Know What an Attacker Sees Before They Do
Your SOC 2 auditor requires annual penetration testing. Your OSFI examiner expects it. Your insurance underwriter won't renew without it. We find what automated scanners miss.
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Every Canadian company with a SOC 2 audit, an OSFI examination, or a cyber insurance renewal eventually needs a penetration test. The question is whether you get one that checks a compliance box or one that actually finds the vulnerabilities an attacker would exploit.
Why Canadian Companies Need Penetration Testing
Penetration testing Canada isn’t optional for most technology companies. SOC 2 Type II auditors expect annual pentest evidence. OSFI’s B-10 guidelines require financial institutions to conduct adversarial testing of their technology infrastructure. Cyber insurance underwriters increasingly require pentest certificates before issuing or renewing policies — and premiums are directly tied to findings.
Beyond compliance, the threat landscape for Canadian companies has intensified. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) reports that ransomware attacks against Canadian organizations increased significantly year-over-year, with financial services and healthcare being primary targets.
Our Penetration Testing Approach
We don’t run a scanner and hand you a PDF. Our red teaming Toronto engagements combine automated vulnerability scanning with manual exploitation — testing business logic flaws, authentication bypasses, privilege escalation paths, and lateral movement opportunities that automated tools miss entirely.
Every engagement follows a structured methodology: scoping and rules of engagement, reconnaissance and exploitation, detailed reporting with CVSS-scored findings, and remediation validation. We retest every finding after your team applies fixes to confirm the vulnerabilities are actually resolved.
Types of Penetration Testing
We conduct application penetration testing (web applications, APIs, mobile apps), infrastructure penetration testing (networks, servers, cloud environments), and cloud security assessments (AWS, Azure, GCP configuration review and exploitation testing). For OSFI-regulated institutions, we offer adversarial simulation aligned with the CCCS threat landscape assessments.
Compliance-Ready Deliverables
Our reports are designed to satisfy auditors and regulators. The executive summary gives your leadership team a clear picture of risk. The technical findings give your engineering team specific, prioritised remediation steps. The attestation letter satisfies SOC 2 auditors, OSFI examiners, and insurance underwriters.
Book a free 30-minute consultation to scope your penetration testing requirements. Contact us.
Engagement Phases
Scoping & Rules of Engagement
Define test scope, identify in-scope systems and networks, establish rules of engagement (what's off-limits, escalation procedures, emergency contacts), sign-off on testing windows and communication protocols.
Reconnaissance & Exploitation
Passive and active reconnaissance, vulnerability identification, exploitation of discovered weaknesses, privilege escalation, lateral movement testing, data exfiltration simulation. Both automated and manual testing methodologies.
Reporting
Executive summary for leadership, detailed technical findings with CVSS scores, exploitation evidence (screenshots, proof-of-concept), remediation recommendations with code examples where applicable.
Remediation Validation
Retest remediated vulnerabilities, validate fixes are effective, produce attestation letter suitable for SOC 2 auditors, OSFI examiners, and insurance underwriters.
Deliverables
Before & After
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Vulnerability discovery | Automated scanners only — missing logic flaws and chained exploits | Manual + automated testing finding 3-5x more exploitable vulnerabilities |
| Compliance evidence | No penetration test report for SOC 2 or OSFI | Attestation letter accepted by auditors and regulators |
| Remediation clarity | Generic scanner output with no context | Specific remediation steps with code examples and priority ranking |
Tools We Use
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should we conduct penetration testing?
SOC 2 Type II requires at least annual penetration testing. OSFI-regulated institutions should test after significant infrastructure changes and at least annually. We recommend quarterly testing for high-risk applications (customer-facing fintech, healthcare platforms) and annual testing for internal systems.
What's the difference between a penetration test and a vulnerability scan?
A vulnerability scan is automated — it runs tools like Nessus or Qualys against your systems and produces a list of known CVEs. A penetration test goes further: a human tester attempts to exploit those vulnerabilities, chain them together, escalate privileges, and simulate what a real attacker could achieve. Scanners find known issues; pentesters find exploitable paths.
Will penetration testing disrupt our production systems?
We define clear rules of engagement before testing begins, including which systems are in scope, testing windows, and escalation procedures. For production environments, we use non-destructive techniques and coordinate timing with your operations team. In over 200 engagements, we've never caused a production outage.
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