Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) for the Modern Financial Services Industry

The Challenge

The financial services sector faces a complex and unprecedented cybersecurity landscape. With sensitive customer data, ever-changing regulatory requirements, and increasingly sophisticated threat actors targeting financial institutions, traditional security approaches fall short. As a result, organizations across banking, insurance, investment services, and fintech face several critical challenges:
  • Evolving Regulatory Landscape: Trying to adhere to multiple compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS, GLBA, DORA, SOX, and even sector-specific regulations, requires comprehensive security testing programs with specific frequencies, methodologies, and flexibilities.
  • High-Value Target Status: Financial institutions remain prime targets for cybercriminals, nation-state actors, and insider threats seeking access to valuable financial data, payment systems, and customer information, so the threat is constant and shifts to new vectors of attack every day.
  • Complex Digital Infrastructure: Mainframe legacy systems, ongoing cloud migrations, shifting API ecosystems, and unique, evolving third-party integrations create expanding attack surfaces that are difficult to identify, secure, and monitor comprehensively.
  • The Compliance vs. True Risk Management Gap: Many organizations focus on meeting minimum regulatory requirements rather than building robust security programs that protect against real-world threats that could impact the firm’s resiliency and ability to recover from disruptions.
  • Resource Constraints: Internal security teams face the challenge of keeping pace with emerging threat vectors and new technology programs across multiple business units, application types, and infrastructure components while still working to maintain operational efficiency.

The result? Financial institutions face mounting pressure to demonstrate security effectiveness to regulators, customers, and stakeholders while protecting against ever-evolving cyber threats that could result in significant financial losses, regulatory penalties, and repetitional damage.

The Solution

Trusted by 90% of the top 10 U.S. banks, NetSPI understands the unique challenges facing financial services and delivers testing programs that create meaningful security improvements. Companies that work in financial services and insurance need more than compliance-driven security testing. They need a strategic approach that strengthens security posture while meeting regulatory obligations. NetSPI delivers penetration testing at scale built specifically for the financial services reality, helping teams validate security controls, achieve regulatory compliance, and maintain customer trust. By combining AI-driven efficiency and human oversight combined with the expertise of 350+ in-house security experts, NetSPI provides comprehensive PTaaS that delivers regulatory-ready documentation, expert-validated findings with low false positives, streamlined workflows, and ‘real-world’ risk identification programs that integrate with your existing risk management processes.

"System Intrusion, Social Engineering and Basic Web Application Attacks represent 74% of breaches."

Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 2025 1

Key Capabilities

  • Comprehensive Financial Services Testing: Conduct specialized testing across banking applications, payment systems, trading platforms, and regulatory-critical infrastructure, and staff security awareness, with an understanding of financial services.
  • Regulatory Compliance Support: Gain support to meet testing requirements for PCI DSS, GLBA, DORA, SOX, and other financial regulations with audit-ready documentation, such as evidence of findings and remediation.
  • Risk-Based Testing Programs: Prioritize testing activities based on business impact, regulatory requirements for financial services.
  • Continuous Security Monitoring: Maintain ongoing visibility into security posture with automated monitoring, threat intelligence, and regular assessment cycles aligned to regulatory timelines.
  • Third-Party Risk Assessment: Evaluate vendor security posture and supply chain risks critical to financial services operations and regulatory compliance.
  • Executive and Board Reporting: Deliver clear, business-focused reports that communicate security posture and compliance status to executives, boards, and regulatory bodies.

The NetSPI Advantage

NetSPI delivers the perfect balance of automation and expertise.
Our approach ensures you get the depth of human analysis with the scale of intelligent automation.

People

  •  350+ In-House Security Experts with deep domain expertise across all testing disciplines
  • Rigorous Methodology ensuring consistent, high-quality results across all engagements
  • Specialized Skills in emerging areas like AI/ML testing, cloud security, and red teaming

Process

  • Programmatic Approach with strategic guidance tailored to your security journey
  • White-Glove Support with dedicated client delivery management
  • Continuous Improvement methodology that evolves with the threat landscape

Technology

  • Deep Visibility into vulnerabilities, exposures, and misconfigurations that others miss
  • AI-powered Capabilities that amplify human expertise without replacing it
  • Context-driven Insights with visibility across all findings and workflows