Insights

Penetration testing, or pen testing, simulates real-world cyber attacks to identify vulnerabilities within your systems before malicious actors can exploit them. This proactive security process helps organisations stay ahead of evolving threats by revealing and addressing weaknesses in your network, software and security protocols.

Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) is a key security metric that measures the average time it takes for an organisation to identify a security threat or breach after it occurs. A shorter MTTD indicates that an organisation has strong monitoring and detection capabilities, which can significantly reduce the impact of an attack by enabling faster response. Conversely, a longer MTTD increases the risk of attackers gaining a foothold, escalating privileges, or exfiltrating sensitive data unnoticed. Reducing MTTD is a critical component of any robust cybersecurity strategy.

Yes, social engineering can be a key component of a CounterSOC engagement. Whether it’s phishing simulations, phone-based attacks, or physical security assessments, we use social engineering techniques to assess how well your organisation can identify and respond to these common attack methods. However, this isn’t just about finding weaknesses—we also work with your team to improve their awareness, response procedures, and resilience to social engineering threats over the course of the engagement.

Not exactly. While CounterSOC shares some similarities with red teaming, such as simulating adversarial behaviour and testing defences, it is a broader and more collaborative service. CounterSOC focuses on addressing the most critical risks first and works to dramatically improve your organisation's security posture over the course of a year. Unlike traditional red teaming or penetration testing, CounterSOC prioritises collaboration with your internal teams, providing workshops, debriefs, and hands-on guidance to ensure you fully understand the threats and can implement effective mitigations. It’s not just about identifying issues—it’s about partnering with you to fix them and continuously strengthen your defences.

Unfortunately, we can’t turn your staff into super hackers in the course of a year, but we do share our tools, tactics, and techniques. We work closely with your team, showing them how to deploy these effectively and make meaningful progress on your organisation’s security posture. By collaborating throughout the engagement, we ensure your staff gains practical skills and knowledge that can drive long-term improvements in your defences.

CounterSOC is a continuous service, typically delivered as a rolling 12-month engagement. This long-term approach ensures your organisation benefits from ongoing attack simulations, real-time threat monitoring, and collaborative support, allowing you to adapt to evolving threats over time. However, we can adjust the duration to meet your specific needs and security objectives.

During a CounterSOC engagement, we prioritise identifying and addressing the most critical vulnerabilities that represent the likeliest routes into your organisation. Unlike traditional penetration testing, which often delivers an exhaustive list of issues, CounterSOC focuses on high-impact risks first. Our goal is to rapidly identify and mitigate the most significant threats to your organisation before moving on to more complex attack methods. This targeted approach ensures that key vulnerabilities are resolved quickly, significantly reducing your risk exposure.

Absolutely. CounterSOC is designed to be flexible and tailored to align with your organisation's specific security challenges and goals. Whether you need a focus on adversarial simulations, attack surface monitoring, incident response collaboration, or workshops to upskill your defensive teams, we’ll work closely with you to customise the engagement. Our approach ensures that the service integrates seamlessly into your existing security operations and delivers the most value for your unique requirements.

CounterSOC takes a proactive and continuous approach to security, unlike traditional testing, which is typically a point-in-time assessment. While traditional testing focuses on identifying vulnerabilities within a defined scope and timeframe, CounterSOC provides ongoing adversarial simulations, attack surface monitoring, and real-time collaboration with your defensive teams. This enables a dynamic response to evolving threats and ensures your organisation stays resilient over time. CounterSOC integrates with your day-to-day operations, offering continuous insights and support, rather than the periodic assessments of traditional testing.

The handling of sensitive information depends on its nature and sensitivity. As a rule, we only access the information necessary to demonstrate a specific issue or level of access. For example, live passwords—commonly identified during testing—are transmitted over encrypted channels, stored on encrypted systems, and deleted at the earliest opportunity. Such information is typically redacted in reports unless it is exceptionally vulnerable and directly relevant to the findings. Our processes are designed to ensure sensitive data is handled securely and responsibly throughout the engagement.

Absolutely. Simulating real-world attack scenarios is a core part of our security testing services. We mimic the techniques and strategies used by actual threat actors, whether they are opportunistic attackers or highly targeted adversaries. By doing so, we can assess your organisation’s ability to detect, respond to, and mitigate potential threats. These simulations range from phishing campaigns and social engineering to advanced penetration testing and lateral movement within your environment, ensuring a realistic and comprehensive assessment of your defences.

Our security testing is guided by our internal methodologies, which integrate best practices from various industry frameworks. In practice, we validate findings using multiple tools, followed by a manual demonstration to ensure accuracy. Our consultants frequently collaborate during engagements, and every finding undergoes a thorough peer review by another consultant to confirm its validity and ensure the highest level of reliability in our results.

Yes, we perform all three—black-box, white-box, and gray-box testing—depending on the test and your preferences. However, we encourage customers to adopt an approach as close to white-box testing as they’re comfortable with. The more information you provide us, the more comprehensive and meaningful the outcomes of the test will be, allowing us to identify and address vulnerabilities more effectively.

First and foremost, there are no guarantees with security testing. By its nature, we're trying to uncover vulnerabilities and unexpected behaviours, which can sometimes lead to unforeseen consequences. Any responsible provider should make this clear—if they don’t, we strongly recommend seeking a more transparent provider. However, we take great care to minimise any potential disruption. This can include measures like throttling traffic, conducting tests in non-production environments, or working closely with your internal team to reduce risks to critical systems. Our goal is to balance thorough testing with minimal impact on your day-to-day operations.

