What is the difference between threat hunter and pentester (threat hunting or penetration testing)?

What is the difference between threat hunter and pentester (threat hunting or penetration testing)?

February 24, 2023 Off By Lennon

Cybersecurity is an integral part of digital life. Cybersecurity is essential to protect digital entities against hackers and malicious intruders. These attacks are being stopped in their tracks is a growing need for cybersecurity professionals.
In the cybersecurity field, threat hunting and penetration testing are highly sought-after skills. This article will discuss threat hunting vs. penetration testing.
What is pen testing and penetration testing?
A penetration test, also known as a pentest, simulates a cyber attack on your computer system to find exploitable flaws. Penetration testing is an addition to a web application firewall within the context of web app security (WAF). Pen testing is a method of hacking into application systems (e.g. frontend/backend server servers, application protocol interfaces, APIs) to find vulnerabilities such as code injection attacks. Penetration test results can be used to refine your WAF security rules, and address vulnerabilities.
What are the different pen-testing methods?
There are many ways that a pen tester can carry out their cyber attack, including:
External testing: Penetration tests are conducted to target internet-visible assets such as the web application, corporate website, email, and domain name servers (DNS). The goal is to extract useful information.

Internal testing: A tester who has access to an application behind a firewall at a company can mimic a hostile insider attack. Employee credentials, which are often obtained through phishing attempts, are a common starting point.

Blind testing: A tester is only given the name of the target organization in a blind test. It provides security personnel with a live view of what might happen during an actual application attack.

Double-blind testing. Security personnel participating in double-blind tests have no prior knowledge about the simulated attack. They won’t have the time to secure their fortifications in time for an attempted breach, just like in the real world.

Targeted testing: In this scenario the tester and security officers work together and keep each other updated on their movements. This training exercise gives security personnel real-time feedback from hackers’ perspectives.

How do you become a pentester
These are the requirements to become a pen tester
Education: A bachelor’s degree is required in cybersecurity, computer science, or information technology.

Skills required
Strong creativity, analytical thinking, problem-solving skills, and strong imagination

Understanding of terminology and technological systems

Knowing scripting languages

Capability to spot and exploit flaws

Superior verbal and written communication skills

Technical qualification:
Expertise in at minimum one programming language (Python or Go, Java, PowerShell etc.

Expertise in installing and supporting multiple software packages, as well as Linux and Windows operating system knowledge

Strong writing, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills

CompTIA PenTest+ Certification: Exam PT0-002 is the exam you need to become a Pentester. You will learn how you can assess the security of traditional servers, mobile and desktop operating systems, cloud installations and IoT devices. You will plan and execute a penetration testing engagement. This includes vulnerability scanning.

What is threat hunting?
Threat hunting is the proactive use by skilled cybersecurity analysts of machine-based or manual tactics to detect security events and threats that are not detected by existing automated detection systems. To be able to effectively use toolkits to find the most serious threats, you need to understand how to use them. To manage the huge amount of data, which includes logs, metadata and packet capture (PCAP), you must be familiar with various malware exploits and network protocols.
What are some methods of hunting for threats?
Here are some methods for conducting threat hunting on any framework.
Structured hunting: A structured hunt is one that is based on the attacker’s IoA, tactics, methods and procedures (TTP). All hunts are coordinated and based upon the threat actors’ TTP. A hunter can identify a dangerous actor before they cause environmental damage. Hunters use the MIT Adversary Techniques Techniques and Common Knowledge framework (ATT&CK) and the PRE-ATT&CK enterprise frameworks.

Unstructured hunting is a hunt that is initiated by a trigger. This is closer to intelligence-based hunting. The trigger can be any of the IoCs. This signal is for a hunter that he/she should start looking for pre- and post-detection patterns. The hunter can also go back in time to data ret