Unauthorised Access: Physical Penetration Testing For IT Security Teams

1.6. Summary

This chapter has covered the basics of what you need to know if you want to get to grips with the somewhat involved field of physical penetration testing. There's a lot more to cover beyond the essentials introduced here.

There's much more to security than just the technical aspects and there's much more to technical security than just buffer overflows. You've looked a little at what penetration testers do when faced with physical assignments as well the history of the industry and how it grew largely out of its military infancy into the commercial sector as the need arose.

Most importantly, I have covered the basic terminology, which is critical to understanding later material. Getting used to the terminology also gets you into right mindset.

I've also introduced a little of why you would want conduct this form of testing and the threats that different organizations face. If you're reading this book from the perspective of a security manager or CIO you should be a little clearer on what's involved in hiring a testing team.