Trusted US penetration testing services

Regular penetration testing is a fundamental part of running a modern business. Cyberattacks increase steadily year-on-year across all markets and sectors, making pen tests a core component of your organization’s operations.

In addition to keeping safe from cybercriminals, pen testing helps to increase customer confidence in your services. Regular testing reputable penetration testing company such as Target Defense demonstrates that you take security seriously – proving to your existing and prospective customers that you can be trusted with their data.

Vulnerability scanning, also known as VA scanning, is sometimes called automated penetration testing, as it uses scanning software to hunt for a list of security vulnerabilities. VA scans are great for finding pre-disclosed vulnerabilities in your web apps and infrastructure, but they can never do so to the same extent as a human-led penetration test. There’s a world of human insight and ingenuity that they cannot replicate.

Automated testing and vulnerability scanning should always form part of your security mix, for example, helping regular patching. However they’re not a replacement for penetration testing, which provides detailed reporting and remediation advice from cyber security experts. Reputable penetration testing service providers should be using both approaches to ensure your organization is fully protected against cyberattacks.

A black box penetration test is where almost nothing is known about the target environment ahead of the test, putting the pen tester in a similar position to a real-world hacker. This gives a more realistic attack scenario, but it means security testing time is wasted on simple discovery tasks and means fewer components will be tested thoroughly.

A white box penetration test is where everything is known about the environment before the test, sometimes right down to the source code. This gives the potential to provide an extremely thorough test, it’s often overkill for most organizations and objectives. White box testing is not reflective of a real-world hack, and can cause the scope to become diluted and less effective.

Grey box penetration testing is, as the name suggests, a mix of white and black box penetration testing. It’s where the pen tester has access to a strategically balanced amount of information about the target environment. This best of both worlds approach to penetration testing typically leads to the best, and most cost effective, outcomes. For this reason it’s grey box pen testing that’s recommended by Target Defense.

As a reputable penetration testing service provider, Target Defense takes the time to understand your security objectives and scope a right-sized penetration test that gives true value to your organization. Factors include what web apps, mobile app, cloud, network and infrastructure are being tested, the aims of the test, and the testing parameters. We pride ourselves on being highly price-competitive, making strong security testing available to all.

OSCP certification is seen as a gold standard of the security testing industry. As a hands-on, performance-based certification, it validates an individual's skills in finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities. OSCP certification is an essential credential to look for in any penetration testing company. Checking for relevant certifications and expertise is a great way to make sure you’re contracting with a reputable penetration test provider.