Penetration tester job role and responsibilities

We as an industry have come too far, nor only have we devised certain measures to keep our data secure from illicit criminals but have developed assistant which allows us to manipulate these settings whenever necessary. If this assumption was right, then we shouldn't be facing any cyber related threats or breaches in such great magnitude. But of course this statement is a hoax, it's an empty shell designed to lure our attention from securing our assets using best of the practices. And that is why we must act now and try to update our security systems which can not only tackle the problems of today but can also interpret what surprises are waiting for us in the future.

Critical things needed to be accounted for

There are a number of settings which need to be accounted for how they can be implemented serve the organization in the best way possible and from keeping cyber criminals and hackers away from secured assets which the company has taken under their security. A penetration tester can best help in this regard. Not only these professionals have the knowledge but also the practice to deal with such complications at hand. For some of you who are interested in pursuing a job as a penetration tester, there are a few things that you need to understand first. 

Pentesting training is obviously the future degree and also the most cherished one if you want to become a penetration tester because it would help you to gain knowledge of how the world of IT works and make you able to understand your roles as a penetration tester. 

Before implementing any modification or alteration to the current security systems installed within an organization, the elements tampering with the security or acting as a vulnerability need to be found, and only a penetration tester or ethical hacker can do that. At first these inconsistencies need to be found and afterwards a detailed security plan or modification would be implemented by the security engineers.

What a penetration tester does? (Things you need to understand)

Penetration testing is the art of infiltrating digitally secured mediums, networks, computers or server-based systems to find out if there are any breaches or signs of vulnerability, suggesting the system might be tampered or modified earlier. Penetration testing can help you to speculate your technical systems and also making sure that there is nothing to worry about whatsoever. So, anyone pursuing a job within the realm of IT industry must have complete knowledge of how various technicalities work, what's the delicacy of dealing with these systems and how more efficient organizational body can be put forth through vigilant collaboration. Following is a detailed list of operations penetration tester must be able to execute properly;

• The first thing that you must know about is use of hacking and penetration tools, how these work and how you can make them work for you. The most obvious choice here would be using Linux, Ubuntu and other integrated systems that allow you to perform penetration testing at its best.
• Next in line which you must know about is the procedure you are going to use to infiltrate the secured networking system of the troubled organization. The extraction, analyzing and interpretation are some of the tactics that are dearly required of you as a penetration tester.
• Once you have found a malice or corrupted set of systems you must do a follow up report on it and then incorporate latest changes or modifications within the core of your network security. Once integrated you shouldn’t have any problem resembling the one for which the new settings were uploaded if so then you weren’t able to resolve the problem at all and need to show a little more dedication to finding its root cause.
• Advising the senior management and operations team about next steps to take in light of the latest security related inconsistencies which you have found during your penetration performance. So, they can bring the problem under their observation and do everything they can resolve the issue as soon as possible. After that you would also be required to develop improved security standards to help the organization make its way out of the cyber abyss.
• Conduct the physical assessment of the servers data centers, networking devices and other various systems and providing the management with found results and the current condition of these assets
• In case of any breach or in the successive possibility of a breach, devise the disaster recovery systems and plan the backup of important user data. This data could be personal and finical data along with any corporate data that holds any importance and needs to be recovered under such circumstances

Educational prerequisites

For anyone looking forward to be working as a penetration tester they should have subtle knowledge of the security systems, which is a must have to conduct the job but other than that a dedicated education is also required to set the records straight. You must have a BS in computer science or equivalent education to be able to apply for this job. On the contrary if you have certain experience within the field of security and IT systems, it is likely that you would get the job. But along with it goes the notion of having a professional understanding of what you would have to do after you have scored a job as penetration tester.  

As a prerequisite on the educational grounds, graduation is a must have but if the professional has only completed one of the penetration testing supported certification then official proof will be needed to verify the claim made by the professional. As a penetration tester you won’t only be required to help deal with regular IT conundrums but also share your insight and commence tests over cloud security systems. That is why cloud incident response training is required by the professionals to help you along understanding the additional prerequisites of becoming a better and competitive penetration tester who is ahead of his game.