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What is a penetration test? What is penetration testing? Penetration testing, often called “pentesting”,“pen testing”, or “security testing”, is the practice of attacking your own or your clients’ IT systems in the same way a hacker would to identify security holes. Of course, you do this without actually harming the network. The person carrying out a penetration test is called a penetration tester or pentester. Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Penetration testing requires that you get permission from the person who owns the system. Otherwise, you would be hacking the system, which is illegal in most countries – and trust me, you don’t look good in an orange jump suit. In other words: The difference between penetration testing and hacking is whether you have the system owner’s permission. If you want to do a penetration test on someone else's system, we highly recommend that you get written permission. In this case, asking first is definitely better than apologizing later! You can become a penetration tester at home by testing your own server and later make a career out of it. At Rapid7, we have a team of professionals that pentest government and enterprise IT systems for a living. And let me tell you, they enjoy their job!