Penetration Testing
Penetration testing tells you what an attacker could achieve in your environment. LIMA arranges and manages it, CYSIAM carry it out independently, and we help you fix what comes back.
A report you can trust
The value of a penetration test rests entirely on the independence of the person doing it. If the organisation that designed and built your environment also tests it, the test is only as honest as their willingness to document their own mistakes.
So we do not test our own work. LIMA builds and runs your environment. CYSIAM tests it, to their own methodology and their own accreditations, and their findings come to you exactly as written.
What is penetration testing?
A penetration test is an authorised, controlled attempt to compromise your systems, carried out by people who do this professionally and document everything they find.
It is a point-in-time exercise rather than continuous monitoring, and it answers a different question to a vulnerability scan: not what weaknesses exist, but what someone could do with them.
Common scopes include:
External infrastructure
What is reachable from the internet and what could be done with it
Internal infrastructure
How far an attacker could move once inside, whether through a compromised device, a stolen credential or a visitor’s network port
Web applications
Testing the applications you build or expose to customers, including authentication, access control and data handling
Cloud configuration
Reviewing Microsoft 365 and Azure tenancy configuration against how attackers approach cloud environments
Social engineering and phishing
Testing the people layer, which is where the majority of successful attacks begin
A test is only worth what you do next
The common failure is a thorough test producing a substantial report which then sits in a folder because nobody has the capacity to work through it. This is where being both your IT provider and your route to testing is an advantage.
Findings come back into a remediation plan. Patching and version issues route into VDR, which remediates continuously to Cyber Essentials Plus SLAs. Configuration and architectural findings become scoped project work under our Professional Services team. Anything relating to detection coverage feeds into your managed SOC. You get an owner for every finding rather than a to-do list.
Why organisations test
Sometimes because a client, insurer or regulator has asked. ISO 27001 and PCI DSS both make testing difficult to avoid, and supplier assurance questionnaires increasingly ask when you last carried one out. Cyber Essentials Plus does not require a penetration test, though the two often get confused, and organisations that have just certified are frequently the ones who then want to know what an assessment against a baseline didn’t cover.
The better reason is that it is the only way to find out what your controls do under pressure rather than on paper.
The benefits
Genuine independence
Tested by a partner with no involvement in building your environment.
Findings in priority order
What an attacker could realistically achieve, ranked by risk rather than by severity score alone.
A remediation route that already exists
Findings routed into VDR, project work or your managed SOC, with an owner attached to each.
Evidence for the people asking
Documentation that stands up to clients, insurers and auditors.
Why choose LIMA and CYSIAM for penetration testing
Anyone can arrange a penetration test. Fewer can hand you the results, explain what they mean for your specific environment, and then close the findings. We manage the engagement, translate it and deliver the fix.
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