Physical Penetration Testing

Physical security incidents have been a serious issue since before the internet evolved. Whether you are a company founder, security professional, investor, or homeowner, everyone must ensure they have strong physical security in the event you become a victim to a physical security attack. Physical penetration testing is a hands-on approach to a security audit rather than relying on digital assessments to reveal vulnerabilities within an organization. According to an industry analysis by Fortune Business Insights, "The global physical security market size was valued at USD 113.24 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow from USD 120.83 billion in 2025 to USD 196.07 billion by 2032." This is a 7.2% compound annualized growth rate during the forecasted period. You can have as many layers of digital security as you want, but if physical security is not considered, it may lead to a detrimental incident for an organization's employees, shareholders, and customers.


In physical penetration testing, there are many tactics to effectively test a client's campus, office, or facility. The first and one of the most important is reconnaissance. During reconnaissance, pen testers gather critical information about the site and analyze how it fits within the scope of the plan. Reconnaissance is an effective way to learn about your targeted site, its people and anything else that could influence the test. This could lead into another useful tactic which is social engineering and impersonation. This is a technique involving gaining the trust of another individual or influencing them to make a decision without the proper precautions. Social engineering can very easily cause a lot of damage and employees without the proper training could easily trust an impersonator or someone that doesn’t belong. Another good penetration test would be different infiltration methods. Infiltration could involve lock picking and badge cloning which are both techniques of breaching an unauthorized area. Both are very useful methods, since they help identify where locks and badge-scanner security should be reinforced. This specifically could prevent the access to important systems on a site. Lastly, a technique that tests a greater and random population is USB drop. This procedure involves defining a strategic area on a site where the pen tester would drop USBs loaded with harmful malware. The goal is to test and monitor whether people pick up these USBs and plug them into a device without knowing what they contain. This kind of test reveals many important things including where the devices are being plugged in and who is plugging them in. It also gives the penetration tester an opportunity to train anyone who falls for the test by demonstrating the possible consequences and then explaining why they shouldn’t do it. These are some of the many tactics a physical penetration tester could use to effectively test a site. Each results in different insights about vulnerabilities and operational behavior. They help us prepare for real incidents by revealing weak points and creating opportunities to practice responses and prevention.

By conducting these penetration tests, we can get an idea of where we need to improve. For instance, if one of our demonstrated pen tests is lock picking, and the tester successfully gains access to somewhere they shouldn’t be able to get to, we now know we need to implement additional security controls. Similarly, if we are performing USB drops on our organization and a
lot of people are curious and plug them into a computer, we know we have to do something about it. The goal of penetration tests is to improve the security of your organization. Ideally, you collect data from the penetration test, look for places where you have to improve, and then put those improvement plans into action. Penetration tests should also be conducted on a regular basis to ensure your organization stays vigilant. Humans are the weakest link in cybersecurity, so conducting recurring mandatory security awareness training is something that should be done following the results of a penetration test or tests. Implementing strict access controls or restricting access (least privilege) is something that every organization should have in place if they do not already. Along with that, penetration tests can expose if someone has more access than they should. Every organization that conducts penetration tests should improve very gradually over time. For example, if one of the tests is sending out phishing emails to their company and a lot of people click on it, something needs to change. Following that, the organization will take the necessary steps in order to educate and implement solutions in order to get less people to click on phishing emails. They would also expect to see the number of victims go down every year, indicating a successful and effective penetration test on the organization. Ultimately, cybersecurity isn’t just about digital defenses – no matter how strong they are, if physical security is weak, all those protections can be bypassed.


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