Case Study: Comprehensive Penetration Testing for a Global Organisation
Proactively Identifying & Mitigating Cyber Risks Across Critical Digital Assets
A global organisation with a significant online presence engaged us to conduct a comprehensive penetration testing programme, ensuring its digital assets were resilient against modern cyber threats. With an expanding attack surface, the company needed a multi-layered approach to security testing that went beyond traditional assessments. The goal was to identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they could be exploited, ensuring the highest level of protection for its network, customer portals, and critical applications.
As a business handling sensitive customer and financial data, the organisation needed a targeted security assessment covering three key areas: foundational testing to uncover broad exposure risks, enhanced scanning to test web applications and customer portals, and custom exploitation testing to simulate real-world attack scenarios under controlled conditions. This approach would provide a complete security evaluation, ensuring that risks were not only identified but also tested for exploitability and impact.
We conducted three layers of penetration testing, each designed to assess security from a different angle:
First, foundational testing included perimeter scans and dark web reconnaissance to identify exposed credentials, misconfigured systems, and public-facing vulnerabilities that could be leveraged by attackers. By mapping out the organisation's external attack surface, we pinpointed risks that required immediate attention, particularly unpatched services, leaked employee credentials, and outdated security configurations.
Next, we performed enhanced scanning on the company's web applications and customer portals, testing for vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), authentication flaws, and API security gaps. With many customer interactions and transactions occurring online, it was critical to ensure that client data remained secure and that applications were hardened against emerging threats. Our custom attack simulations helped expose logic flaws that could be used to manipulate user sessions, escalate privileges, or extract sensitive information.
Finally, we executed custom penetration testing, which included stress testing and controlled exploitation of vulnerabilities to measure how well the organisation's security controls responded to advanced attacks. Unlike standard testing approaches, this phase replicated the tactics of sophisticated adversaries, allowing us to determine how deeply an attacker could infiltrate the environment if an initial foothold was gained. We worked closely with the organisation's security team to ensure that all exploitation activities were controlled, documented, and aligned with risk management objectives.
The results provided critical insights into the organisation's cyber resilience, highlighting immediate remediation priorities while also offering strategic recommendations to enhance long-term security. The executive team received a risk-based report, mapping technical vulnerabilities to business impact, ensuring that security improvements aligned with corporate risk appetite and regulatory obligations.
Through a structured, intelligence-driven penetration testing programme, we enabled the organisation to eliminate critical vulnerabilities, improve detection capabilities, and strengthen its overall cyber defences. By taking a proactive approach to security testing, the company significantly reduced its exposure to cyber threats while reinforcing customer trust and regulatory confidence.
Real attackers don't follow a script. Are you ready for a real-world test? Let's talk.
