Financial Services Penetration Testing

Penetration testing that hardens your financial systems, not just checks a regulatory box.

Request a Quote
Schedule a 30 Minute Walkthrough

Penetration Testing Built for Financial Examinations

Financial institutions are the most targeted sector for cyberattacks. Raxis delivers human-led, AI-augmented penetration testing built for the regulatory complexity and high-value targets of banks, credit unions, and financial services organizations.

Request A Quote Schedule Call

Online Banking, API & Application Testing

Hands-on testing of the digital banking platforms, payment APIs, and customer-facing applications where most financial breaches actually start.

Multi-Regulation Compliance Alignment

Every engagement maps to GLBA Safeguards Rule, FFIEC guidance, NYDFS Part 500, and PCI DSS, built for what examiners and auditors expect today.

Network Segmentation & Internal Testing

Real lateral movement testing that validates your internal boundaries protect core banking systems, customer data, and transaction infrastructure.

Penetration
Testing

Pentest
As A Service

The Problem with Most Financial Services Pentests

Banks and financial institutions face more regulatory scrutiny around penetration testing than almost any other industry, and the stakes keep climbing: IBM puts the average financial-sector breach at $5.56 million, and the 2025 Verizon DBIR found third-party involvement in breaches doubled to 30% while vulnerability exploitation rose 34% year over year. Yet many organizations still get a scan report repackaged as a pentest.

Request A Quote Schedule Call

Automated Scans Passed Off as Pentests

Some vendors run a vulnerability scanner, wrap the output in a branded PDF, and call it a penetration test. That won’t satisfy an FFIEC examiner who understands the difference, and it won’t find the chained exploits, business logic flaws, or transaction manipulation paths that real attackers use against financial systems. Raxis engineers manually test your environment the way an adversary would.

Digital Banking Channels Nobody Tested End-to-End

Online banking portals, mobile apps, payment APIs, and wire transfer systems all process sensitive financial data and customer NPI. Network-only testing misses the application-layer vulnerabilities where most financial breaches actually happen. Raxis tests the full transaction path, from authentication to fund movement.

Internal Segmentation That Hasn’t Been Proven

Financial institutions segment core banking systems from general corporate networks, branch infrastructure, and customer-facing environments. But segmentation only matters if it holds under real attack conditions. If your pentest vendor isn’t actively attempting lateral movement across those boundaries, you don’t know if they work. We do.

Regulatory Requirements Keep Expanding

The FTC Safeguards Rule under GLBA now mandates annual penetration testing and semi-annual vulnerability assessments for non-bank financial institutions. NYDFS Part 500 requires annual penetration testing from inside and outside your systems’ boundaries. Banks and credit unions answer to FFIEC and NCUA examiners who expect risk-based testing regardless of any single mandate.

What Your Regulator Expects from Penetration Testing

Every financial regulator asks for security testing. None of them ask for it the same way. Here is where penetration testing shows up, requirement by requirement.

Regulator / Rule

Who It Covers

What It Requires

FTC Safeguards Rule (GLBA, 16 CFR 314.4)

Non-bank financial institutions: mortgage and auto lenders, brokers, advisors, tax preparers

Annual penetration testing and semi-annual vulnerability assessments, unless you run continuous monitoring

NYDFS Part 500 (500.5)

Entities licensed under NY banking, insurance, or financial services law

Annual penetration testing from inside and outside the information systems’ boundaries by a qualified party, plus automated vulnerability scanning

FFIEC guidance

Banks and thrifts examined by OCC, FDIC, and the Federal Reserve

Risk-based internal and external penetration testing, including social engineering. With the CAT retired in August 2025, examiners now look to NIST CSF 2.0 and the CRI Cyber Profile

NCUA (Part 748 / ISE)

Credit unions

The Information Security Examination scales testing expectations by asset size: SCUEP, CORE, and CORE+, with CORE+ explicitly covering penetration testing of wireless, applications, and firewall rules

PCI DSS v4.0.1 (11.4)

Anyone handling cardholder data

Annual internal and external penetration testing, segmentation testing, and retesting of fixes. Full details on our PCI penetration testing page

One Raxis engagement produces evidence mapped to every row that applies to you. Your compliance team hands each examiner the same report and it holds up.

Request A Quote Schedule Call

Penetration Testing for Credit Unions

The NCUA does not flatly mandate penetration testing, and some vendors will tell you that means you can skip it. Your examiner likely disagrees. The Information Security Examination (ISE) sets testing expectations that scale with asset size, and Part 748 Appendix A expects you to regularly test the key controls protecting member data.

Request A Quote Schedule Call

SCUEP, CORE, and CORE+

(under $50M to complex institutions)

Small credit unions under SCUEP procedures need documented security testing fundamentals. CORE procedures expect internal and external vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. CORE+ goes further: wireless testing, application testing, firewall rule review, and testing around core conversions. We scope credit union engagements to the ISE tier your examiner will actually use.

Member data is NPI, and examiners treat it that way

Account records, loan applications, and share draft data all qualify as Nonpublic Personal Information under GLBA and Part 748. We test the paths an attacker would take to reach it: member-facing online banking, third-party core processors, branch networks, and the segmentation between them.

