"What is a penetration test?"

"A penetration test is a controlled security assessment where ethical hackers simulate real-world attacks to identify exploitable vulnerabilities in systems, applications, or networks."

"How much does a penetration test cost in the UK?"

"Costs typically range from £5,000 to £15,000+, depending on scope, complexity, and the number of systems being tested."

"How long does a penetration test take?"

"Most engagements take between 4 and 10 days, depending on the size and depth of the assessment."

"Will testing disrupt my business?"

"Testing is designed to minimise disruption. High-risk actions are agreed in advance, and testing can be scheduled outside business hours if required."

"What do we receive at the end?"

"You receive a detailed report including vulnerabilities, risk ratings, proof of concept, and clear remediation steps."

"Is penetration testing required for compliance?"

"Yes, many standards such as ISO 27001 require regular penetration testing."

Penetration testing

What is penetration testing?

Penetration testing is a simulated attack against your systems, applications, and infrastructure. We find the vulnerabilities before someone else does.

A vulnerability scanner will tell you a port is open. We will tell you that open port leads to an unpatched service, that service gives us a shell, that shell lets us pivot to your database server, and now we are reading customer records.

What we test

We cover web applications, internal and external networks, mobile apps, APIs, cloud environments, wireless networks, and hardware.

Web application testing goes beyond the OWASP Top 10. We test for authentication flaws, injection vulnerabilities, business logic errors, and API security issues that automated tools cannot catch.

Network penetration testing covers service enumeration, exploitation, privilege escalation, and lateral movement across both internal and external networks.

Mobile application testing covers iOS and Android, looking at API communication, local data storage, authentication, and session management.

API testing covers REST, GraphQL, and SOAP. We assess authentication, authorisation, input validation, and rate limiting.

Cloud configuration review looks at AWS, Azure, or GCP environments for misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and insecure defaults.

Wireless testing covers rogue access point detection, WPA/WPA2 attacks, and client isolation.

Hardware and IoT testing includes firmware extraction, debug interface analysis, and protocol testing for embedded devices.

How it works

1. Scoping

We define targets, methodology, and rules of engagement. This could be a single web application or an entire enterprise network. We agree on testing windows, exclusions, and how we communicate during the engagement.

2. Reconnaissance and enumeration

We map your attack surface: live hosts, open services, application endpoints, technology stacks. Everything we find here feeds into the next phase.

3. Vulnerability discovery

Manual testing and targeted tooling. We look for logic flaws, race conditions, and chained attack paths that scanners will never find. This is where the real work happens.

4. Exploitation and impact demonstration

Where agreed, we exploit what we find to show what an attacker could actually do. That might mean escalating from a low privilege user to domain admin, pulling test data, or pivoting from an external application into the internal network.

5. Reporting

Every finding gets a clear description, evidence (screenshots, request/response pairs, commands), a risk rating, and specific remediation guidance. The executive summary gives leadership the risk narrative. The technical detail gives your engineers what they need to fix things.

6. Retest

After you have remediated, we retest to confirm the fixes work and nothing has regressed.

Why it matters

Penetration testing answers a specific question: can someone break in, and what happens if they do?

Automated tools catch known vulnerabilities. Manual testing finds logic flaws, chained attack paths, and misconfigurations that no scanner will flag.

A “medium” vulnerability in isolation might be critical when chained with another finding. We demonstrate the actual risk, not just the theoretical one.

Firewalls, WAFs, endpoint protection: they are only useful if they actually stop attacks. We prove whether they do.

PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, Cyber Essentials Plus, and other frameworks require regular penetration testing. We can help you meet those requirements.

Breaches cost trust. Regular testing reduces the likelihood of one happening, and the findings help you prioritise your security budget where it will have the most effect.

PENETRATION TESTING