SOC 2 Penetration Testing Services
Build Trust & Mitigate Risk
Differentiating Your Organization with SOC 2 Attestation
While SOC 2 compliance is not legally compulsory, many large enterprises and regulated industries require it for their key vendors. SOC 2 compliance builds trust with customers and partners and allows organizations to differentiate themselves and meet the expectations of enterprise clients.
- Build Customer Trust: Assure your customers they can trust you with their sensitive data. SOC 2 reports are issued by independent auditors who review your security controls to verify they are robust and thorough.
- Increase Market Access: Many large enterprises and regulated industries require SOC 2 compliance from their vendors. A SOC 2 report can open up lucrative contracts and upmarket opportunities.
- Gain a Competitive Advantage: SOC 2 compliance sets your organization apart by signaling a higher level of maturity and commitment to security.
- Mitigate Risk: The SOC 2 framework requires that your organization implement controls that reduce the risk of data breaches, unauthorized access, and other security incidents, protecting your and your customers from costly security failures.
- Improve Internal Processes: SOC 2 preparation will drive your organizations to formalize and improve internal policies, procedures, and controls, leading to more consistent and reliable operations that are clearly understood by all teams.
- Align with other Regulatory Frameworks: While SOC 2 is not legally required, its controls often overlap with regulatory frameworks like HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001.
Why SOC 2 Penetration Testing Matters
Penetration testing is a crucial part of SOC 2 compliance as a best practice fulfilling the Trust Services Criteria for monitoring and validation and is strongly recommended by auditors.
- Provide evidence that your security controls are effective by simulating real-world cyberattacks.
- Validate security, availability, and confidentiality controls directly relevant for several SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria:
- CC4.1 (Monitoring Activities): Calls for ongoing and separate evaluations of controls. Penetration testing is the preferred method to validate this control.
- Security Principle: Demonstrates the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to breaches.
- Availability Principle: Identifies vulnerabilities that could disrupt uptime or access.
- Confidentiality Principle: Highlights risks to sensitive customer data.
- Proactively uncover and remediate weaknesses before they can be exploited by attackers.
Raxis penetration testing and remediation retesting clearly shows that your organization prioritizes discovering and addressing exploitable vulnerabilities that could directly affect your organization and your customers.
Our Approach
Raxis employs a blend of manual and automated testing techniques to uncover vulnerabilities that automated tools alone might miss. Our process includes:
- Preparation and Scoping: We work closely with you to define the targets and objectives, ensuring the proper systems and networks are tested.
- Information Gathering: Our penetration testing team collects intelligence on your organization and your environment in order to mimic the behavior of a malicious hacker.
- Automated & Manual Testing: Using industry-specific tools and manual techniques to identify vulnerabilities and attempt exploitation, our team takes on your environment as a malicious hacker would in order to verify your controls and discover areas of risk.
- Post-Exploitation: Our team continues on to gather sensitive data and critical access to systems to clearly assess the damage that hackers could cause using vulnerabilities discovered during testing.
- Detailed Reporting: Our reports provide actionable and clear remediation steps to address discovered vulnerabilities.
- Executive summary for stakeholders
- Detailed technical descriptions of findings
- Evidence of exploitation
- Recommendations for remediation and a prioritized fix matrix
- Remediation Support and Retesting: Our team guides you through fixing identified issues and offers retesting to confirm resolution prior to your audit.
Our testing can follow different methodologies – white box, gray box, black box – based on your needs and covers critical systems and data flows relevant to your SOC 2 boundaries.
White Box Penetration Testing
White Box testing gives Raxis full access to your source code, configurations, and architecture, enabling a thorough assessment from an insider’s perspective. Our experts simulate advanced threats to uncover every vulnerability, making this approach ideal for organizations needing comprehensive security testing for compliance standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, or SOC 2.
Grey Box Penetration Testing
Grey Box testing blends limited system knowledge with external attack methods. Raxis specialists use partial information—like user credentials or network diagrams—to simulate targeted breaches, efficiently uncovering vulnerabilities from both misconfigurations and external exploits. This approach delivers realistic risk assessments and actionable remediation for your organization.
