External (Black Box)

What is External (Black Box)?

Testers are not provided with any architecture diagrams or source code that is not publicly available. A black-box penetration test determines the vulnerabilities in a system that are exploitable from outside the network.

Benefits of External (Black Box):

One outstanding benefit of black box pentesting is the simulation of realistic scenarios while attempting to find vulnerabilities. For maximum utilization, it is recommended to use the same set of tools, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) just like an attacker would do. However, if the pentesting team cannot break into the testing perimeter, they will not be able to discover vulnerabilities present in internal services, systems, and applications.

As far as application security is concerned, black box testing activities play a crucial role. However, this does not mean that an organization can absolutely rely on one single testing approach. Other benefits include:

1. Adopting attacker-like techniques to conduct penetration tests
2. Covering common vulnerabilities such as XSS, CSRF, SQL injection, and server misconfiguration
3. Providing better understanding of impact if attackers break into an organization’s network.