Continuous Penetration Testing: Protecting Your Business Against Emerging Cyber Threats
Penetration testing is used to evaluate an organisation’s security vulnerabilities that an attacker might use for exploitation. It can identify potential threats, such as where a hacker might attack, how threat actors would gain access to your systems and how effective current defences are.
However, cybercriminals are continuously evolving their tactics. This makes the traditional format of only conducting an annual security test insufficient.
Continuous penetration testing offers businesses a proactive solution to protect against evolving threats, identifying vulnerabilities faster and enabling immediate remediation.
In this article, we’ll be diving into what continuous penetration testing is, how it works and why it might be the right solution for your business.
Key Takeaways
- Continuous Penetration Testing offers real-time threat detection and ongoing visibility into vulnerabilities as they emerge.
- It improves cyber resilience by addressing security gaps faster than traditional annual testing models.
- Regular testing supports compliance with ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, DORA, and NIS2, ensuring audit readiness.
- Combining manual and automated testing delivers deeper insights while improving cost-efficiency and incident response.
- Outsourcing to a CREST-accredited provider ensures expert analysis, proactive remediation, and actionable reporting.
What is Continuous Penetration Testing?
The proliferation of digital transformation and new tools and technology poses a serious security challenge for businesses. Testing for weaknesses and vulnerabilities just once a year is no longer sufficient to protect the organisation.
While these annual, or half year or quarterly, tests can provide a snapshot of a company’s potential vulnerabilities, in isolation they can’t paint an accurate picture. It’s imperative that more frequent testing is conducted to protect networks, applications and systems.
Continuous penetration testing – also known as continuous security testing – will enable you to safeguard your security posture on an ongoing basis before a cybercriminal has a chance to exploit vulnerabilities in your networks, applications, and systems.
Unlike traditional penetration testing, which provides a snapshot of vulnerabilities at a specific time, continuous testing ensures ongoing monitoring and early identification of new risks.
Continuous pen testing services are series of pen tests, which could be initiated following a full penetration test. While the full test provides a baseline, continuous testing will be triggered when any changes to your networks, systems or applications happen from that base point – or even from an event such as a migration or new product launch. The cycle of continuous pen testing should start from your baseline penetration test.
The process should then include steps which define the scope and assets to be continuously tested, a schedule of regular security testing, remediation of any issues identified, retesting and ongoing tracking of upgrades, misconfigurations and newly reported threats and vulnerabilities.
Malicious cyberattacks are happening all hours of the day and night globally. Continuous security testing is a more realistic and effective method to keep a business secure in the modern day.
By conducting testing continuously, it allows you to promptly identify and mitigate newly discovered vulnerabilities, reducing your risk exposure.
How often should continuous penetration testing be performed?
With this type of testing, it’s typically performed more regularly, such as on a quarterly or monthly basis, depending on your organisation’s risk profile, compliance requirements, product launch schedule and the rate of change in your specific IT environment.
Continuous Penetration Testing vs Traditional Pen Testing
Traditional penetration tests are usually performed annually, occasionally more frequently. While valuable, these tests often fail to capture the vulnerabilities that can be introduced by frequent system updates or configuration changes.
Continuous testing, on the other hand, provides ongoing insights, real time reporting, and the advantage of proactive cyber security measures rather than just reactive actions.
Automated vs Manual Penetration Testing
Automated penetration testing offers speed, scalability, and lower cost benefits, especially suitable for identifying common vulnerabilities quickly. However, automated tests may miss complex or novel security issues.
Manual penetration testing provides in depth assessments carried out by highly experienced cyber security professionals who can simulate real world attack scenarios, which can be complemented with automated tests to increase the frequency of checks on your systems.
Learn more about manual vs automated penetration testing.
Why Your Business Needs Continuous Penetration Testing
Businesses are frequently targeted by cybercriminals due to their valuable data. The increasing sophistication of cyber threats underscores the need for continuous assessments.
The Evolving Cybersecurity Landscape
Cyberattacks such as ransomware, phishing, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) are escalating. Recent breaches demonstrate that frequent testing could significantly mitigate these risks by providing real-time security posture awareness.
Staying Compliant and Audit-Ready
Continuous penetration testing plays a critical role in maintaining compliance with standards such as ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, DORA, and NIS2. Regular testing provides documented evidence of proactive security measures, making compliance audits simpler and reducing regulatory risk.
Key Benefits of Continuous Penetration Testing
By conducting continuous penetration testing, you and your IT and security teams can ensure that your networks, applications and systems are fully protected from cyber threats.
