In today’s digital age, cybersecurity is more important than ever. Businesses that maintain the data of their clients are continually concerned about potential vulnerabilities that hackers may exploit to potentially misuse the data for wrongdoings. That is why organizations need to obtain a VAPT certificate for their organization. But what exactly is it, and how can you obtain one? Let us break this down in simple terms.

What is a VAPT Certificate?

It is a certificate provided by a premium cybersecurity company is a document issued to a company after they’ve undergone a Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) service.

VAPT is a process that combines two crucial security practices:

Vulnerability Assessment: This involves thoroughly scanning your IT assets to identify potential flaws that hackers could misuse.

Penetration Testing: Here, security professionals act like ethical hackers, attempting to exploit the vulnerabilities discovered during the assessment. This helps identify the real-world impact these vulnerabilities might have and provides valuable insights for remediation.

An organization requiring a VAPT Certificate will get in touch with a cybersecurity company to perform a VAPT on its IT inventory and applications. The security experts would conduct a thorough assessment, identifying vulnerabilities and flaws. Further, the company then addresses these vulnerabilities by patching them. Once all critical vulnerabilities are fixed after re-testing, the company can get VAPT certified.

Why is Obtaining a VAPT Certificate Important?

The certificate demonstrates that your business has undergone a rigorous security evaluation. This is significant to potential clients, partners, investors, etc., and this ensures that you take data security seriously. Listed here are some key benefits of a VAPT certificate:

• Enhanced Security: VAPT helps identify and fix vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them
• Better Credibility: The certificate demonstrates your commitment to secure online transactions and data protection
• Adherence with Compliance: VAPT can help meet industry regulations and data privacy standards

Industries that Need a VAPT Certificate in India

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing aren’t limited to a specific industry in India. All types of industries can get VAPT certified.  It’s a valuable certificate for any business that operates online or offline. However, out of numerous industries, listed below are a few industries that have greater benefits due to the sensitive data they handle. These include:

IT & Telecom Companies: These companies are prime targets for cyberattacks. VAPT helps strengthen their defenses and protect sensitive information.

Financial Institutions (Banks, NBFCs): Protecting financial data is necessary. VAPT helps ensure robust security for online transactions and customer information.

E-commerce Businesses: VAPT secures customer payment details and protects against website disruptions that could impact sales.

Healthcare Providers: Patient data privacy is critical. VAPT helps the healthcare sector identify and address vulnerabilities in its devices that store sensitive medical information.

Government Agencies: Governmental organizations often handle confidential data. VAPT enhances cybersecurity and minimizes the risk of data breaches.

VAPT Certification Process by Kratikal

Information Gathering

This stage involves acquiring detailed information about the devices, network architecture, protocols used.

Planning-Analysis

This stage involves devising a strategy to emulate a real-time threat scenario on the infrastructure. We have an exhaustive set of test cases to run on any target environment against which the target is tested. Plans are devised to optimize the entire process and minimize any adverse effects on live infrastructure.

Vulnerability Detection

In this phase, we run our tests on respective elements of the IT infrastructure with the help of industry benchmark tools. We list out the potential vulnerabilities against each device.

Penetration Testing

Out of all the potential vulnerabilities, a penetration test is carried out to list out the most probable attack points for the client. 80% of the VAPT work is done here. We write customized scripts as per the business logic and exploit each vulnerability manually for the best result.

Reporting

Once the penetration tests are over, we report all our findings to the client along with detailed analysis of the vulnerability discovered, the threat level, possible impact, recommendation strategies and proof of concepts (PoC).

Report Analysis

We generate concise and succinct reports of the vulnerabilities discovered, and we have a detailed discussion on the nature of the vulnerability, its impact, threat level, and recommendations with your development team to remove the vulnerability. Our technical experts discuss the report, along with the bugs found, and their impact scenario with the development team of the client. Comprehensive discussions arecarried out on how to remove the vulnerabilities and secure the IT infrastructure.

Patching by Development Team of Client

The development team of the client patches all the vulnerabilities reported by Kratikal in discussion with the security team of Kratikal.

Re-Testing

In this step, Kratikal performs the re-testing of the IT infrastructure after the development team of the client gives the go-ahead and confirms that all the vulnerabilities have been patched.

How to Get a VAPT Certificate?

Here’s a breakdown of the steps involved in obtaining a VAPT certificate:

• Choose a reputable VAPT service provider: Look for CERT-In empanelled companies with experienced security professionals and a proven track record.
• Define the Scope of the Assessment: Clearly outline which aspects of your company will be tested.
• Schedule the VAPT Assessment: Coordinate with the provider for a convenient time to conduct the assessment.
• Remediation: Following the assessment, address the identified vulnerabilities based on the provider’s recommendations.
• Get VAPT Certified: Once vulnerabilities are addressed, the VAPT service provider will typically issue a certificate outlining the scope of the VAPT and its results.

Final Thoughts

A VAPT certificate is an investment for your company’s security and is key to maintaining your brand reputation. By proactively addressing vulnerabilities, you can prevent costly data breaches and maintain the trust of your clients. While many companies offer VAPT services, Kratikal stands out as one of the best VAPT service providers with over 13+ years of experience in the cybersecurity industry. We’ve helped secure more than 650 SMEs, making us a trusted cybersecurity services provider for businesses of all sizes. Choose Kratikal for a hassle-free VAPT certification process. Our experienced team will work closely with you to understand your specific business needs. In today’s digital era, a cyberattack can cripple a business. Strong cybersecurity is the foundation for success.

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