behave for themselves.
• Ability to Script or Write Code: Python, Perl, PowerShell, and Bash are the key programming languages you should keep a working knowledge of. Your code need not be of production quality, but a tester who is also a programmer will reduce time while conducting an evaluation.
• Each participant must be able to communicate(using soft skills i.e public speaking, report writing, and team player) complex ideas in ways even non-technical people can understand. If speaking and writing are not your strong skills, find ways to practice them. 
• Exceptional problem-solving skills.

What are the Responsibilities of a Penetration tester?

• Perform tests on computer networks, systems, and web-based software.
• Conduct security audits, assessments, and policy analysis
• Analyze and report on findings, offering suggestions for attack prevention measures.

Penetration tester vs Ethical hacker. Are they the same?

When discussing internal cyber security tests, the terms “penetration testing” and “ethical hacking” are sometimes used synonymously, but they are not the same thing. Anyone in charge of protecting an organization must understand the differences between them.

• According to a defined scope, penetration testers evaluate the security of a particular component of an information system. Without being constrained by a scope document, ethical hackers use a variety of attack vectors to conduct numerous types of cyberattacks on a whole system.
• One-time, short-term engagements are performed by penetration testers. The ongoing engagement of ethical hackers produces more thorough and thorough outcomes.
• The domain or area that penetration testing will target must be thoroughly understood by penetration testers. For ethical hackers to be able to follow a cybercriminal’s instructions, they must have an in-depth understanding of hacking strategies, techniques, and procedures.
• The client’s security settings and incident response are not the responsibility of penetration testers. Blue teams and incident response teams must be assisted by ethical hackers during incidents to aid in the containment and validation of the various types of cyberattacks. 

What is the Job Outlook like for Penetration testers?

For a very long time to come, there will be a big demand for cybersecurity experts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 33 percent increase in demand for information security experts between 2020 and 2030. That is significantly quicker than the national average for all jobs.
Additionally, as networks, applications, and information needs become more complex, there will be an increasing demand for qualified cybersecurity personnel.
So, if you’re seeking for a profitable and in-demand career, penetration testing is the way to go.

Closing thoughts

Even if you believe that your company is secure, it may not be. As a penetration tester, you are an essential part of the company’s security team. You can help identify weaknesses, and implement solutions to protect the company against the effects of cyberattacks.

What does a typical day look like as a Penetration tester?

In a day as a penetration tester, you will likely do the following:

• Identify vulnerabilities using a variety of methods.
• Focus on specific software or networks.
• Execute attacks against known vulnerabilities.
• Identify and document the results, as well as provide recommendations for improvement.

How do you prepare for a penetration test?

Penetration testers need to be ready for any vulnerability that may be discovered. You need to be able to identify the types of systems that you will test and the types of applications that you will attempt to penetrate.

You will also need to have the tools, skills, and information necessary to carry out your tests. The most important thing is that you have the right mindset to perform successful penetration tests.

Hope you enjoyed this blog post on Penetration tester career. Well, that will be all for the Day 27 post. Catch you in the next post. 😉