With this model, you’re able to maintain a strong security posture all year round. In a world where hacking techniques proliferate as quickly as technology progresses, so must your testing frequency.
Real Time Threat Detection
Continuous pen tests allow you to identify and address threats far more quickly, significantly reducing the potential damage to your business and reputation.
The tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that hackers use to attack business systems are growing in volume and sophistication. By investing in regular assessments not only can you safeguard your cyber security before a cybercriminal has a chance to exploit vulnerabilities – you can also improve internal security management processes for your organisation as a whole.
This will remove time constraints around annual testing, allow for a deeper and wider variety of testing to be done, and protect the organisation more effectively against the growing number of cyberattacks.
Improved Security Posture and Cyber Resilience
Ongoing assessments ensure you don’t have a prolonged exposure to vulnerabilities, enhancing your overall security posture.
The insight that continuous penetration testing can provide gives a clear picture of your attack surface and risk profile. If any gaps are left unpatched or unaddressed, bad actors are likely to exploit and compromise the business.
By deploying managed testing services, you can ensure that all necessary security controls and processes are in place, and that gaps are remediated, which helps you to reduce information security risk.
Cost Efficient Risk Management
Early detection and remediation drastically reduce potential financial losses associated with cyber breaches.
According to a recent study, the perceived ROI (return on investment) from security testing is dropping in over half of organisations due to the complexity of managing cybersecurity budgets. The same report states that security costs are creeping towards $3m annually, but only 51% rate these efforts as effective.
By proactively identifying the areas that need urgent investment on a regular basis, cyber risk management is also improved providing a better and more immediate ROI.
Enhanced Incident Response Capabilities
Regular testing verifies the effectiveness of your Security Operations Centre (SOC) and incident response playbooks.
Compliance with Security Standards and Regulatory Compliance
Continuous pen tests can support information security and compliance requirements such as ISO 27001, DORA and NIS2, by supplying up to date information and reporting in line with the mandates set by these regulations and frameworks.
Better Use of Resources
There are specialised skills and qualifications needed to conduct continuous security testing. The cyber security industry has a finite number of skilled professionals with a well-documented global skills shortage. By outsourcing to a managed penetration testing service provider and having these widely skilled testers perform your continuous security testing, you get the highest quality assessments as well as being able to free your internal staff to work on value added growth projects.
Continuous insights into security threats and vulnerabilities also provides data driven decision making which optimises your resource allocation and cyber security budgets more effectively.
How Continuous Penetration Testing Works
Testing typically goes through 4 key stages. If any provider offers fewer steps than this, be aware that they may be offering a far inferior security testing service than is available elsewhere.
Initial Scoping and Setup
Testing is most commonly conducted on an informed basis, called white box testing. This ensures that the tests simulate real world hacking scenarios accurately, reflecting the insight an attacker or sophisticated external adversary might have. Detailed information provided at this stage can include network diagrams, application architecture details, and specifics on system configurations.
Scoping is extremely important to identify what areas of your infrastructure should be included in the pen test target and what remit the penetration testers have.
Starting with limited knowledge, testing experts will assemble key information from the public domain using passive information gathering techniques. White box testing will then add layers of information for the security experts to use as part of the continuous testing process.
Using all the information gathered during the reconnaissance step of the process, the pen testers will assess any vulnerabilities and risks to the organisation.
Penetration testers will then try to exploit any weaknesses within your company’s systems, networks or applications. By intercepting traffic, escalating their access privileges, and simulating stealing or exfiltrating company data, the pen testers can fully understand the damage that a hacker could cause.
Ongoing Testing and Monitoring
In this stage, penetration testers utilise advanced methodologies to identify vulnerabilities in near real-time, keeping pace with the evolving security landscape.
Continuous Reconnaissance and Information Gathering:
Penetration testers will continuously gather information passively and actively from public and private sources. This continuous reconnaissance phase ensures they stay current with any changes to your attack surface, such as newly added software, system patches, or configuration updates.
Advanced Toolsets and Integration:
Leveraging specialised tools such as Burp Suite, Nessus, Metasploit, and other advanced frameworks, the testers will perform systematic vulnerability assessments and exploitation attempts.
Continuous penetration testing is often coupled with vulnerability scanning, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platforms, enabling immediate correlation and investigation of identified issues.
Realistic Attack Simulations:
The testers will simulate real world cyberattacks using the latest threat intelligence to replicate the most prominent techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) used by genuine adversaries. This includes attempts to escalate privileges, exploit vulnerabilities, and mimic the actions of cybercriminals to find and exploit vulnerabilities.
