How Often Should You Have a Penetration Test Performed?

So you're interested in having a penetration test performed and you're wondering, is one enough for five years? Do I have to do it weekly or monthly? In this video, we'll talk about how frequently you should have a test performed.

Hi, I'm Josh Tomkiel, I'm a managing director here at Schellman on the pen test team. I've been in the industry for over 10 years, started out as a penetration tester, and now I'm a manager so I've seen things from both sides. And all the time we get asked: "how frequently should we have a penetration test performed?"

Well, as with most things, it does depend (at least annually). If there are any major changes to your environment or web application, that's a good time to have a pen test. If there's a compliance initiative that says you must do it by X date or you must have certain things tested, well, there's your answer on that front.

But in general, we have all sorts of clients having pen tests performed quarterly or after major releases, or annually. It's really up to you.

The threat landscape is always evolving and changing. Just because you're not vulnerable today doesn't mean you won't be vulnerable to something tomorrow.

There are new patches, and security updates coming out all the time. And a pen test is only good for a moment in time. That point in time, that report, that deliverable will say you had certain issues or you didn't have certain issues identified at this point in time. Now, tomorrow is a different story.

So I hope you understand now why maybe just having a pen test performed annually is not good enough in all cases. If you're interested in learning more about penetration testing or have any other questions, head over to our website, fill out our form and I or another pen test specialist will be in touch shortly.