Black Box Penetration Testing
Our Black Box penetration testing simulates real-world external attacks on your public-facing assets—web applications, networks, APIs, and more—without prior knowledge or internal access. Raxis ethical hackers identify perimeter weaknesses that automated tools miss, providing expert insight into your external security posture.
We Use Industry-Standard Methodologies
- OWASP Testing Guide: Focuses on web application security, providing detailed guidance for each phase of testing.
- OSSTMM: Covers operational security across physical, human, wireless, telecommunications, and data networks, using structured modules and the STAR methodology for reporting.
- PTES (Penetration Testing Execution Standard): Defines seven phases (Pre-engagement, Intelligence Gathering, Threat Modeling, Vulnerability Analysis, Exploitation, Post-Exploitation, Reporting) and provides technical guidelines and tool recommendations.
The Right Penetration Testing for Your SOC 2 Audit
The penetration test or tests you choose for SOC 2 depend on your specific environment as well as your organization’s risk profile and business activities.
Our team typically performs one or more of the following for SOC 2 compliance audits:
Partnering for Success
Raxis understands the challenges entailed in SOC 2 compliance because our team goes through these annual audits as well. Far from being a nuisance, when viewed as an security enabler, the SOC 2 framework helps organizations prioritize security in a maintainable way.
Our SOC 2 penetration tests not only report on vulnerabilities in your processes and systems but also show your team how to make overreaching changes that improve your security posture going forward. Added bonus? Making these fixes aids your compliance going forward as changes you make in your environment clearly show your security robustness increasing over time.
Our team partners with SOC 2 compliance companies to provide the penetration testing required for their customers’ audits. Choosing Raxis means choosing the team that understands your SOC 2 compliance needs and is ready to meet them and customize your test for your SOC 2 environment.
Our Step-by-Step SOC 2 Penetration Testing Process
- Scoping and Planning
- Objective: Identify all systems, networks, and applications included in your SOC 2 scope.
- Method: Collaborate with your team to map data flows, identify critical systems, and clarify testing conditions.
- Industry Standards: Aligns with PTES Pre-engagement and OWASP Planning phases.
- Reconnaissance and Discovery
- Objective: Gather intelligence about the target environment, including IP addresses, domains, system architecture, and public-facing assets.
- Method: Use open-source intelligence (OSINT) and automated tools to enumerate assets.
- Tools: Nmap (network mapping), WHOIS, DNS enumeration tools.
- Industry Standards: PTES Intelligence Gathering, OWASP Information Gathering.
- Vulnerability Assessment
- Objective: Identify known vulnerabilities in systems and applications.
- Method: Automated scans and manual review of configurations, patch levels, and security controls.
- Tools: Nessus, OpenVAS, OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite.
- Industry Standards: PTES Vulnerability Analysis, OWASP Configuration Analysis.
- Exploitation
- Objective: Simulate real-world attacks to exploit identified vulnerabilities and determine potential impact.
- Method: Manual and automated exploitation, including SQL injection, buffer overflows, and privilege escalation.
- Tools: Metasploit, Burp Suite, and various open source custom scripts.
- Industry Standards: PTES Exploitation and Post-Exploitation, OWASP Input Validation Testing.
- Reporting
- Objective: Document findings, including vulnerabilities, risk ratings, remediation steps, and proof-of-concept exploits.
- Method: Comprehensive, audit-ready reports tailored for SOC 2 auditors.
- Industry Standards: PTES Reporting, OWASP Documentation.
- Remediation
- Objective: Address identified vulnerabilities through software updates, configuration changes, or new controls.
- Method: Guided remediation support from Raxis, including consultation and best practices.
- Industry Standards: OWASP Remediation, PTES Post-Engagement.
- Retesting
- Objective: Validate that vulnerabilities have been effectively remediated and no new issues have been introduced.
- Method: Re-execute targeted tests using the same tools and techniques as the initial assessment.
- Tools: Nmap, OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite, Metasploit, Wireshark, and open source scripts.
