3 Ways Core Impact Can Benefit Large Security Teams

As the need for regular security assessments continues to grow, penetration testing tools are helping organizations advance their in-house programs through strategic automation. However, there is a misconception that automated tools are best for those with a reduced headcount, like small teams or individuals. Fortunately, Core Impact is designed with every team in mind, and offers capabilities that are essential for larger teams.

1. Teaming

In Core Impact, individual projects are grouped into a structure called a workspace. This is a self-contained environment where a penetration testing engagement is managed and where results are stored.

The Enterprise version of Core Impact is ideal for large teams because it allows for teaming, which makes these workspaces collaborative. Multiple testers can be added to a workspace for a teaming session, allowing everyone to see all activities within the engagement and enabling more than one person to work at a time.

Teaming also helps to better manage a multi-tester engagement. A Core Impact workspace will create a record of what’s already been done and permits you to assign different targets to different users. This prevents testers from working on the same target, and ensures that no work is unnecessarily repeated.

Additionally, teaming workspaces simplify reporting. Reporting can be an arduous task that is both time and labor intensive, all the more so with larger teams completing more engagements. When done manually, consistency and quality can understandably suffer. Given its importance for compliance and remediation prioritization, robust reporting is critical to future security planning and success. In fact, according to the 2023 Pen Testing Report, 71% of respondents named reporting as the most important feature in a penetration testing tool. Since Core Impact’s workspace stores the activity of every tester, a detailed, comprehensive document can be easily generated, and does not have to be put together piecemeal.

2. Centralization

Larger teams are typically working with bigger infrastructures. As a result, the tool stack to properly safeguard their systems can get quite large, and can end up reducing efficiency. Incorporating penetration testing into your security posture can often mean multiple tools. Relying on a mix of open source and commercial tools requires switching between technologies which can be time consuming and labor intensive during the engagement. Having to manually combine information and reporting is also both slow and inconsistent.

The centralization that Core Impact offers can reduce console fatigue and save time. From information gathering to testing to reporting, every phase of the penetration testing process can be executed and managed in one place. Core Impact tests across vectors, including network, social engineering, and web applications.

Additionally, Core Impact offers multiple integration and collaboration capabilities with tools like Plextrac, Metasploit, and Cobalt Strike for further centralization. Core Impact also integrates with and validates vulnerabilities from multiple scanners, including Burp Suite, Nessus, Qualys, and OpenVAS to help prioritize risks.

3. Standardization

Pen testing is both art and science, which means that while there are similarities between testers, there are also differences in how each one runs an engagement. While there is nothing wrong with this, it does help to have consistency when it comes to retesting to validate remediation. In the case of larger teams, the person who ran an initial test may not be in charge of the retest.

Core Impact provides a repeatable process for reliable retesting. The remediation validation functionality takes an initial engagement from a given workspace as input, then attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities found within that workspace, automatically reporting the differences between the original workspace and the new one. This not only standardizes the process, it makes it far more efficient.

A Strong Business Case for Core Impact

Unfortunately, no one has an unlimited budget, so cybersecurity professionals who are building or expanding their cybersecurity portfolio have to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize. Security teams need solutions that not only effectively help safeguard their IT environment, but are also cost effective.

Core Impact is a powerful tool that not only saves time through centralization and standardization, but also through its automation and ease of use. Those new to pen testing can benefit from the step-by-step Rapid Penetration Testing process with the aid of guided wizards, while those with experience can automate routine tasks and leverage the tool’s flexibility to execute more advanced testing tactics. Core Impact also keeps cost in mind for large teams, with discounts available for those buying multiple licenses. Whether working on individual tests or together on larger projects, Core Impact allows large teams to maximize their resources, gaining valuable insights that will help mitigate risk and protect essential assets.