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Glossary

Penetration Testing (Pen Test)

Hiring a specialist to deliberately try to break into your systems, to find weaknesses before a real attacker does.

A penetration test is an authorised, simulated attack against a business's systems, carried out by a security specialist, to find exploitable weaknesses — before someone without permission finds them first. It goes further than automated vulnerability scanning by actually attempting exploitation, and typically ends with a report ranking findings by real-world risk.

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