Cyber Security Alert

Cyber Security Alert: Where Are All the Pen Testers?

Last updated on January 15th, 2024 at 03:13 pm

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Cybercrimes are everywhere in the news and the increasing crime rate is costing billions of dollars, and damaging their brand image as well. Penetration testers are gaining popularity and their services are highly valuable for enterprises that are trying to strengthen their cyber security. Businesses are investing to improve their security by hiring top security testing companies

Pen-Testing Skills

Penetration testers are experts and highly renowned in the information security industry. And companies clearly know the need for pen-testing skills is extremely important. According to a study conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), 23% of organizations claim that there is a shortage of pen testers. Interestingly, pen-testing ranked fourth on the list of cyber security skills that suffer the most shortage of all other skills. 

Pen Testing ‘Confusion’

Well, the issue is not the lack of qualified testers, it is about how companies approach their penetration testing practices. On the contrary, some of these companies are refusing away candidates while they aren’t willing to develop their pen testers internally. Thus, it gets difficult for enterprises to decide which company to hire for their cyber security testing. 

Testing Companies are Looking for Pen Testers

Businesses require productivity and they want to fill positions with candidates who are high-performers. But when it comes to IT and software testing skills, human resource (HR) managers have high expectations for how productivity can be translated into experience.

It is Difficult to Shortlist Candidates 

However, when a cyber security testing company is looking for pen-testers it is important to look for experts in the area.  Test managers tell HR what skills they want in a candidate for their pen testing. There are a number of candidates enrolling for jobs and interviews, but only the one who meet certain criteria can qualify for the job. 

More About Pen-Testing

When enterprises want to get hold of all their security vulnerabilities before hackers, they invest in penetration testing, Pen testing is basically an ethical hacking technique that is used to check if there are any loopholes in the system and if it can be hacked. Ethical hackers think like a real blackhat hacker and find all the possible ways to attack a system and mobile API. Once he succeeds in breaking into the system, it means there are security issues in the system. So then it’s time to strengthen the apps and systems according to the vulnerabilities detected. It helps enterprises stay ahead of unethical hackers and keep their systems safe from malicious attacks. 

A cyber security testing company has different penetration testers for carrying out ethical hacking and checking if there are major issues in the system or not. There are a number of companies working to discourage unethical hackers and malicious attacks, but still pen testers are unable to update their skills. It is necessary to speed up the process of hacking a system before the system can be damaged by a black hat hacker.