Reporting and Real-Time Alerts
One significant advantage of regular assessments is the ability to provide more regular reporting. This is essential to be able to mitigate threats before they can escalate into major incidents.
Actionable Real-Time Reports:
Detailed yet concise reporting will be delivered regularly, tailored to different stakeholder groups within your organisation. Executive summaries for senior leadership, detailed technical findings for IT and cybersecurity teams, and compliance-oriented reports for regulatory auditors are all provided.
Ongoing Tracking and Visibility:
Reports can be made available through secure portals such as DigitalXRAID’s OrbitalX Security Portal, which enables your teams to monitor, prioritise, and track remediation efforts transparently and efficiently. This visibility ensures stakeholders are always informed of the security posture and ongoing risks and provides an always on audit trail of identification, assignment and remediation of issues.
Remediation and Validation:
The final stage involves actively addressing vulnerabilities and validating the effectiveness of these actions. This stage is vital to demonstrate due diligence in managing cyber risks.
Guided Remediation Steps:
Detailed guidance is provided alongside vulnerability reports, helping your teams quickly address issues identified. Clear and prioritised recommendations ensure resources are focused effectively, reducing exposure to high-risk vulnerabilities first.
Retesting and Validation:
After vulnerabilities have been addressed, continuous penetration testers will retest the specific assets and systems to verify that issues have been fully resolved. This critical step confirms remediation effectiveness and ensures the vulnerabilities do not recur.
Who Benefits from Continuous Penetration Testing?
IT Directors & CIOs
Supports strategic cybersecurity planning, ensuring informed decision-making and effective resource allocation.
CISOs & Cyber Security Teams
Offers comprehensive insights for proactive threat detection, response, and improved risk management strategies.
Compliance & Risk Officers
Provides ongoing evidence of proactive compliance and readiness for audits and regulatory scrutiny.
Choosing the Right Penetration Testing Provider
Accreditation and Certifications
Seek providers with recognised credentials like CREST, CHECK, OSCP, and OSCE for assured quality.
Industry Experience and Reputation
Industry-specific expertise ensures a deeper understanding of unique sector vulnerabilities.
Transparent Methodologies and Reporting
Clear, detailed methodologies and reporting practices ensure reliability and trust in the service provider you choose.
Learn more about how to choose the best penetration testing provider for your business.
DigitalXRAID’s Penetration Testing Services
Your service will identify any weaknesses and vulnerabilities in your systems, networks and applications. We give you the chance to remedy issues before threat actors can exploit them, protecting you from attacks.
DigitalXRAID is one of the first providers to gain CREST penetration testing and OVS certifications for our security services. This makes us one of the top cyber security providers in the world.
DigitalXRAID has a unique insight into offensive security testing techniques. With cyber security services operating on the defensive side as well as offensive, we have a more holistic view, and a much deeper understanding of what techniques are being used for attack. Our testers will dive deeper, uncovering vulnerabilities that others tend to miss.
DigitalXRAID’s penetration testing services include:
- Internal Pen Testing Services
- External Pen Testing Services
- PCI DSS Pen Testing Services
- Red Teaming
- Social Engineering
- Mobile app Pen Testing Service
- Web application Pen Testing Service
- And many more
If there’s a vulnerability, DigitalXRAID’s penetration testing experts will find it.
CREST and CHECK Accredited Experts
DigitalXRAID’s testers hold industry-leading certifications, providing the highest standard of penetration testing.
Our Comprehensive Pen Testing Approach
We employ advanced methodologies, tools, and processes tailored to your specific security needs.
Tailored and Actionable Reporting
DigitalXRAID delivers detailed and actionable reports, accessible through our OrbitalX Security Portal, ensuring full visibility and audit readiness.
Proven Results and Industry-Leading Expertise
Our extensive case studies and client testimonials demonstrate our expertise and proven effectiveness in enhancing client cybersecurity.
Final Thoughts: Take the Next Step
The evolving cyber security landscape means that businesses can no longer rely solely on annual security checks. Proactive and ongoing security assessments give your organisation an advantage, by detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities before an attacker can exploit them. With cybercriminals operating continuously, your security posture must match their persistence and adaptability.
From real time threat detection and incident response readiness, to significantly reducing your overall risk exposure and the potential costs of cyber breaches, continuous testing offers you significant value.
For more information on our penetration testing services and how we can support you in staying a step ahead of cyber criminals, speak to an expert.
For an in-depth view of what these services entail and to get tailored quote: scope your project.
