Penetration Testing Service
Identify the vulnerabilities in your web, mobile, API, internal and external network, Active Directory and cloud systems using real attacker techniques; validate the findings and report them by risk priority.
What Is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing (a pentest) is a comprehensive cyber security exercise carried out to identify and validate the vulnerabilities present in an organisation's information systems, network infrastructure, applications and digital assets — using the methods and techniques real attackers would use — and to assess the risks those vulnerabilities create.
The penetration testing service delivered by SecureSys is not a matter of looking for vulnerabilities with automated scanning tools. The core aim of the work is to assess how resilient the organisation's existing security controls are against real attack scenarios, and to establish under what conditions the vulnerabilities found could turn into a genuine cyber attack.
During a professional penetration test, the findings obtained from automated security tools are therefore supported by manual checks carried out by experienced security specialists. Validating the vulnerabilities, eliminating false positives, assessing the attack chains that can form when vulnerabilities are combined, and determining the real risk level for the organisation are all important parts of the work.
A vulnerability that appears low or medium on its own can become a critical security risk when used together with another configuration error or authorisation problem.
For example:
- a vulnerability on an internet-facing system,
- a weak authentication mechanism,
- incorrect authorisation,
- an out-of-date software component,
- a misconfigured network service,
- an over-privileged user account,
- inadequate network segmentation
can, alone or together, allow an attacker to reach the organisation's infrastructure.
The purpose of a professional penetration testing service is to identify these risks before attackers do and to enable the organisation to take the necessary security measures.
Why Is Penetration Testing Carried Out?
Organisations' IT infrastructure has become far more complex than in the past. Web applications, mobile applications, API services, cloud platforms, remote access systems, Active Directory infrastructure, wireless networks and third-party services continuously widen the digital attack surface.
This creates more potential entry points from an attacker's perspective.
Having a firewall, using antivirus or EDR, or updating systems regularly does not on its own mean the organisation is entirely safe from attack.
Rather than looking for a single critical vulnerability, attackers often progress by combining the small security problems present across the organisation's different systems.
An authorisation problem in an internet-facing application, for example, can allow an attacker to reach certain data. The information obtained can then be used on another system, allowing the attacker to move through the corporate network.
This process is described in security literature as an attack chain.
Penetration tests should therefore not be carried out simply to establish "how many vulnerabilities exist".
The question that really has to be answered is this:
"Using the existing vulnerabilities, how far could an attacker progress inside the organisation, and which critical systems or data could they reach?"
The SecureSys penetration testing service covers technical security assessments carried out from this perspective.
Why Penetration Testing Matters for Organisations
Cyber attacks are not a problem faced by large organisations alone.
Any internet-facing system is part of the potential attack surface. Because of automated attack tools, botnets and the continuous scanning activity across the internet, a newly published vulnerability can start being exploited by attackers within a short time.
The risks organisations can face include:
data breaches, unauthorised system access, account takeover attacks, ransomware attacks, critical services being taken offline, sensitive information being leaked and loss of corporate reputation
Penetration testing is one of the most important technical controls for measuring an organisation's current security level before these risks materialise.
A properly conducted penetration test gives the organisation more than a list of vulnerabilities.
It also allows the organisation to see far more clearly:
which systems are more critical, which vulnerabilities should be closed first, which paths attackers could progress along, how effective the existing security controls are, and where security investment should be directed
Penetration testing is therefore an important decision support mechanism for information security managers and senior management as well as for technical teams.
SecureSys Penetration Testing Service
SecureSys provides professional penetration testing services for assessing the security level of organisations' information systems, applications, network infrastructure and digital assets.
The SecureSys penetration testing service can cover security testing across different attack surfaces.
These include:
External network penetration testing Assessment of internet-accessible systems and services from an attacker's perspective.
Internal network penetration testing Assessment of the attack scenarios an attacker who has reached the corporate network, or a malicious internal user, could carry out.
Web application penetration testing Examination of vulnerabilities in web applications arising from authentication, authorisation, session management, data validation and application logic.
