Today, most SMB’s, startups, and even Fortune 500 companies spend heavily on Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT). In simple words, this means checking their systems for weak points and fixing them. Cybersecurity experts use firewalls, encryption, and other advanced tools to keep hackers out.
However, cyber criminals are using social engineering tactics to trick people by exploiting human psychology rather than technical flaws. They manipulate, influence, or deceive victims to steal sensitive personal and financial information.
According to a report, more than 98% of cyberattacks depend on social engineering. This brings us to an important question: can traditional vulnerability testing services alone secure an organization, or do we also need social engineering testing to be truly resilient?
In this blog, we’ll discuss the limitations of traditional VAPT, how social engineering addresses these gaps, and the best ways to combine both for stronger protection. Let’s get started.
What is Traditional VAPT?
VAPT consists of two crucial components:
Vulnerability Assessment (VA): It is like running a health check on your computer systems. Automated tools scan your network, applications, and systems to identify known vulnerabilities.
For example, using tools such as Nessus or Qualys to find unpatched software.
Penetration Testing (PT): It is a manual process. In this scenario, ethical hackers attempt to attack your system in the same manner as real hackers, exploiting vulnerabilities.
For example, a tester tries to gain unauthorized access through SQL injection to steal data.
Limitations of Traditional VAPT
While VAPT is very useful, it doesn’t cover everything. For instance:
- It only looks at technical vulnerabilities like misconfigurations, outdated software, or wrong settings.
- It does not check human mistakes, like when an employee clicks on a phishing email.
- It also can’t test physical security, such as tailgating into restricted areas.
This means a company could pass a VAPT test with no major issues, but still suffer a breach due to an employee clicking a malicious link.
Common Social Engineering Techniques
Social engineering is an act where hackers trick people into disclosing their confidential information. This results in compromised security. In fact, instead of targeting IT systems, hackers mainly feed on human mistakes. Let’s explore the techniques of social engineering.
- Phishing
In this technique, cybercriminals send fake emails to employees of the targeted organizations or call them, which appear to be real. For example, businesses can receive fake emails related to password resets.
- Pretexting
This is the most sought-after technique where cyber intruders create a narrative to gather useful information. For example, they might pretend to be from the IT support team and ask for your login details.
- Baiting
This technique offers something tempting to spread malware. For example, the hackers may leave a USB drive labeled salary details that is infected with a virus.
- Tailgating
It is an old practice, but it remains relevant today. It involves physically following someone into a secure area without permission. For example, sneaking into a server room behind an authorized person.
How Social Engineering Services Fill the Gaps in VAPT?
Let’s move forward and see how social engineering solutions address VAPT misses and create a resilient cybersecurity posture.
1. Tests the Human Factor
Vulnerability testing services check systems, but they can’t show how ready employees are, whereas social engineering does that. For instance, a simulated phishing test reveals how many employees would click a malicious link.
2. Uncovers Policy Weakness
Social engineering services help uncover weak spots in company policies, like password resets or identity checks. For instance, a hacker calls the help desk pretending to be the CEO and gets a password changed.
3. Checks Physical Security
VAPT doesn’t test real-world tricks like sneaking into offices or stealing information from trash. For instance, a red team exercise where testers try to enter an office without a badge.
4. Meets Compliance Requirements
Many security standards, such as ISO 27001, NIST, and PCI-DSS, require social engineering assessments. For instance, PCI-DSS requires companies to train staff and run phishing awareness tests.
Best Practices to Integrate Social Engineering
To implement social engineering solutions into your technical defenses, you need to combine them with penetration testing and human-specific strategies.
1. Conduct Phishing Attacks
Use a phishing platform to test your employees’ awareness and provide quick feedback to those who fail.
2. Do Red Team Exercises
Consult with red teaming experts. They will stimulate real-world attacks to check security gaps. For example, ethical hackers send phishing emails and also try to break into systems.
3. Test Physical Security
You also need to test if outsiders can enter your physical security without permission. To strengthen physical security, you need to maintain visitor logs and biometric sign-ins. Additionally, ensure that no one can enter through a door, use fake badges, or pretend to be a vendor.
4. Continuous Training and Assessment
As a business owner, you must conduct regular workshops to teach staff how to spot fake emails and instruct them to never share passwords over calls.
Final Thoughts
Traditional VAPT is great for finding technical-related issues, such as software bugs or any system flaws. However, they lack in checking human-based mistakes, and this is the primary concern. Nonetheless, if you opt for social engineering services, they have the required expertise in identifying vulnerabilities associated with phishing or even malware attacks. The best way is to include both VAPT scans and social engineering tests.