7 reasons why you need a Pentest

More than just compliance

Penetration Testing (pentesting) is not a mere compliance obligation. Its usefulness was recognized by industry leaders well before regulatory frameworks mandated them to simulate real-world cyberattacks. This is because of the benefits they bring to an organization’s information security and risk management efforts. It is especially valid today, in the digital era, where the information-threat landscape keeps expanding rapidly, making it harder and harder for organizations to catch up.

So, what are the benefits you can expect from regular penetration testing?

1. Identify your actual security posture

Test how well your organization’s security infrastructure, applications, controls and staff measure up against exploitation attempts, this way maintaining clear situational awareness of how effective your cyber defenses are, when put to the test with ethical hacking.

2. Improve policies and procedures

Gain knowledge regarding the “root cause” of identified issues rising from certain security areas such as Patching, configuration management, Access control, Identification & Authentication, Cryptography etc.

3. Identify Weaknesses

Emerging threats, exploitation paths, vulnerabilities, configuration weaknesses and forgotten sensitive information in the wrong places may be exploited by threat-actors, or they can be accidentally exposed.

4. Mitigate your overall cyber risk

Gain peace of mind knowing that your brand and operations are safe from cyber disasters. Divert your resources and attention to your core business competencies.

5. Align with industry security standards (such as those found under relevant regulatory frameworks, e.g. PCI-DSS)

Ensure adherence to mandatory, as well as recommended, industry standards while maintaining your compliance status with regulatory frameworks relevant to your industry. Maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of your business-critical information, and as a result, brand goodwill and trust.

6. Raise security awareness

Train and continuously educate security staff. Expose your staff to best-in-class knowledge and tap into the tacit experience of world-class security experts to foster security awareness within your organization, with regards to security best practices, as well as social engineering tactics employed by malicious actors.

7. Test new technologies

Remain up to date with information security and risk management best practices from leading experts and specialists by putting your configurations to the test as part of your ongoing digital transformation strategy.

Pentesting benefits relate to your organization’s information security and risk management. What is important is hierarchizing those pentest benefits according to their individual importance to your organization, and having this in mind, choose the right pentest service provider for you.