Mobile application penetration testing Assessment of the security level of Android and iOS applications in terms of the application itself, data storage, communication and backend services.
API penetration testing Analysis of the authentication, authorisation and data security risks that can arise in REST, SOAP, GraphQL and similar API services.
Active Directory penetration testing Assessment of user accounts, authorisation structures, Group Policy configuration and the security problems in Microsoft Active Directory environments that could allow attackers to progress within the domain.
Wireless network penetration testing Examination of the security of Wi-Fi infrastructure, access points, WPA2/WPA3 configuration, corporate wireless networks and guest networks.
Cloud security penetration testing Assessment of the security level of IAM, storage services, network configuration, API services, containers and other cloud components.
OT / ICS security testing Controlled assessment of the security risks in industrial control systems and operational technology environments.
This approach means that not only a single system but, where required, the organisation's end-to-end attack surface can be assessed.
The Scope of the Penetration Testing Service
An organisation's attack surface does not consist only of internet-facing servers. From user computers to Active Directory infrastructure, from web applications to API services, and from mobile applications to cloud platforms, many different systems can become potential targets.
Effective penetration testing therefore has to be planned taking the organisation's technology infrastructure, critical systems, business processes and likely attack scenarios into account.
The SecureSys penetration testing service can be structured so that different test types are assessed under a single scope according to the organisation's needs.
External Network Penetration Testing
External network penetration testing assesses an organisation's internet-accessible systems from the perspective of an external attacker.
Internet-facing IP addresses, web servers, VPN services, remote access systems, email infrastructure and other services form the organisation's external attack surface.
A significant proportion of the attacks carried out against organisations begin with the discovery of that surface.
The test first analyses the organisation's internet-accessible systems and services. Open ports, service versions, misconfigurations, out-of-date systems and potential vulnerabilities are assessed.
The aim of an external network penetration test is not simply to produce a list of open ports, however.
The specialists assess in which scenarios the services identified could be used by an attacker, and what consequences a potential vulnerability could have for the organisation's infrastructure.
A vulnerability in an internet-facing VPN service, for example, can give an attacker initial access to the corporate network. Similarly, a misconfigured management panel or remote access service can become the starting point for attacks against critical systems.
SecureSys external network penetration testing assesses the organisation's internet attack surface from a genuine attacker's perspective.
Internal Network Penetration Testing
An attacker reaching the corporate network is not the end of the attack; it is usually where the real attack chain begins.
Internal network penetration testing covers the assessment of the systems, services, user access and security controls in the organisation's internal network from an attacker's perspective.
One of the core scenarios in this test is the assumption that the attacker has reached the corporate network by some means.
That access may have been gained through a compromised user computer, malware, a social engineering attack, unauthorised physical access or a misconfigured remote access service.
The core question of the test is this:
"Once the attacker has reached the corporate network, how far can they progress?"
An internal network penetration test can examine network services, servers, user systems, file shares, management services, authentication mechanisms, network segmentation and authorisation structures.
Weak passwords, default accounts, misconfigured services, out-of-date systems and over-privileged users in particular can allow attackers to move laterally within the organisation.
At the end of a successful attack chain, the attacker can reach critical servers, databases, file servers or the Active Directory infrastructure.
An internal network pentest is therefore critical for measuring the resilience of an organisation's internal network security against real attack scenarios.
Web Application Penetration Testing
Web applications are one of the most important digital channels through which organisations communicate with their customers, employees and business partners.
Because they are reachable over the internet, they are also among the systems attackers target most frequently.
Web application penetration testing identifies the vulnerabilities present in web-based applications from an attacker's perspective and assesses the risks they create.
In the web application security testing carried out by SecureSys, OWASP approaches and security tests can be drawn on according to the structure and scope of the application.
The test can assess authentication mechanisms, authorisation controls, session management, user input, file upload functions, API connections, data validation mechanisms and the application's business logic.
Alongside technical vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), broken access control, SSRF, XXE and insecure file handling, business logic and authorisation problems that automated tools struggle to detect are also analysed manually.
A user with normal privileges being able to reach another customer's data by changing a URL or request parameter, for example, may look technically simple but can cause a serious data breach.