Yes, tailored testing and intelligent scoping are core tenets of Trethtec's mission. We don’t do cookie-cutter tests—ever. Every organisation is unique, and we work closely with you to design a security test that aligns with your specific goals, risks, and priorities, ensuring meaningful and actionable results that address your needs.

It’s simple—give us a call or fill out the contact form on our website! Our team will be happy to discuss your needs, answer any questions, and guide you through the next steps.

Absolutely. We’re committed to ensuring you feel confident with your next steps. Retesting can be arranged as needed, although our reports are designed to give your technical teams the clarity to address issues independently if desired. For CounterSOC clients, ongoing support is built into the service—you’ll have us by your side for a full year, ready to assist whenever you need. Whether it’s a quick call or a detailed query, we’re just a message away.

The types of vulnerabilities we look for vary widely and depend on the environment, scope, and objectives of the test. Hundreds of books, blogs, and tutorials have been written on this topic, and it’s impossible to summarise them all here. Broadly, we continuously refine our internal methodology through experience, training, and ongoing research to ensure we identify the most relevant and impactful vulnerabilities. If you’d like specifics, we recommend booking a call with us—this allows us to better understand your environment and suggest the vulnerabilities most likely to be present, as well as the ones we’ll prioritise during testing.

We won’t insult your intelligence by claiming to be the best—every company says that. The truth is, while technical expertise is abundant in this industry, the real value lies in translating that expertise into meaningful improvements for your organisation. While our team boasts exceptional technical talent, we place equal emphasis on soft skills, collaboration, and truly understanding your needs. We’re highly consultancy-driven, ensuring more face time with your consultant and a tailored approach. Simply put, we don’t start testing until we’ve fully understood your challenges and how to help you improve your security posture effectively.

Given the sensitive nature of our work, most of our customers prefer to remain anonymous, which can make providing references challenging. However, we have a range of anonymised case studies showcasing our experience across various testing disciplines and industries. These demonstrate the depth of our expertise and the value we provide to organisations facing diverse security challenges. Let us know your area of interest, and we’d be happy to share relevant examples.

Security is our business, and we eat our own dog food! We take confidentiality and security very seriously throughout the testing process. All engagements are governed by strict legal agreements, including non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), to protect your sensitive information. Our testing is conducted in a controlled manner to minimise disruption, and any data collected is securely stored and handled in compliance with best practices. Only authorised personnel have access to your data, and it is deleted after the engagement unless otherwise agreed.

After a security test, we provide a detailed report outlining vulnerabilities, their severity, impact, and prioritised recommendations. We hold a debrief session to explain the findings, answer questions, and offer guidance on remediation. If needed, we can assist with planning fixes, validate them through retesting, or advise on improving your long-term security posture.

The duration of a security test varies significantly depending on the provider and the scope of the engagement. Traditional tests can last anywhere from a single day to several months, depending on the complexity and budget. Managed services, such as CounterSOC, typically operate on a continuous basis with year-long contracts. For meaningful security work, we generally advise against engagements shorter than a week, unless the scope is genuinely minimal or involves only a few minor checks. Attempting to compress complex security operations into a short timeframe often leads to poorer results and, in the worst case, a false sense of security.

Our consultants hold a range of certifications, including Offensive Security and CREST, both of which are highly regarded within the industry. CREST is a recognised standard in the UK, while Offensive Security certifications are respected globally and valued by technical practitioners as a benchmark of expertise. However, it's important to understand that certifications are just one aspect of a consultant’s qualifications. Practical competence, experience, and strong consultancy skills are equally, if not more, critical to delivering effective results. We recommend discussing your specific needs with your provider to ensure the right expertise is applied to your unique situation.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer—it’s akin to asking, "how long is a piece of string?" The frequency of security testing depends on your organisation’s security strategy, the assets you need to protect, the adversaries you might face, and the resources available for your security programme. Nowadays, we suggest that annual or biannual testing is insufficient and encourage a more continuous approach to security. However, we can advise on a sound, moderate approach tailored to your needs if a continuous model isn't feasible, ensuring your defences remain robust and effective.

Yes, security testing is completely legal—but only with your explicit permission. In the UK and globally, laws such as the Computer Misuse Act prohibit unauthorised use of computers and the tools employed during testing. To ensure compliance, we operate under a signed agreement that provides us with clear authority to perform the testing. This document protects both parties and ensures the testing is conducted ethically and legally.

Security testing is vital for identifying vulnerabilities in your organisation’s systems, applications, and infrastructure before they can be exploited. It helps uncover weaknesses, mitigate risks, and protect sensitive data from breaches. Regular testing ensures compliance with industry standards and reassures stakeholders that robust security measures are in place, reducing the potential financial, reputational, and operational impact of cyberattacks.

We offer a comprehensive range of security testing services tailored to your needs. Whether it’s infrastructure, applications, networks, cloud environments, APIs, or even physical security, we’ve got you covered. From penetration testing and vulnerability assessments to social engineering and compliance audits, if it needs testing, we can test it.

The security testing process depends on the type of service you choose. For more traditional, snapshot-style penetration tests, we work collaboratively to define the scope and objectives, perform testing within the agreed parameters, and deliver a detailed report highlighting vulnerabilities, their impact, and prioritised recommendations. On the other hand, our CounterSOC service offers a different approach, focusing on continuous adversarial simulations, interactive workshops, close collaboration with defensive teams, and ongoing attack surface monitoring to proactively identify and mitigate threats beyond point-in-time assessments. Each approach is tailored to meet your organisation's unique security needs and objectives.