30 October 2025, 05:41 PM
The penetration testing execution standard is becoming very important as cyber threats are growing at an unprecedented rate, with the introduction of artificial intelligence playing a greater part in the attacks. The 2025 Cost of a Data Breach report by IBM identifies that half of the breaches involved AI instances handled by an employee without company permission, with 20 per cent representing shadow AI. This contributed an additional average of USD 670,000 to the total cost of a breach. Meanwhile, a majority (70 per cent) of organizations conduct penetration testing in the context of their vulnerability management efforts, and 67 per cent of organizations conduct tests to validate compliance with security standards.
The approach of firms to address these emerging risks is by using structured frameworks. The Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES) is a well-formulated standard that is used to demonstrate every stage of a penetration test, from planning to final reporting. This makes tests reliable, repeatable, and compliant with global regulations/standards like ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.
In all subsequent sections, we are going to describe the PTES methodology, introduce its seven phases, compare it to other penetration testing approaches and standards to identify the similarities and distinguishing features, and explain the way in which embracing the PTES approach can help organizations bolster their security level and achieve compliance with due diligence.
Source: https://qualysec.com/penetration-testing-execution-standard/
The approach of firms to address these emerging risks is by using structured frameworks. The Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES) is a well-formulated standard that is used to demonstrate every stage of a penetration test, from planning to final reporting. This makes tests reliable, repeatable, and compliant with global regulations/standards like ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.
In all subsequent sections, we are going to describe the PTES methodology, introduce its seven phases, compare it to other penetration testing approaches and standards to identify the similarities and distinguishing features, and explain the way in which embracing the PTES approach can help organizations bolster their security level and achieve compliance with due diligence.
Source: https://qualysec.com/penetration-testing-execution-standard/