Automated security tools are therefore not sufficient on their own in web application penetration testing.
Manual penetration testing plays an important role in identifying vulnerabilities arising from authorisation and application logic in particular.
Mobile Application Penetration Testing
Mobile applications have become part of critical business processes in finance, e-commerce, healthcare, public services, transport and many other sectors.
Applications running on Android and iOS do not consist only of the code on the mobile device.
A mobile application is an integrated ecosystem working together with backend services, APIs, authentication infrastructure and third-party services.
Mobile application penetration testing should therefore not be limited to examining the application file.
SecureSys mobile application penetration testing can carry out static and dynamic security analysis according to the application's architecture.
It can assess whether sensitive information is stored securely within the application, client-side controls, authentication processes, session management, certificate validation, the application's API communication and its data transfer mechanisms.
One of the significant risks in mobile application security is placing too much trust in the client side.
By analysing the application, an attacker can change the controls carried out on the mobile device or attempt to manipulate the application's communication with its backend services.
Backend API security is therefore as important as the application itself in mobile security testing.
API Penetration Testing
In modern application architectures, web and mobile applications usually operate through API services in the background.
While APIs enable data communication between systems, they also create a significant attack surface.
API penetration testing identifies the security problems in API services arising from authentication, authorisation, data validation and business logic.
REST APIs, SOAP services, GraphQL and other service architectures can be included in scope.
One of the most critical topics in API security is authorisation.
Where a user should only be able to view their own records, being able to reach other users' records by changing a parameter in the API request creates a serious vulnerability.
An API penetration test can also assess:
authentication mechanisms, token security, authorisation controls, data leakage, rate limiting, faulty data validation, excessive data being returned, and service abuse scenarios
With APIs increasingly in use, API security testing has become one of the important components of modern penetration testing projects.
Active Directory Penetration Testing
Microsoft Active Directory is one of the critical infrastructures in many organisations, centrally managing users, computers, servers and access permissions.
One of attackers' most important objectives after moving through the corporate network is therefore often the Active Directory environment.
Compromising highly privileged accounts in Active Directory can give an attacker control over a large part of the organisation.
Active Directory penetration testing assesses the configuration errors, authorisation problems and attack paths in the AD infrastructure that attackers could use.
The test can examine user and group permissions, service accounts, password policies, Group Policy configuration, delegation structures and other Active Directory security controls.
Within scope, the applicability of techniques such as:
Kerberoasting, AS-REP roasting, pass-the-hash, credential attacks, privilege escalation and lateral movement
can be assessed.
The aim here is less to carry out the attack techniques than to identify the security problems in the organisation's Active Directory environment that would allow those techniques to succeed.
Wireless Network (Wi-Fi) Penetration Testing
Wireless networks create an attack surface that extends beyond the organisation's physical boundaries.
An attacker does not always need to enter the organisation's building physically in order to carry out an attack.
Misconfigured Wi-Fi infrastructure, or infrastructure with weak security controls, can be used to reach the corporate network.
Wireless network penetration testing assesses the security risks present in an organisation's Wi-Fi infrastructure.
The test can assess areas such as:
WPA2/WPA3 security, 802.1X Enterprise structures, PSK usage, access points, guest networks, rogue access points, evil twin scenarios and wireless network segmentation
Inadequate separation between the corporate wireless network and the guest network, or weaknesses in the authentication mechanisms, can allow an attacker to reach internal network resources.
Wi-Fi security is therefore not limited to having a strong wireless password.
Cloud Security Penetration Testing
As organisations begin using AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud platforms, the attack surface changes as well.
Many of the controls that matter in traditional data centre security are applied differently in cloud environments.
One of the most significant risks in cloud security is misconfiguration.
Storage services left publicly accessible, over-privileged user accounts, incorrect IAM policies or management services reachable over the internet can all cause serious security risk.
Depending on the structure of the project, SecureSys cloud security penetration testing can assess:
IAM and identity management, network security, storage services, security groups, container infrastructure, Kubernetes environments, API services, serverless components and other cloud resources
In cloud security work, it is important to assess not only known vulnerabilities but also the attack paths arising from configuration and authorisation.
