Penetration Testing
Penetration testing (pen testing) simulates a real attack against a system, performed by a security professional actively trying to exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access — going beyond automated scanning to chain findings together the way a genuine attacker would, often revealing risks a scanner alone would miss.
Where vulnerability scanning is largely automated and broad, penetration testing is manual, targeted, and creative — a skilled tester might chain together several individually low-severity findings into a genuinely serious exploit path, something automated tools generally aren't capable of reasoning through on their own.
Engagements are typically scoped as black box (no internal knowledge, simulating an external attacker), white box (full access to code and architecture, simulating an insider or a very well-informed attacker), or gray box (partial knowledge) — and results are usually delivered as a detailed report ranking findings by real-world exploitability and impact, not just technical severity.