- Industry Standards: PTES Post-Exploitation, OWASP Retesting.
- Value: Ensures compliance, reduces risk, and supports continuous improvement.
- Continuous Scanning and Improvement
- Objective: Maintain ongoing security by integrating vulnerability scanning and testing into CI/CD pipelines and regular security reviews.
- Method: Raxis Attack powered automated tools for continuous monitoring and periodic manual testing.
- Industry Standards: OSSTMM Continuous Security Metrics, OWASP Continuous Testing.
Cost and Duration Considerations
Understanding the cost and timeline of SOC 2 penetration testing is essential for organizations aiming to achieve and maintain compliance while effectively managing resources. SOC 2 penetration testing requirements are designed to identify vulnerabilities that could affected the SOC 2 environment and customers, from exposing PII and other sensitive data to gaining access to critical systems. The process must be thorough, systematic, and aligned with the the goals you state in your SOC 2 System Description.
COST ESTIMATES
SOC 2 penetration testing costs typically range from $3,000 to $30,000, depending on several factors:
- Environment Complexity: Larger or more intricate environments require more extensive testing, increasing costs.
- Testing Scope: Testing internal networks, external systems, or both impacts pricing.
- Methodology Choice: Black-box testing is often more cost-effective due to minimal prior research, while white-box testing, though more comprehensive, may increase costs due to its depth.
- Additional Services: Optional services like social engineering, wireless testing, or application-specific assessments can affect the overall price.
For precise budgeting, we recommend requesting a custom quote. Our team will assess your specific requirements and provide a clear, upfront cost estimate.
PROJECT DURATION
The duration of a SOC 2 penetration test typically ranges from two days to several weeks, influenced by:
- Environment Size: Larger networks or complex systems take longer to assess thoroughly.
- Testing Methodology: Black-box testing is generally faster, while white-box testing requires more time for in-depth analysis.
- Scope of Engagement: Testing multiple systems or including additional assessments (e.g., segmentation testing) extends the timeline.
Our experts work efficiently to minimize disruption while ensuring comprehensive testing. We’ll provide a detailed timeline during the scoping phase.
ONGOING AND HIDDEN COSTS
Achieving SOC 2 attestation doesn’t end with the initial test. Consider these potential ongoing costs:
- Remediation Efforts: Addressing vulnerabilities may require software updates, configuration changes, or new security controls.
- Retesting: After remediation, retesting is often necessary to verify fixes and maintain compliance.
- Compliance Maintenance: Ongoing staff training, system monitoring, and periodic testing are essential to stay compliant, particularly for smaller organizations with limited resources.
Raxis offers post-test support and flexible retesting options to help you manage these costs effectively.
TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION
Raxis prioritizes upfront communication. Before starting any project, we discuss your goals, scope, and budget to ensure clarity. Our custom quotes are tailored to your unique environment, and we keep you informed throughout the testing process.
The Realities of SOC 2 Compliance
Achieving and maintaining SOC 2 compliance is no small feat. Organizations face:
- Complex Requirements: SOC 2 has robust requirements that demand specialized expertise to interpret, implement, and maintain effectively.
- Resource Demands: Compliance can strain internal teams, especially when juggling other IT and security priorities.
- Cost Considerations: Security investments are essential, but so is maximizing ROI and minimizing unnecessary spend.
- Continuous Change: Evolving threats and new technologies mean compliance is a moving target.
Raxis simplifies the process—guiding you through every step and helping you turn compliance challenges into business opportunities.
Raxis Attack Is Continuous PTaaS
PCI DSS compliance isn’t a one-time project—it’s a continuous process. Raxis Attack, our unlimited Penetration Testing as a Service solution, provides an ongoing view of your security posture while meeting PCI requirements.
- Ongoing Testing & Validation: Regular penetration testing and segmentation validation to keep you secure and compliant year-round.
- Continuous Improvement: Actionable recommendations and retesting to ensure every fix is effective.
- Long-Term Partnership: We’re here to support your security journey, helping you adapt to new challenges as your business grows.
F.A.Q.
Frequently Asked Questions