OT / ICS / SCADA Security Testing
The operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS) and SCADA infrastructure used in industrial facilities has different security requirements from classic IT systems.
One of the most important priorities in security testing in these environments is operational continuity.
An uncontrolled test can affect production processes.
OT/ICS security assessments therefore have to be planned differently from classic IT penetration tests.
In the OT/ICS security work carried out by SecureSys, approaches such as IEC 62443 and MITRE ATT&CK for ICS can be drawn on according to the scope and sensitivity of the environment.
Network segmentation, IT/OT separation, access controls, remote access services, industrial protocols and the security configuration of critical systems can all be assessed.
The aim is to identify the existing attack surface and security problems without putting operational systems at risk.
Why Does Expertise Matter in Penetration Testing?
There are many automated security scanning tools available today.
These tools can speed up the work of penetration testers, but they cannot replace an experienced security specialist.
Real attacks do not proceed according to the output of a particular scanning tool.
An attacker analyses the systems, users, applications and security controls they encounter and builds different attack paths.
For a specialist, the critical point is not simply finding the vulnerability but answering:
"Can this vulnerability genuinely be exploited?", "Can it be combined with another finding?", "Where could an attacker progress from here?", "Which critical data or systems could they reach?"
An information disclosure assessed as low risk, for example, may look unimportant on its own.
The same information can nonetheless help an attacker learn the username format, carry out a password attack on a different service and then reach the corporate network.
Several apparently unrelated findings have in that case turned into a genuine attack chain.
This is where the value of manual penetration testing emerges.
What Are Black Box, Grey Box and White Box Penetration Testing?
Penetration tests can be carried out through different approaches according to the level of information given to the test team.
Black box penetration testing
In a black box test, the specialists are given minimal information about the system.
This approach creates a scenario closer to the starting conditions of an attacker targeting the organisation from outside.
The test team gathers information about the target systems, discovers the attack surface and assesses potential vulnerabilities.
Grey box penetration testing
In a grey box approach, the test team can be given limited information or user accounts.
In a web application test, for example, an account with normal user privileges can be provided so that whether the user can exceed their own permissions is examined.
This is a highly effective test method for corporate applications.
White box penetration testing
In a white box test, the security team can be given the system architecture, user accounts, source code or other technical information.
The aim is to reduce discovery time so that the security controls can be assessed more deeply.
Which approach is used should be determined according to the purpose and scope of the project.
What Should Be Done After a Penetration Test?
Delivery of the pentest report should not be the end of the security exercise.
The real value emerges when the vulnerabilities found are prioritised and remediated correctly.
While critical and high-risk findings are addressed first, medium and low-level findings should also be brought into the organisation's risk management process.
After remediation, a retest can be carried out to verify that the vulnerabilities have genuinely been closed.
This approach forms the cycle:
Test → Identify → Remediate → Retest → Verify
Penetration testing then ceases to be a technical check carried out on a particular date and becomes part of the organisation's continuous security improvement process.
Professional Penetration Testing With SecureSys
The fundamental question in cyber security is not whether vulnerabilities exist in the systems, but whether attackers could turn those vulnerabilities into an attack that matters to the organisation.
The SecureSys penetration testing service helps organisations understand their real attack surface, identify vulnerabilities before attackers do, and prioritise critical risks.
From web applications to Active Directory environments, from internet infrastructure to internal networks, from mobile applications to API services, and from wireless networks to cloud and OT/ICS systems, different technologies can be brought into scope according to the organisation's needs.
Rather than assuming your systems are secure, test their security.
Get in touch with SecureSys to define the scope of a penetration testing service tailored to your organisation and request a proposal.
Are Penetration Testing and Vulnerability Scanning the Same Thing?
No.
One of the concepts most frequently confused in security projects is the difference between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.
Vulnerability assessment largely focuses on identifying known vulnerabilities in systems using automated or semi-automated tools.
Penetration testing is a more advanced assessment.
