https://www.fidusinfosec.com/penetration-testing/ Penetration Testing. Fidus Information Security are a CREST approved and TIGER scheme approved consultancy with our consultants holding some of the most recognised certifications in the industry. Our highly skilled and experienced penetration testing specialists approach every piece of work with due care...

1. PENETRATION TESTING
Fidus Information Security are a CREST approved and TIGER scheme approved consultancy with our
consultants holding some of the most recognised certifications in the industry.
Our highly skilled and experienced penetration testing specialists approach every piece of work with due
care and attention, ensuring your needs are always put first, and more importantly met. Our extensive
knowledge and experience allows us to advise on the correct approach to take for all tasks, regardless of
size.
https://www.fidusinfosec.com/penetration-testing/
Red Teaming
We evaluate your entire business in the way an advisory would and gain access using the same techniques. A
mixture of research, leveraged weaknesses and stealth allow us to aim for „unrealistic‟ goals set by you.
Infrastructure Security
Our experienced team of testers use their expertise to assess both internal and external corporate infrastructure,
highlighting any potential issues and working with you towards remediation.
Application Security
We evaluate both internal and external applications to ensure a strong security posture has been established.
IT Health Check (ITHC)
Our CREST and TIGER certified consultants will work with you to meet all of the compliance requirements of
PSN Code of Conncetion (CoCo) to ensure you have a PSN compliant IT Health Check.
PCI DSS Testing
We perform scanning on your behalf to ensure you remain PCI DSS compliant and work with you to remediate
any troublesome findings.
Physical Security
We leverage our experience in conducting Physical Security assessments in order to gain access to your offices
and achieve a set of predefined goals.
PSN Assessments
Our experienced team performs PSN assessments on your behalf to ensure a strong security posture has been
established.
Industrial Systems
We use our extensive knowledge to help you establish a strong sense of security surrounding your SCADA and
ICS systems.
Stolen Device Assessments
Have you ever considered the affect if a company device was stolen? We perform an assessment to better inform
you of the risk to your business if a device is lost or stolen.
Device Build Reviews
We assess the quality of your device builds against security best practices.

2. GET IN TOUCH WITH FIDUS INFOSECURITY
GET IN TOUCH
PENETRATION TESTING – WHY FIDUS?
When selecting a Penetration Testing provider it‟s important to ensure you choose the right one. Fidus
Information Security are a CREST approved and TIGER scheme approved consultancy with our
consultants holding some of the most recognised certifications in the industry, such as; CREST Certified
Tester and Senior Security Tester. Along with this, Fidus are also a Cyber Essentials verified company. All
of our assessments implement UK industry approved methodologies (OWASP, PETS, NIST) along with
our internal methodologies.
Free Retesting
We provide free retesting on discovered security issues to help you confirm reported issues have been correctly
remediated.
Certified Security Consultants
Our team consists of CREST and TIGER scheme approved individuals who hold the following certifications;
OSCP, CCT, SST and CISSP.
Easy to Understand Reports
Our reports are aimed at all audiences. We have portions of our reports aimed at executives and portions of our
reports aimed at the technical team.
Fixed Price Proposals
Our proposals are broken down into a costing table detailing each phase and the associated pricing.
WHAT IS PENETRATION TESTING?
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the industry surrounding the definition of a Penetration Test (Pen
Test) and a Vulnerability Assessment. Because of this, the use of both phrases are commonly interchanged
however their meanings are very different.
A Vulnerability Assessment aims to identify and uncover security vulnerabilities and simply note them
down. A Penetration Test aims to dig further into these vulnerabilities and ascertain whether exploitation is
possible and how much of an impact there is to the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA) of your
data.
The most common types of Penetration Tests within the industry are Network Penetration
Tests and Application Penetration Tests. Both of these tests should be performed from an internal point of

