Why Does Education Sector Need Penetration & Security Testing?

Even though we believe that all the data available on Learning Management Systems or EdTech Apps are of least interest to cyber attackers, colleges, schools, and business organizations are all under great threat of being attacked.   

The student data, their payment records, transaction history, and any other user-sensitive information available on the systems could be compromised. Besides, universities and other organizations have a vast amount of research information that can be stolen. Apart from this, there are always internal threats of attack on these systems from the inquisitive staff and students.  

Thus, it becomes necessary for a security testing company should intervene to help you with a cost-effective security assessment and analysis to protect your system and data against any compromises or failures.   

Besides, penetration testing could be leveraged to ensure effective perimeter security accessing the possible loopholes in the system that can be used as entry points by the hackers. The process might even involve an audit of existing permissions and accounts to check the login data, credentials, and anything that might lead to loss.   

Moreover, penetration and security testing services, if implemented effectively, could cut off any chances of phishing email security, data center intrusion, and any full-scale cyberattacks. More importantly, it is the responsibility of educational institutions to keep their information protected under the General Data Protection Regulation. And therefore, sticking to a reliable education application testing partner helps you perform optimally while allowing you to run through series of recommendations that can gain an advantage of IT security.   

For now, let us quickly jump on understanding what penetration testing is and what are the various benefits that the education sector could yield through the adoption of penetration and security testing services. Let’s begin.  

Penetration Testing: The Definition  

Since data breaches could get expensive to cope up with, Penetration testing allows you to test your application for various IP address ranges. It is the process of recognizing all the weak points of the system from where hackers could take access to your system leading to data breaches.  

Usually, the idea of penetration testing needs a software testing company to run five different types of test procedures. These include internal testing, blind testing, targeted testing, external testing, and double testing. Testing is done for all the internal, external, targeted, and blind factors that allow end-to-end testing of the solution to find any loopholes that might act as a point of entry for the cyber attackers.   

As long as it comes to the question of why the Education sector needs penetration testing, there are so many exclusive benefits that penetration testing and security testing services could bring to your product and organization.   

Why Your EdTech Solution Needs Penetration Testing?  

Bigger Savings, Smaller Downtime  

The primary reason why you need penetration testing is obviously preventing different types of cyber-attacks, which is crucial for business continuity and success. Frequent implementation of penetration and security testing on your systems helps yield greater performance from the system with lower recovery time in case of downtime (even if chances are very low). Moreover, it helps rapid restoration of the system and network in case there are any changes required to the existing system.  

As per the IBM global report, data breaches cost around $4.24 million per incident. And therefore, external penetration tests work as a proactive approach to protecting the IT system against all types of vulnerabilities. Penetration testing thus helps you curb any potential weakness around application infrastructure while assisting the potential to overcome any downtime.  

Wondering how Educational Software Testing works?  

Explore our dedicated case study where we worked on accomplishing the functionality, usability, and networking goals of a learning management system.  

Strengthening Brand Reputation & Trust  

Any attempt made to attack the system that leads to data leakage can make your existing users upset. Besides, any kind of data leakage could make a brand or institute lose all the faith of the students and people associated, making it difficult to align with security and safety goals associated with the information.   

In short, any breach made to the data could damage the reputation of the entire business. Above all, the consequences surrounding the breach make penetration testing the only way to prevent harmful data leakage.  

On top of that, elimination of all the threats related to cyber security helps you have the prerequisite security that is vital to gain the trust of the potential audience. This can even help you take on privacy concerns associated with the data on the application maintaining an improved security posture and brand reputation.  

Security Compliance & Regulations  

When we talk about the benefits of penetration testing, it is never just limited to protecting the data and business assets. Penetration testing and security testing services allow you to protect the entire network and overcome all security concerns that are made to security compliance and data regulation.  

Moreover, running the most legitimate business operations has some governing body involved in the process to stimulate cyber security.   

Early Identification Of Vulnerabilities & Security Exposure  

Just like ethical hacking techniques are fostered to attain the security goals associated with technology, the cyber attackers also constantly aim for technology that can help get over any security vulnerabilities. Moreover, it is vital that the evolution of cyber threats must be worked from time to time to ensure consistent efforts on improving security.  

Thus, if you hire security testers to help you with the execution of penetration tests, you can gauge your defense solution to make the application worth using. The technique even helps to determine when the system is successfully hacked, as all the possible ways associated with cyber security exposure could be highlighted.  

Moreover, the technology even helps to rectify any problems that hackers could identify the exploit the system making way for improved perimeter security and prioritizing the threats with risk identification.  

It would be ideal for rectifying various problems before the hackers try to exploit the system through the same. With the testing of the whole cyber security perimeter, you will be capable of prioritizing the malicious activities through risks.  

Also Read: Testing of Online Educational Apps for Quality Improvements

Business Protection  

No matter, you belong to the education sector, any chance of taking on personal information is an opportunity to exploit for the hackers. Moreover, when a user is using an LMS with flaws in their personal space, attackers quickly take the chance to have all the resources and information available on most unsecured home networks. This might bring a huge business threat to any educational organization or app development company.   

Some of the most common ways through which attackers could try to enter a private or personal network include web-based attack, malware, phishing, DoD, compromised devices, advanced malware attacks, cross-site scripting, malicious insider, and SQL injection.  

Thus, it becomes necessary to keep your business protected against all the above types of attacks through early access to penetration testing so that a well-defined infrastructure can be integrated into existing and new applications.   

The Crux  

Penetration testing is the best way to create a safe and controlled environment. Whether it is resisting any external attacks or planning the way systems responds to possible threats, penetration testing helps to overcome all the possible weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the system.  

All in all, penetration and security testing help the education sector to predetermine the areas of IT security that need fine-tuning. On top of that, it helps to mitigate any possible cyber threats that a business enterprise could encounter, making it lose its reputation.   

And if you need to have a robust approach against cyber-attacks, education apps testing services could help you bring ease on identifying risk exposure. Especially when hackers each day are gaining access to high-end hacking technologies, working on penetration testing could help you create the most robust cyber-security systems for the education industry with ease of identifying weak links and strengthen security arrangements.   

All the best!  

Need help implementing penetration testing on your existing or upcoming educational app? Let our experts lend you a helping hand securing your IT infrastructure.   

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