Why Raxis for Financial Services Penetration Testing

Find real vulnerabilities, not just scan results

OSCP-certified engineers manually attack your financial systems using the same techniques as real threat actors. You get findings that actually reduce risk, not a reformatted vulnerability report your examiner has already seen.

Satisfy multiple regulators with one engagement

Raxis structures every engagement to produce evidence that maps to GLBA, FFIEC, NYDFS Part 500, PCI DSS, and SOX. One pentest, one report your compliance team can use across multiple regulatory requirements.

Test the full digital banking attack surface

We test online banking portals, mobile apps, payment APIs, wire transfer and ACH systems, ATM environments, SWIFT-connected infrastructure, and third-party fintech integrations end-to-end.

Get results you can act on

Every finding comes with proof-of-concept exploits, real-world business impact, and prioritized remediation steps delivered through the secure Raxis One portal. No 200-page scanner dumps. No guesswork on what to fix first.

Validate segmentation and internal controls

Raxis uses real lateral movement and privilege escalation to validate that a compromised workstation in a branch office can’t reach core banking systems, customer NPI, or transaction infrastructure. Hand your examiner proof, not assumptions.

Stay covered between annual assessments

Annual testing meets the minimum. Raxis Attack (PTaaS) delivers continuous, AI-augmented testing with real-time results and unlimited retesting, so you’re not flying blind for 11 months between examinations.

Request A Quote Schedule Call

Frequently Asked Questions About Financial Pentesting

It’s a hands-on simulated attack against your banking systems, digital platforms, internal networks, and supporting infrastructure. The goal is to find exploitable vulnerabilities before real attackers do, while producing evidence that satisfies regulatory requirements from GLBA, FFIEC, NYDFS, and PCI DSS.

Most financial pentests rely heavily on automated scanning with minimal manual validation and no connection to your specific regulatory requirements. Raxis engineers lead every engagement with hands-on attack simulation, including real segmentation testing, application-layer exploitation of banking platforms, and transaction-path analysis. Your report maps findings to the regulatory frameworks your examiners are evaluating.

We test online banking platforms, mobile banking applications, payment APIs, wire transfer and ACH systems, ATM environments, internal and external networks, core banking system boundaries, wireless infrastructure, branch network segmentation, and third-party fintech integrations.

Raxis structures engagements and reporting to satisfy requirements from the GLBA / FTC Safeguards Rule (annual pentesting mandate), FFIEC IT Examination Handbook guidance, NYDFS Part 500 Cybersecurity Regulation, PCI DSS v4.0.1, and SOX internal control requirements. Your compliance team gets one report that covers multiple regulatory needs.

Raxis Attack is our Penetration Testing as a Service platform, delivering continuous, AI-augmented testing with real-time results and unlimited retesting through the secure Raxis One portal. It’s built for financial institutions that need year-round coverage between annual regulatory assessments.

It depends on who regulates you. The FTC Safeguards Rule requires annual penetration testing for non-bank financial institutions without continuous monitoring. NYDFS Part 500 requires annual testing for covered entities. FFIEC and NCUA examiners expect risk-based testing at least annually and after significant changes, even without a hard mandate. Many institutions choose continuous testing through Raxis Attack to stay covered between exams.

No. Raxis operates within strict contractual boundaries with clear rules of engagement designed for financial environments. Our goal is to expose vulnerabilities without causing downtime, data loss, or interruption to customer-facing services or transaction processing.

Raxis testers hold industry-leading certifications including OSCP, OSWE, OSEP, GPEN, CISSP, and more listed on our certifications page.

Not as a flat mandate, but the NCUA’s Information Security Examination expects security testing scaled to your asset size, and CORE and CORE+ procedures explicitly cover internal and external penetration testing. Part 748 Appendix A also requires regular testing of key controls protecting member data. In practice, examiners expect to see pentest results, and “the rule doesn’t say the word pentest” is not a conversation you want to have during an exam.

The FFIEC retired the CAT on August 31, 2025 and pointed institutions to NIST CSF 2.0 and CISA’s Cybersecurity Performance Goals. Most of the sector has adopted the Cyber Risk Institute’s Cyber Profile as the financial-specific replacement. None of that changed testing expectations: examiners still want evidence of risk-based internal and external penetration testing, and Raxis reports map findings to the framework you’ve adopted.

Section 500.5, as amended in November 2023, requires covered entities to conduct penetration testing from both inside and outside the information systems’ boundaries by a qualified internal or external party at least annually, alongside automated vulnerability scanning and risk-based remediation. Raxis performs both the internal and external testing and delivers documentation built for your Part 500 certification.

The annual pentest mandate in the GLBA Safeguards Rule comes from the FTC, whose jurisdiction covers non-bank financial institutions like mortgage lenders, auto dealers, and advisors. Banks and credit unions follow the Interagency Guidelines, FFIEC guidance, and NCUA requirements instead, which expect risk-based testing without a single hard deadline. Either way, annual testing is the floor examiners expect. Details on our GLBA Safeguards Rule page.

Let’s Chat About Your Project
Name(Required)
Please let us know what's on your mind. Have a question for us? Ask away.
Popped Culture Newsletter
Would you like to opt in and receive our Popped Culture Newsletter? Typically about once a month, we send out an email with news on the latest in the cybersecurity industry, as well as insights on penetration testing trends.

Our security experts will contact you within 1 business day