3. view and an external point of view to give an accurate representation of your current security posture. Just
because an application is only used internally it doesn‟t mean it shouldn‟t be assessed! The most severe
Web Application vulnerabilities we see at Fidus usually are within internally used applications which also
have access to the most customer data.
PENETRATION TESTING SOFTWARE?
Penetration Testing „tools‟ are used as part of Pen Tests to help assess, identify and exploit commonly
found vulnerabilities. There are numerous different kinds of tools used within Penetration Testing, each
with a different use and varying popularity – like most things, people have a preference!
Whilst these tools are effective at finding what they‟re able to, it‟s important to ensure your Penetration
Testing provider does not simply run automated tools and issue a report. Many vulnerabilities cannot be
identified simply by running an automated tool without some form of manual verification and, in some
cases, manual exploitation too. Our consultants at Fidus focus on manual testing where possible and whilst
some of these tools are used to aid assessments, they will never be the focal point of the engagement.
Commonly seen tools include; NMap, Metapsloit, SQLMap, Nessus, Qualys, Nikto, SSLScan, Cobalt
Strike and many, many more.
THE GOAL OF A PENETRATION TEST
The end goal of a Penetration Test varies from client to client and has many underlying factors, such as;
complexity of application and/or network, whether there have been previous tests, what kind of data the
application/network holds and the size of the organisation.
The most frequent goal we are given by clients is “Can you obtain our customer information?”. However, it
is also important to not overlook other issues which could lead to things such as loss of business reputation
if the customer facing website is compromised.
DO I PASS/FAIL?
Penetration Testing should NOT become a Pass/Fail assessment for your organisation. Penetration
Testing should be seen as an exercise to evaluate your current security posture with the aim to make as
many improvements as possible.
At Fidus, we ensure the client is able to extract as much value from the assessment as possible. As such,
our reports contain sections for both the executive team which is aimed at the risks to the business and a
technical section for the development and IT teams. We provide enough information for the C-Level staff

4. members to fully understand the report and enough information for the technical team to be able to locate,
reproduce and fix all issues discovered.
PENETRATION TESTING COST?
Cost of Penetration Testing is a widely talked about subject in the industry. Throughout my years of
Penetration Testing, I‟ve personally seen prices vary from £750 – £2,000 a day depending on the type of
work being quoted. Along with this, some companies charge more money for a „Senior‟ to be on the job.
Using publicly available data on G-Cloud (Gov.uk digital marketplace), we can browse through different
listings for Penetration Testing and get a feel for the average pricing. It appears the average price for Pen
Testing on G-Cloud is around the £800-1200/day mark which is far too expensive for Small to Medium
Enterprises (SMEs).
At Fidus, we aimed to break down the price barrier and provide affordable security services to everyone
which is why our day rates start at £500 and do not go higher £650/day. If you would like to take
advantage of this, please contact us.
BENEFITS OF PENETRATION TESTING
The main benefit of Penetration Testing is the proactive approach to finding serious vulnerabilities before
attackers do. These vulnerabilities can lead to numerous scenarios such as; reputational damage, loss of
user data and financial fines.
Compliance
Penetration Testing is also a key factor to becoming compliant in multiple standards, such as Cyber
Essentials Plus, PCI DSS and ISO 27001.
Evaluate Current Security Controls
A pen test allows you to evaluate current security controls which are in place. These could be Intrusion
Prevention Systems (IDS), Intrusion Protection Systems (IPS), Firewalls and Web Application Firewalls
(WAF). We commonly see mis-configuration of these devices, sometimes rendering them ineffective at
their main job, keeping your data safe.

5. Avoid The Cost of Network Downtime
Have you ever worked out how much it would cost your business if you had even a day downtime because
of a cyber attack? This is not simply the loss of a day wages for all employees, it may also include; legal
fees, incident response, customer protection and damage control activities.
A security assessment also allows you to establish the level of exposure if a specific area of your company
gets breached, such as the main user web application, and ascertain how sensitive the data held within is.
Currently, sensitive breaches must be reported to the Information Commissioner‟s Office (ICO) with fines
sometimes reaching 6 figures. However, with the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
law, these fines are set to multiply and only give organisations 72 hours to discover and report a breach.
The easiest way to avoid a breach is to proactively defend against one.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU PERFORM A
PENETRATION TEST?
Penetration Testing should be performed on a regular basis to ensure newly discovered threats and
previously recommended implementations are evaluated. In addition to this, penetration testing should
occur when there‟s a big change to network infrastructure, a new web application is deployed,
during/before mergers and Phishing assessments should take place upon expansion of your team.
WHAT KIND OF PENETRATION TEST DO I
REQUIRE?
The kind of Penetration Test you require has many underlying factors. Some questions such as “We‟re
about to deploy a new web application, what kind of testing do you recommend?” are much easier to
answer than “We‟ve never had a Penetration Test before, what do you recommend?”.
For the latter question, there are a series of questions which need to be answered first. Such as; What are
your key assets? What would cripple your business if stolen? (Signing keys, source code, customer data
etc), How many employees do you have? What is your budget?
It is important to have all of the information to be able to evaluate what would have the best return on
investment for your Penetration Test.
If you would like to talk through the different kind of Penetration Tests available, please get in touch:
https://www.fidusinfosec.com