Secure Your Workplace
Physical Penetration Testing is an essential security assessment for organizations looking to stay ahead of malicious actors. Conducted in real-world scenarios, our professionals evaluate the organization's overall physical security posture and identify weaknesses or vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. Everything from social engineering, tailgating, dumpster diving, and lock bypass tools are tested to ensure that unauthorized access is not possible. The goal of a physical penetration test is to provide insight into an organizations’ security posture and help them take proactive measures to mitigate risk. With this service, you can rest assured that your organization is safe from the threat of physical attack.
Common Activities of a Physical Penetration Test
Reconnaissance
When attempting a physical penetration test, the first step necessary is conducting reconnaissance of the target environment. This can be both active and passive in nature. In active reconnaissance, a tester interacts with their environment directly for information gathering; this includes things such as layouts of buildings, floor plans, alarm systems, camera locations, access control points, IT systems, and personnel information. This data is often collected by physically visiting the target location and taking pictures of relevant information. Alternatively, when engaging in passive reconnaissance no interaction with the environment occurs and all data gathering is done using publicly available information or OSINT to understand targets.
Once initial reconnaissance is complete, a physical penetration tester can move on to assessing the target environment for vulnerabilities. This may involve searching for potential entry points and evaluating established security measures. It is important to note that the penetration tester needs to work closely with the client organization to ensure their approach meets the organization's privacy regulations and complies with any existing security protocols.
Social-Engineering
Organizations have a responsibility to ensure the security of their premises and thus must take measures against these methods. Having robust security procedures in place is key to protect your organization from social engineering attacks.
RFID Cloning/Fuzzing
Our professionals’ extensive experience in RFID cloning allows them to understand how to effectively and accurately copy information stored on any RFID tag or device. This allows our staff to look for situations when RFID badges could be copied to simulate how attackers could create counterfeit credentials to gain access to restricted areas or certain data. When combined with Social-Engineering, this can also be accomplished outside of the building.
Also, it is possible to brute-force attack and rip through RFID security systems using software specially designed for that purpose. Our experts are proficient enough in this type of software and tools so you can rest assured that all your security systems will be safe as part of the Physical Penetration Test.
Lock Bypass Techniques
Security is essential for any organization, and this is particularly true when it comes to physical security. Lock Bypass Techniques can be tricky, and not always the preferred method due to the risk of damage to locks, but they do they can provide the tools businesses need to ensure their doors are secure from potential threats. Our consults go beyond traditional lock picking when lockpicking is needed and use specialized methods to safely open locks without operating the locking mechanism.
One of these methods is known as shimming, which allows experts to insert a specialized tool between the door and its frame to push open the lock quickly and without the risk of damage. In addition, our consultants have access to bump keys specifically for certain locks that enable them to bump the internal pins into place.
In some cases, electronic doors or mag locks may prevent testers from shimming the door successfully. These doors can often be bypassed by using tools and techniques designed to bypass them or by performing actions that may trick the lock into automatically disengaging.
The bypass technique used will rely heavily on the types of doors encountered at the client location.
Dumpster Diving
Types of Testing
Physical Penetration Testing can be done several different ways and in combination with each other to best fit the needs of the client.
Joint Walkthrough Assessment
Consultants will be able to interact with a point of contact and ask questions to gain a better understanding of the overall physical security posture. Clients can also use this time to call attention to areas they are concerned about for consultants to evaluate.
During Business Hours
Testing performed during business hours are for clients who wish to have aspects like security guards and employee awareness evaluated. Consultants will enter the premises and attempt to access restricted areas or behave in a manner that should arouse suspicion.
Building Security
After-hours testing is performed to evaluate the strength of a client's physical security controls. This will assess how easy it is to gain entry without social engineering. If an organization utilizes alarm systems, it may be necessary to disable them when the consultant is on-site.
The Process
