Week 4: Research

Hi, everyone! Sorry for posting this late. I’ve been experiencing technical difficulties, but I’ve gotten back on track. This blog and the next one are coming in soon.

I spent this week researching IT security testing to determine what I should focus my research on. Multiple studies have been conducted on pentesting and how it fares versus other IT security testing methods, like the vulnerability assessment. One study done by a California State University student says that pentesting can be more effective than standard vulnerability assessments, but has limitations such as scope, time, and budget. According to her, though, this can be solved by making some or most of the tasks in penetration testing automated, meaning little human interaction, making it much easier for organizations to deal with these limitations. The studies that I looked at so far have been very helpful to me. However, it is possible that these studies have limited scope, as most of them were conducted in the past decade. Still I still think it is very important to look at the past to see what previous researchers have done and learn how I can build on that. I look forward to learning more about pentesting and IT security testing as I do more research.