Penetration Testing Services

How secure is your application or network? Don’t wait to find out. With Pen Test services from A-KAR, our pen testers to do their best to identify exploits and vulnerabilities and report back their findings to give you a chance to improve your overall security posture for your project.

We offer a combination of Pen Test Options to fit your needs.

How Does Investing in Pen Testing Secure Your Organization's Assets?

Penetration tests are simulated attacks against your applications, network, and infrastructure that are designed to find previously unknown vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. These exploits can lead to loss of data, damage to your organization’s reputation, regulatory and compliance issues, and financial losses.

During a Penetration Test, our hackers will look through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), libraries, infrastructure, and network components in order to identify directly exploitable vulnerabilities, or in many cases, multiple vulnerabilities that can be chained together to create an exploit. Any findings will be reported back to you, and you will then have the opportunity to improve your internal processes and overall security posture allowing you to better secure your assets, making them safer from bad players.

Penetration Testing Benefits

We use active and passive pen testing tactics to find more vulnerabilities so you can fix them.

1

Actionable knowledge is power

Our hackers leave no stone unturned in identifying your digital weaknesses so that they can be remediated. Every finding is reported with full context, suggested resolution, and any workarounds or compensating controls possible. We will also provide leadership with the necessary risk-based information for guided decision making.

2

Cost savings and avoidance

On average, the cost of a data breach in the US is $8.19 million. The money spent on penetration testing is money saved on incident response and potential damages

3

Compliance and public assurance

Along with regulatory (PCI, FedRAMP, etc.) requirement compliance, our penetration testing services will improve your internal processes and overall security posture. The results? Secure customer data and protection of your brand.

Find and remediate security vulnerabilities

Your Trusted Pen Testing Experts

Expertise in some of the most secure US Government environments

We have tested and penetrated (and helped secure) commercial applications that are used by millions daily and have discovered several CVEs.

Methodical testers that also work in conjunction with our defense teams makes us all stronger

Penetration Testing Features Overview

Penetration Testing Features

Beyond the basics

MPG will attempt to penetrate your application, not just run a vulnerability scan. We’ll then present a full report detailing what needs to be fixed.

Automated and manual attacks

Automation is important to quickly cover many bases. We use that output to identify and craft highly targeted manual attacks.

Reports and remediation advice

You’ll receive a detailed report containing tests performed, results, any vulnerabilities discovered, and remediation strategies.

What Types of Penetration Testing Does A-KAR Perform?

Often multiple types of penetration test are needed to cover all your penetration testing needs. A-KAR has the ability to customize your needs across multiple penetration test types.

Internal Network Penetration Testing

Internal assessment that focuses on applications and devices that are not exposed to the public: the vulnerabilities that exist on the services and applications of these devices, and how these vulnerabilities can be chained together to access your sensitive resources.

External Penetration Testing

External assessment of devices and applications, typically internet facing sites and gateways; and how these vulnerabilities can be leveraged to move from External to Internal access or Unauthenticated to Authenticated access

Application Penetration Testing

Targeted assessment on a specific application like an internal custom built web application or API.

Source Code Review

White-box approach to review sensitive functions and areas in the source code of an application that can lead to vulnerabilities

Red Teaming

A simulated attack on your systems and network using a combination of phising, external and internal testing, and evasion

Wireless Penetration Testing

Review the wireless configuration, broadcast range, and protocols to identify and exploit security vulnerabilities

What is Penetration Testing, a Penetration Test, and a Penetration Tester?

A penetration test or pen test for short, is an assessment against a network or application with the intent to discover and exploit vulnerabilities to substantiate the risk associated with that vulnerability. A penetration tester, someone who performs the penetration test, will use a combination of tools, tactics, and techniques to assist with discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities, however, they are largely required to leverage their own creativity and out of the box thinking.

Why is Penetration Testing Important?

A penetration test is a hands-on assessment to discover and exploit vulnerabilities on a target. This is a real-world approach to having a simulated attacker target your network without the problems incurred by an actual attack. We discover and exploit the vulnerabilities that your automated tools don’t and cannot, the unknown vulnerabilities. We assess the actual risk of a vulnerability based off the exploitability and impact. Our test examines your organizational security and shows if it is effective.

Why Use A-KAR for Your Penetration Testing?

A-KAR has a pool of Penetration Testers that have diverse backgrounds in web development, vulnerability scanning and analysis, software and system engineering, and system administration. We have walked in the shoes of the people who are responsible for managing, configuring, and maintaining a network. We can relate.

We perform work for several government agencies, commercial banks, and other public companies that allows us to see and test unique applications and get hands on experience in highly secure environments that are configured to keep the bad guys out.

Our Testers hold and maintain several advanced level penetration testing certifications and management level certifications like CISSP and PMP. We know how to exploit vulnerabilities and calculate risk so that informed business decisions can be made with consideration to cost and complexity:

OffensiveSecurity Certified Professional (OSCP)
Offensive Security Certified Expert (OSCE)
Offensive Security Web Expert (OSWE)
Offensive Security Experienced PenetrationTester (OSEP)

Our creativity and unique approach to problem solving has helped us discover and publish several Common Vulnerability Exploits (CVEs) in popular commercial products (WebTA, SAS Internet, ArcGIS, and HPE) that have been thoroughly tested and vetted by other security professionals. We don’t rely on tools and automation:

How is Penetration Testing Completed?

The A-KAR PenTesting process can be summarized in 4 steps: Scoping, Rules of Engagement (ROE), Assessment, and Reporting. The goal of each of our engagements is to provide you actionable outcomes to allow you to understand your risk exposure and help you determine a path to remediation.

Scoping

What are you looking to achieve by having a pen test performed? In our experience, most clients are aiming to achieve annual or semi-annual requirements along with several considerations:

New application or an update to an existing application
Migration or incorporation of new devices into a network
Incident or compromise
Testing People, Processes and Procedures
Testing Security Implementations andConfigurations

During the scoping discussion we will also cover:

Number of devices and applications (targets)that will be tested
The location of the targets
Credentials to the targets to perform an unauthenticated and authenticated assessment
Onsite and/or Remote testing

Rules of Engagement (ROE)

A mutual document between us and you that outlines what services will be performed, how they will be performed, what targets will be tested, and contact procedures. This document gives clear expectations on what to expect from the pen test.

Assessment

The assessment phase can last from one to several weeks depending on the type of assessment being performed by our team of specialists.

Reporting

We understand the significance of reporting and the impact results can have on the direction of security within an organization, so we aim to return a finished product to you within 5-10 business days following the completion of the assessment. Our reports target management and technical level stakeholders but can be customized to fit your needs:

The number of vulnerabilities found and their severity (calculated using a custom risk matrix of impact and exploitability).
The most likely attack path, forged by chaining together vulnerabilities we discovered during the assessment, a real-world attacker would take to access your most sensitive resources.
Key Strengths and Weaknesses.
Our Testing Details: Reconnaissance, Discovery, and Exploitation.
Detailed proof of concepts to show how each vulnerability was discovered and exploited.