Q-Sec Penetration Testing goes beyond checklists. It combines compliance alignment, resilience validation, and expert-led exploitation to give your organisation clear, actionable evidence of where you stand — and exactly what to fix.
Standalone vulnerability scans tell you what exists. Q-Sec penetration testing tells you what can be exploited, in what order, by whom — and what it would mean for your business. Every engagement is designed to support your wider security and compliance programme.
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Q-Sec findings are translated into the language each stakeholder needs — from exploitable attack paths for your security team to business risk and competitive impact for the board.
Executive-ready reporting provides clear visibility of real business risk and supports strategic decisions on cyber investment. Confidence in resilience — without needing to understand the technical detail.
Quantified risk findings reduce the likelihood of a costly breach or regulatory fine. A stronger cyber insurance position and predictable, prioritised remediation roadmap protect your budget.
Exploitable gaps identified and validated with proof-of-concept evidence. Risk-ranked remediation guidance prioritised to your environment — not a raw CVSS list.
Reports directly support alignment with NIS2, ISO 27001, DORA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and SOC 2. Independent security validation and clear evidence of control effectiveness for your next audit.
Faster enterprise procurement cycles when you can evidence your security posture. Competitive differentiation with an attestation letter for client due diligence and RFP processes.
Improved ransomware and lateral movement resilience. Reduced likelihood of disruptive incidents backed by real-world exploitation evidence — not theoretical risk scores.
Comprehensive coverage across every layer of your attack surface — from internet-facing applications to cloud infrastructure, identity systems, and human factors.
OWASP Top 10 and API Top 10 coverage. Authentication, authorisation, injection, business logic, and data exposure flaws.
Perimeter assessment, internal segmentation validation, firewall review, and lateral movement paths.
Azure, AWS, and GCP misconfigurations, IAM policy review, storage exposure, and serverless security assessment.
Tenant misconfiguration, conditional access gaps, email security, and data exposure across M365 and connected SaaS platforms.
Privilege escalation paths, Kerberoasting, pass-the-hash, BloodHound attack paths, and domain dominance scenarios.
Simulated phishing campaigns, vishing assessments, and credential harvesting tests against your workforce.
Goal-based, multi-phase adversary simulation mapped to MITRE ATT&CK — designed to test people, process, and technology together.
White-box architecture review, secure code analysis, SAST integration support, and CI/CD pipeline security assessment.
We select the right approach based on your business objectives, regulatory requirements, and risk tolerance. Most engagements start with a scoping call — no pressure, no jargon.
No prior knowledge. Our testers approach your environment exactly as a real attacker would — testing what an outsider can reach, exploit, and escalate from. Ideal for validating your perimeter, web applications, and internet-exposed assets.
Simulates a compromised user account or limited insider access — the most realistic scenario for ransomware and insider threat paths. We test lateral movement, privilege escalation, and data access from a foothold inside your environment.
Full architecture visibility, including source code review and design-level analysis. Maximises depth for critical applications and DevSecOps environments where understanding every risk is more important than simulating surprise.
Every Q-Sec engagement follows a structured, transparent process. You always know what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what comes next.
We define business-critical assets, regulatory drivers, and attack scenarios together. Clear scope. Clear objectives. No ambiguity before we begin.
Stakeholder InputPassive and active mapping of your external exposure and internal attack surface. Open-source intelligence, service enumeration, and footprinting.
OSINT & DiscoveryManual and automated testing across your applications, infrastructure, and cloud systems. We validate every finding before it enters the report.
Manual + AutomatedSafe proof-of-concept exploitation to validate real impact. No guessing. We demonstrate — and document — what an attacker would actually achieve.
Safe PoC EvidenceWe assess privilege escalation paths, data exposure risk, and ransomware feasibility — the business impact of each finding, not just its CVSS score.
Business Risk ContextActionable remediation guidance, risk prioritisation aligned to your reality, and an executive briefing for management — plus a developer walkthrough and optional retest.
Dual-audience ReportEvery engagement has a clear owner, a defined schedule, and no surprises. Here's what a standard targeted pentest looks like from your side.
Whether you need a single, well-scoped engagement for an upcoming audit or ongoing validation as your environment evolves, Q-Sec fits your model.
Ideal for SMEs preparing for audits, client onboarding, or regulatory reviews.
Designed for growing organisations needing ongoing risk management.
Certified ethical hackers with hands-on cloud and infrastructure expertise. Every report is reviewed, every finding validated, every recommendation practical.
A penetration test that satisfies your security team but fails to produce the right evidence can still leave you exposed at audit. Q-Sec designs every engagement with the auditor's checklist in mind — because we've been on both sides of that table.
ISO 27001 does not mandate penetration testing by name — but Annex A control 8.8 (Management of Technical Vulnerabilities) and control 8.29 (Security Testing in Development and Acceptance) together require documented technical testing as evidence that controls are not just implemented, but operating effectively.
Auditors conducting Stage 2 assessments or surveillance audits will look for a closed loop: a test was scoped, conducted, findings were risk-ranked, remediation was tracked to closure, and management reviewed the outcome. A raw report without this lifecycle is insufficient evidence.
