Penetration testing is of course a major component of any security strategy. If you're preparing for your first penetration test, it's essential to ensure you're well-prepared to maximize the value of this assessment. This article outlines five key steps to help you get ready for a successful penetration test.

Though society has, these days, moved firmly into the digital age where emails, texts, and the online world dominate both communication and cyber-attack vectors, it might not occur to people—or organizations—that some scams are still perpetuated over the phone in what’s called a vishing attack.

In our experience as cybersecurity experts and highly qualified penetration testers, there are typically three reasons why you may move forward with a penetration test and start looking around for a provider. Making that initial decision to move forward with an assessment like this is a big step, but what should you do after you make it?

Picture this: you've signed up for a social engineering attack as part of your organization's penetration test, specifically an email-based phishing campaign. The penetration testing firm is asking you to allow list their campaign through your mail filters and other technical controls. You have all those advanced protections in place - spam filters, web proxies, next-generation phishing protections - designed to protect your end users from phishing attacks. Yet, when it comes to assessing the very risk these controls are meant to mitigate, should you lower them for the tester specifically for the purpose of the test?

When many think of a “penetration test,” the first thing that may spring to mind is cybersecurity. But in fact, you do have the option to conduct a physical penetration test—or, a simulation of a physical attack on your premises.

If you’re a penetration tester, you know that for any test or phishing campaign, you begin with setting up your infrastructure with a domain name and redirectors. You might also know that this step is straightforward, and many have created walkthroughs on different ways to architect and automate infrastructure deployments.

If you’ve decided to undergo a red team assessment and engaged Schellman to perform it, you may be wondering what the next steps entail—as in, how will the next stages of the process work and what should you expect?