Black-, gray- and white-box testing
In cybersecurity, black-, gray- and white-box testing describe how much information a penetration testing team receives before attacking a system. In black-box testing it knows nothing, like an outside attacker; in gray-box testing it has user credentials or partial documentation; in white-box testing it has access to source code, architecture and configurations.
Go deeper on the TecnetBlog: Types of Pentesting or Penetration Testing
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Related terms
Tabletop exercise
A tabletop exercise is a discussion-based simulation in which the crisis team, IT, legal and communications walk through a fictional incident step by step, such as ransomware encrypting the billing system, to test their response plan without touching production systems. A facilitator reveals the scenario in stages, and the team documents gaps, owners and improvements at the end.
Cyber insurance
Cyber insurance is a policy that covers losses from incidents such as ransomware, data theft or business interruption, including response costs, digital forensics, breach notification and third-party liability. Insurers usually require baseline controls before issuing a policy, such as MFA (multi-factor authentication), tested backups and an incident response plan, and they may ask for evidence during underwriting.
Security posture
Security posture is an organization's overall state of protection at a given moment: how well its controls, policies, people and technology prevent, detect and respond to attacks. It is measured through asset inventories, vulnerability assessments, configuration scores and regular testing, and it helps teams prioritize investments and show progress to leadership.
Security controls (preventive, detective and corrective)
Security controls are the technical, administrative and physical safeguards an organization uses to reduce information risk. By function they fall into preventive controls, which stop an incident, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA); detective controls, which identify it, such as log monitoring; and corrective controls, which limit damage and restore operations, such as a backup.
SAST and DAST
SAST (static application security testing) reviews an application's source code without running it to find flaws such as hardcoded passwords or unvalidated input. DAST (dynamic application security testing) tests the running application from the outside, the way an attacker would. They complement each other: SAST catches flaws early in development and DAST shows which ones are exploitable.
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