In a penetration test, the specialist does not only investigate whether a vulnerability exists; within the agreed scope and rules, they also assess how a real attacker could use it.
An automated scanner may report, for example, that a web application contains an old software component.
A pentester goes beyond that and investigates:
whether that component can genuinely be exploited, which part of the application it affects, whether it can be combined with other vulnerabilities, and which data or systems an attacker could reach following a successful attack
Manual expert analysis is therefore critical in professional penetration testing.
Real Attack Scenarios in Penetration Testing
One of the most important things separating a penetration test from a classic security scan is the attacker's perspective.
A real attacker does not stop when they find a single vulnerability in a system.
They attempt to widen the access they have obtained.
An attacker's progression through an organisation's infrastructure can develop as follows:
Internet-Facing System → Vulnerability → Initial Access → Credential Harvesting → Privilege Escalation → Lateral Movement → Active Directory → Access to Critical Systems
Each stage in this chain can mean a different security control being bypassed.
One of the most valuable outputs of a professional penetration test is identifying these attack paths before attackers do.
The most significant risk to an organisation is not always the vulnerability with the highest CVSS score.
Sometimes several low or medium-level findings used together lead to a far more serious attack scenario.
In the assessments carried out by SecureSys, the relationships between findings and the potential attack chains are therefore taken into account alongside the technical findings, as far as possible.
Penetration Testing Methodology
A professional penetration test has to be carried out following a controlled and repeatable methodology.
In the penetration testing work carried out by SecureSys, internationally recognised security approaches and methodologies are drawn on according to the scope of the project.
These include widely used security references and methodologies such as:
OWASP, PTES (Penetration Testing Execution Standard), NIST, MITRE ATT&CK
In application security testing, the security approaches and testing guides published by OWASP in particular can be drawn on.
In corporate network and attack scenarios, MITRE ATT&CK provides an important reference point for modelling the techniques real attackers use.
Methodology alone is not enough for a quality penetration test, however.
The tester's experience, attacker's perspective, capability for manual analysis and ability to see the relationships between findings all directly affect the quality of the work.
How Does the Penetration Testing Process Work?
Penetration testing projects carried out by SecureSys are run through a controlled process.
1. Scope definition
The IP addresses, applications, API services, mobile applications, network segments or other systems to be tested are identified.
The dates and time windows for the test and the security rules to be applied are agreed.
2. Information gathering and discovery
Technical information about the in-scope systems is gathered.
Services, technologies, application components and the potential attack surface are analysed.
3. Security analysis
Potential vulnerabilities in the systems are investigated through automated and manual methods.
4. Vulnerability validation
The findings are assessed by specialists so that false positives are eliminated as far as possible.
5. Controlled exploitation
As far as the project scope and agreed test rules permit, the real impact the vulnerabilities could have is validated in a controlled manner.
6. Attack chain analysis
The attack paths that could form when several vulnerabilities are used together are assessed.
7. Risk rating
The findings are classified taking into account their technical impact and the risk they create for the organisation.
8. Reporting
The findings are reported together with their technical detail and remediation recommendations.
9. Retest
After the organisation has carried out its improvements, whether the vulnerabilities concerned have been closed can be checked again.
This approach means a penetration test ceases to be a "vulnerability finding" exercise and becomes a measurable process for improving the organisation's security level.
What Does a Penetration Testing Report Contain?
One of the most important outputs of a penetration testing project is the report.
A quality pentest report should not consist only of vulnerability names that technical teams can understand.
Depending on project scope, the work carried out by SecureSys can present both the finding detail needed to support technical teams in taking action and the information managers need to assess the overall risk level.
A security finding can fundamentally include:
a description of the finding, the affected system, the risk level, technical impact, validation information, a possible attack scenario and remediation recommendations
IT and security teams can then determine more easily which actions need to be taken.
How Often Should Penetration Testing Be Carried Out?
Penetration testing should not be treated as a one-off security activity.
Organisations' infrastructure changes continuously.
New applications go live, existing systems are updated, new servers are deployed, cloud services start being used and new vulnerabilities are published.
It is therefore important that penetration tests are carried out on a risk-based and periodic basis.
