What's the difference between a cybersecurity assessment and a penetration test?
A cybersecurity assessment reviews your overall security posture — policies, configurations, backups, training, and controls — to identify gaps and prioritize fixes. A penetration test goes further by actively attempting to exploit vulnerabilities, simulating a real attacker to prove whether specific weaknesses can actually be breached.
Most businesses should start with an assessment, not a penetration test — there's little value paying someone to break into your systems if you already know the basics like MFA and patching are missing. Penetration testing earns its cost once the foundational gaps are closed and you need to validate something more specific, like a custom application.
Start with a free Cybersecurity Assessment to see what to prioritize first.