This is more than a simple vulnerability assessment. We actively attempt to circumvent security controls by carrying out exploits that take advantage of discovered vulnerabilities, revealing what an adversary would be able to do. During testing, we look for any method that can violate the CIA Triad security model (confidentiality, integrity, availability).

• Confidentiality is limiting information to only the authorized person(s) who should have access to it.
• Integrity is ensuring data/communication at rest or in transit can only originate from, be sent to, or be modified by an authorized person(s).
• Availability is the ability for an authorized person(s) to access the resources when needed.

The purpose of testing is to enumerate your exposure (within the given time constraints), identify and verify as many vulnerabilities as possible, ensure your security configurations are strong, and then provide actionable solutions to help you protect your organization from attack/compromise. Types of common vulnerabilities found during this testing include those that allow an attacker to carry out remote code execution, DoS, SQLi, XSS, Directory traversal, privilege escalation, etc.

In most cases, we will leverage the discovered vulnerabilities to (1) verify it is exploitable and (2) determine your exposure, should it be breached.  The testing is largely centered around the OWASP testing guide, but also includes our internal/proprietary methodologies. This is “noisy” and may generate alerts in the monitoring solutions you have deployed.

View our Sample Findings and Recommendations Report to see the level of detail PEN Consultants provides in our report.