Why Penetration Testing Early in the Year Pays Off

You’ve likely heard that you should wait until something happens before doing a penetration test (or pen test). Some may say you need to wait for seasonal downtime because of interruptions, compliance audits, or until you see the signs of vulnerabilities.

Regardless of what’s putting your organization at risk, performing a pen test at the beginning of the year will set you up for a year of less risk and headaches.

Haven’t had a pen test in the last year? Now is the time to do it. Want to get ahead of your compliance audit? Now is the time to do it. Planning a new digital product release? Now is the time to do it. A great penetration testing company can perform testing in a manner that isn’t disruptive to your business and delivers tailored actionable results.

Let’s explore what a penetration test is as well as why performing a pen test is a must at the beginning of the year.

What is Penetration Testing?

Vulnerabilities like to hide in layered environments. A pen test aims to find these vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.

More specifically, a pen test is an exercise where an ethical hacker tests the security measures of a business to identify vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of its security defenses.

Routine pen tests are an essential best practice. The volume of vulnerabilities continues to grow, while the attack surface expands. If you're relying on just a vulnerability scan, a pen test goes beyond that to tell the real picture. At ProArch, our penetration testing services offer testing across various domains, including networks, systems, social engineering, applications, and physical locations. 

Don’t slack until the end of the year to get your pen test checked off your to-do list.

Here’s why you should get it done in the first half of the year.

Freshly Allocated Budgets

Getting a pen test done at the beginning of the year can help you make the most of your funds plus help you:

• optimize your spending and allocate budget resources based on the pen test results,
• prevent you from wasting money on tools and resources that may not be as effective as you think.

The results of a pen test will tell you what critical vulnerabilities in your ecosystem need to be addressed. With those risks out of the way early, you'll avoid surprise costs that would have come up.

Maintain Compliance and Prepare for Audits

Completing a penetration test early in the year is an opportunity to get ahead of audits and ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations.

Regulatory compliance mandates regular security testing—whether annual or quarterly. Failing to do so can result in severe consequences, including loss of confidence with today’s customers, failure to meet contractual obligations, and governmental fees and penalties.

By completing a pen test early, you’ll have at least a six-month runway to resolve any issues, helping you pass regulatory requirements and avoid fines, penalties, and potential harm to your brand reputation—before it’s too late.

Support Business Initiatives

From new product releases to potential mergers and acquisitions, performing a penetration test early in the year can set you up for success throughout any future changes.

• M&A: completing a pen test and knowing your security posture can give the purchasing company confidence that you have a safe environment and you’re going to do your due diligence to make sure that you’re set up well to succeed.
• New Product Release: The last thing you want is to delay a product or feature release due to security concerns. A pen test done early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) will reveal the gaps that need to be addressed.

Get Ahead of Customer Concerns

Customer concerns about data security aren't going away. Regardless of which industry you’re in, customers are worried about the protection of their data—and rightfully so. Every day, the number and diversity of entry points (like APIs and SaaS apps) targeted by attackers grows.

With a pen test, you can speak to these concerns confidently.

For one, you’ll receive recommendations to prioritize the remediation of vulnerabilities for the greatest reduction of risk. You’ll also be able to validate the steps you’ve taken to improve security.

And once the penetration testing is done, you can use those findings to make your next client or vendor questionnaire less painful. You can even have a pen test done that tailored to the typical questions you're getting.

Clear Focus for IT and Cybersecurity Teams

If a pen test is done early in the year, you have a clear roadmap of the security projects that need to get done. A lot of times, January rolls around and there is no concrete plan or focus for the year.

Pen testing can help establish that. 

Think you’re secure? ProArch will be the judge of that.

At ProArch, we don’t just perform penetration testing services—we help fix the gaps and provide ongoing cybersecurity solutions once the pen test is done. Know what vulnerabilities are putting you at risk, get a plan for remediating them, and focus your investments on where security matters most. Reach out to us.