FINANCIAL SERVICES PENETRATION TESTING
Maintain compliance and give your customers confidence with financial services pentesting.
Trusted by leading organisations
Why financial services
penetration testing is important
Protect trust, compliance,
and critical client assets
In the digital era, the financial services sector faces a significant threat from cyber attacks. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 shows that 48% of UK financial service organisations experienced breaches or attacks within the last 12 months, whilst only 50% of finance organisations have a cyber response plan in place.
Financial services businesses process large volumes of sensitive personal, financial and payment information. Because of this, businesses have a responsibility to comply with data protection rules, to protect payment and financial information, and to establish trust with their customers through a robust cyber security strategy.
Cyber security threats and compliance
challenges for UK financial services
Navigate evolving threats
in a high-stakes sector
Operationally significant infrastructure
Financial services organisations often rely upon business-critical systems and applications to provide their services, such as payments, loans and assessments, to their customers. Outages of these services can have significant operational impacts, incur costly fines by regulators or seriously damage the reputation of the business. Because of this, it is important that financial services penetration testing does not cause disruption to critical live systems.
Organisation scale and complexity
Financial services companies are often large and complex, with a broad spectrum of operational, technical, legal and regulatory challenges that span multiple locations, teams and products/services. Navigating this complexity to execute co-ordinated cyber security programmes, including penetration testing, requires careful planning with engagement and strong lines of communication with many stakeholders.
Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)
Financial services cyber security teams are familiar with the nature of the advanced threats that face the business. Organised cybercrime groups often have financial motivations, which makes the financial services sector a prime target. Their commonly used techniques include zero days, social engineering and malware, which must be defended against using state-of-the-art security tooling, and a robust cyber security strategy that involves user training, testing, audit, detection, response and improvement.
IT maintenance and legacy systems
Whilst start-up and growth stage financial services companies are typically born in the cloud, established businesses are often burdened with vast infrastructure estates which cannot easily be modernised. Some systems run legacy applications, some have specific customer or regulatory restrictions that prevent changes, and some simply cannot be switched off to protect critical operations. These systems pose a unique cyber security challenge, and must be approached with consideration and care.
Financial services cyber security considerations
Secure critical systems and
sensitive financial data
The processing of sensitive personal details by financial services businesses carries obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA).
Many financial services businesses are required to comply with various regulatory frameworks such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and the Bank of England’s Critical National Infrastructure Banking Supervision and Evaluation Testing (CBEST) programme to protect financial data. Further requirements exist for publicly listed companies, and those who maintain cyber security certifications like Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001.
Why choose Sentrium for financial
services penetration testing?
Trusted expertise for
complex and highly regulated
financial environments
At Sentrium, we understand the unique challenges of financial services security. With our deep expertise in financial services penetration testing and advisory services, we help you identify and address weaknesses in your systems before they are exploited.
Our approach to financial services security goes beyond a typical penetration test. We have a deep understanding of your business challenges, and we are well positioned to advise on core banking systems, payment platforms, third-party risk and regulatory requirements.
We recognise that the financial sector operates in a complex operational environment, and security breaches can have a major impact on your business. Our experienced team provide expert financial services penetration testing and support to help you gain confidence, maintain compliance and build customer trust.
Our financial services penetration testing
CREST-certified
pentesting for financial
sector security
Explore the core services we provide
for financial organisations:
Network penetration testing
Our network and infrastructure pentesting evaluates servers, devices and equipment for vulnerabilities. These often store sensitive or financial data, with compliance guiding what our specialists test.
Website penetration testing
Financial firms rely on custom apps for loans, checks, investments and back-office needs. Using OWASP methods, expert tools and deep experience, our team ensures security assurance of applications.
Red Teaming
Red team assessments, including intelligence-led tests, are common in finance. The Bank of England’s CBEST sets a framework for attack simulations, with similar exercises used widely outside its scope.
Start financial services
penetration testing with Sentrium
Connect with our team of specialists to maintain compliance with regulations, build confidence and trust in your products and services, and protect your business from security breaches.