The word "pentesting" conjures images of state-sponsored hackers and Fortune 500 incident response teams. In reality, 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses — and small businesses account for 61% of data breach victims. The threat is not hypothetical. Here's what a penetration test is, what it finds, and what you do with the results.
What pentesting actually is
A penetration test is an authorised, controlled attempt to breach your systems using the same techniques a real attacker would use. The goal is not to prove you're vulnerable — it's to find out exactly where, how, and how badly before someone with malicious intent does.
It's different from a vulnerability scan. A scanner is automated software that checks for known CVEs and misconfigurations. A pentest involves human judgment: chaining multiple low-severity findings into a critical attack path, testing business logic flaws that no scanner understands, and validating what a real breach would look like step by step.
What gets tested
- →Web application: authentication flaws, SQL injection, XSS, IDOR, CSRF, insecure APIs
- →Infrastructure: open ports, misconfigured services, weak credentials, unpatched software
- →Cloud: S3 bucket permissions, overprivileged IAM roles, exposed management interfaces
- →Email and DNS: SPF, DKIM, DMARC — the configuration that stops attackers spoofing your domain
What you get at the end
A professional pentest report has two parts. The executive summary is written for non-technical stakeholders: what was found, what the business risk is, and what to prioritise. The technical findings section is written for developers: exact reproduction steps, CVSS score, evidence (screenshots, HTTP requests), and remediation guidance.
Findings are classified by severity: Critical (fix today), High (fix this sprint), Medium (fix this quarter), Low and Informational (fix when time allows). A good report gives you a remediation roadmap, not just a problem list.
How often should you test
At minimum, annually. In practice, any significant change to your attack surface — a new product feature, a cloud migration, a new API integration, an acquisition — warrants a targeted test. The cost of a pentest is a fraction of the average cost of a data breach (€4.2M globally in 2024, IBM Security).
For SMEs with no in-house security team, an annual full-scope pentest plus a continuous monitoring setup is the most cost-effective security posture. You know your risks once a year, and you're alerted to new exposures in between.
Our penetration testing page sets out scope, pricing and what the report contains.
Frequently asked questions
What does a penetration test include?
A penetration test simulates a real attacker against your systems — web app, network, cloud or APIs — to find exploitable weaknesses before criminals do. You get a report of every vulnerability found, ranked by risk, with concrete steps to fix each one.
How much does a pentest cost for a small business?
For an SME in the UK or EU, a focused web-application or external-network pentest typically runs from around €2,900 — four to five days of testing and reporting at boutique day rates. Broader engagements that add infrastructure, cloud and email run into five figures. Cost scales with the days a scope genuinely needs, not with company size, and anyone quoting a few hundred euros for a full penetration test is selling you an automated scan.
Automated vs manual penetration testing — which do I need?
Automated scanners are fast and cheap but miss business-logic flaws and chained attacks. Manual testing by a human finds the issues that actually get companies breached. For real assurance you want automated coverage plus manual testing on the parts that matter.
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