Security Testing

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What Does Security Testing Mean?

Security testing is the process of evaluating and testing the information security of hardware, software, networks or an IT/information system environment.

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It enables reviewing and certifying the security level of a given IT asset or facility against the key pillars/components of information security including:

  • Confidentiality
  • Availability
  • Integrity
  • Authentication
  • Authorization
  • Non-repudiation

Techopedia Explains Security Testing

Security testing generally involves simulating one or more malicious attacks on a given IT asset or system. It works by first reviewing the existing system for known vulnerabilities and exploiting those using manual and automated security testing tools and techniques (usually a combination of ethical and non-ethical hacking/malicious attacks or activities).

The outputs help information security administrators in benchmarking the information systems’ protection against such threats and vulnerabilities. Security testing can be part of a comprehensive information system audit process of an existing IT environment or is performed on newly developed/deployed software, hardware, and network and/or information system.

Penetration testing is a common example of security testing.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.