Annual test plans can be built according to the organisation's structure and obligations, and additional security testing can be carried out after significant changes to critical systems.
The need for a penetration test should be reassessed in particular after:
a new application going live, major version changes, changes to the infrastructure architecture, new internet services being exposed, cloud migrations or significant security incidents
Penetration Testing and Information Security Standards
Penetration testing matters not only for measuring the technical security level but also within the information security standards and regulations to which organisations are subject.
Depending on the organisation's sector and obligations, penetration testing can be one of the important technical validation tools within security programmes built under:
ISO/IEC 27001, KVKK, PCI DSS, DORA and sector-specific information security requirements.
What matters here is not simply "doing a pentest for compliance".
The right approach is to turn compliance requirements into an opportunity for reducing the organisation's real cyber security risks.
What Should You Consider When Choosing a Penetration Testing Provider?
Penetration testing is a sensitive security exercise carried out directly on an organisation's critical systems.
Choosing a penetration testing provider should therefore not be a decision made on price alone.
The provider's corporate capability, the experience of its specialists, the methodologies used, the testing approach, its data confidentiality processes and the quality of its reporting should all be assessed together.
The competence of the test team becomes even more important for penetration tests carried out at public institutions, financial organisations, defence industry companies and critical infrastructure.
SecureSys aims to bring technical expertise and a corporate reporting approach together in its penetration testing work.
Why the SecureSys Penetration Testing Service?
The real value of a penetration test is measured not by the number of automated tools used but by how accurately the findings are analysed.
The SecureSys approach focuses not simply on identifying vulnerabilities but on understanding the real risks they create for the organisation.
Automated security checks are supported by manual analysis carried out by specialists.
Depending on scope, widely recognised security approaches such as OWASP, PTES, NIST and MITRE ATT&CK are drawn on.
SecureSys has specialist teams working on penetration testing and cyber security projects; the work carried out aims not only to produce technical findings but to make the risks understood and to build applicable improvement steps.
SecureSys also serves the penetration testing needs of public and private sector organisations with a corporate structure holding TSE TS 13638 penetration testing service competence.
SecureSys is a Türkiye-based cyber security company providing penetration testing services for corporate networks, web applications, mobile applications, API services, Active Directory, wireless networks, cloud infrastructure and other critical information systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are penetration testing and pentesting the same thing?
Yes. "Pentest" is the common short form of penetration testing, and the terms are used interchangeably in the industry.
How long does a penetration test take?
The duration varies according to the number of systems, the number of IP addresses, the size of the application, the test type and the scope of the project. It should therefore be determined after a scoping analysis.
Does penetration testing damage systems?
Professional penetration tests are carried out in a controlled manner within the scope and test rules agreed in advance. Checks that could cause service disruption in production environments are assessed separately.
Does an automated vulnerability scan replace a pentest?
No. Automated scans are useful for identifying known vulnerabilities, but they are not sufficient on their own for manual security analysis, business logic problems, authorisation flaws and the assessment of attack chains formed by several findings together.
Is a retest carried out after a penetration test?
Yes. Once the vulnerabilities identified have been remediated, a retest can verify whether the findings concerned have been closed.
Which systems can be penetration tested?
Web applications, mobile applications, API services, internet-facing systems, internal networks, Active Directory environments, wireless networks, cloud systems and other in-scope IT components can be tested.
How is penetration testing priced?
Penetration testing fees vary according to the number and scope of the systems to be tested, the size of the applications, the number of IP addresses, the test type, the duration of the work and the level of expertise required. Sound pricing therefore requires the technical scope to be established first.
Test Your Organisation's Real Security Level
Assuming a system is secure and verifying that it is secure against real attack techniques are not the same thing.
With the SecureSys penetration testing service you can assess your organisation's network infrastructure, applications and critical information systems before attackers do, identify the vulnerabilities and determine the priority areas for improvement.
To define your penetration testing scope together and request a proposal tailored to your organisation, get in touch with SecureSys.
Want to learn more about this service?
Our expert team will reach out for a free consultation as soon as possible.