Network Security Implementation using Penetration Testing

Abstract

There are plethora of tools and techniques utilized by network administrators to ensure better network security including firewalls, Intrusion Detection/ Prevention Systems, Multi-layered Demilitarized zones, proxy servers, traffic analysis tools, logging capabilities etc. Vulnerability assessment still holds a critical role to evaluate the deployed security and suggest mitigation measures for the concerns. Penetration testing is a step further that emulates the attacker actions to completely exploit system services. It generates a snapshot of actual impact on network when the multiple vulnerabilities are exploited. Pen testing has provided a new dimension to network security and its deployment. BackTrack Linux as well as Kali Linux has numerous tools to assist in the process of penetration testing. This paper provides an overview of essentials of penetration testing and password cracking along with experimental results.