Article 21 of NIS2 requires essential and important entities to implement "vulnerability handling and disclosure policies" and "security in network and information systems acquisition, development and maintenance" as proportionate risk management measures. Penetration testing is the primary technical mechanism to demonstrate compliance with both obligations.
National competent authorities assessing NIS2 compliance will expect evidence that testing is risk-based, covers business-critical systems, and that findings are actioned within a defined timeframe. Article 23 incident reporting obligations mean detection capability validation — often via pentest — is also scrutinised.
DORA is the most prescriptive framework for penetration testing in EU financial services. Articles 24–27 create a two-tier requirement: all in-scope entities must conduct Basic DORA Penetration Testing (threat-based, scenario-driven), and significant entities must additionally undergo Threat-Led Penetration Testing (TLPT) — closely aligned to the TIBER-EU framework.
TLPT under DORA is particularly demanding: testing must be conducted against production systems (not test environments), threat intelligence must inform scenarios, and both the red team and intelligence providers must be independently certified. Supervisory authorities review TLPT results directly and may request remediation plans.
PCI DSS v4.0 Requirement 11.4 mandates external and internal penetration testing at least annually and after any significant infrastructure or application upgrade. Requirement 11.4.7 specifically requires testing of the network segmentation that defines your Cardholder Data Environment (CDE) scope — a failure here can expand your entire assessment scope and significantly increase compliance cost.
QSAs (Qualified Security Assessors) are rigorous on tester qualification: the individual must demonstrate knowledge of the PCI DSS, use industry-accepted methodology, and independence from the target environment. Engagement documentation must satisfy evidence requirements for the Report on Compliance (RoC).
Article 32 of GDPR requires controllers and processors to implement "a process for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organisational measures for ensuring the security of the processing." This is one of only four specific technical measures named — and it means regular penetration testing is effectively a GDPR obligation for any organisation processing personal data at meaningful scale.
Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) investigating post-breach notifications increasingly ask whether penetration testing was conducted and whether identified vulnerabilities were remediated. The absence of testing — or evidence that findings were not actioned — is a significant aggravating factor in fines under Articles 83(4) and 83(5).
Penetration testing is a key evidence point for multiple SOC 2 Trust Service Criteria. CC7.1 (detection and monitoring procedures) and CC4.1 (risk assessment process) both require evidence of technical security assessment activity. For SaaS and cloud service providers, auditors treat a current, well-scoped pentest as a near-mandatory control.
SOC 2 Type II audits cover a period (typically 12 months). If testing was conducted only once at the start of the period with no retesting, auditors may qualify their opinion on the continuity of control effectiveness. Continuous or semi-annual testing significantly strengthens your Type II report.
Every document we produce is designed with your auditor in mind. This is what we hand you — and what it satisfies.
| Q-Sec Deliverable | ISO 27001 | NIS2 | DORA | PCI DSS | GDPR | SOC 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scoping & Objectives Document | A.8.8 | Art. 21 | Art. 25 | 11.4.1 | Art. 32 | CC4.1 |
| Technical Findings Report (with PoC) | A.8.8 | Art. 21 | Art. 24 | 11.4.3/4 | Art. 32 | CC7.1 |
| Risk-Ranked Remediation Roadmap | A.5.29 | Art. 21 | Art. 24.6 | 11.4.6 | DPIA link | CC4.1 |
| Executive Summary & Management Briefing | Mgmt review | Board report | Art. 24.6 | Supporting | Art. 32 | CC1.x |
| Retest & Remediation Validation Report | Closure loop | Treatment | Art. 24 | 11.4.6 | Art. 32 | Type II |
| Attestation Letter | Certification | Supporting | Supporting | RoC evidence | Supporting | Type II |
| Compliance Control Mapping Annex | Annex A | Art. 21 | ICT risk | Req. 11 | Art. 32 | TSC map |
The details that separate a pentest that passes audit from one that creates more findings than it closes.
We advise on when to schedule testing relative to your audit window. A test three weeks before your SOC 2 observation period ends tells a very different story than one conducted six months prior.
Auditors don't just want a report — they want the loop closed. We structure remediation tracking and retest documentation to satisfy the full lifecycle that ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and SOC 2 auditors expect.
NIS2 and DORA both require scope to be proportionate to entity classification and risk. We help you justify scope boundaries in writing — so "we only tested the website" doesn't become a finding.
PCI DSS Req. 11.4.2 and ISO 27001 both require independence from the target. We provide tester qualification and independence declarations ready for QSA and certification body review.
Not every finding gets fixed before audit. We document risk acceptance rationale in a format that satisfies auditor scrutiny — because "we knew about it and accepted the risk" is very different from "we didn't address it."
PCI DSS and DORA both require retesting after significant infrastructure or application changes. We design continuous programmes with change-triggered testing triggers built in — not just calendar-based scheduling.
Q-Sec reports are designed to be read — not filed. Every deliverable has two audiences: your technical team who need to reproduce and fix findings, and your management who need to understand risk and make decisions. Both get exactly what they need.
Illustrative example — format and findings vary by engagement scope
A scoping call with Q-Sec takes 30 minutes. We'll clarify your objectives, recommend the right approach, and give you a clear picture of what an engagement would cover — with no obligation and no jargon.
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