Small and mid-sized businesses
Penetration Testing for Small Businesses
Small businesses get asked for penetration testing by the same insurers, customers, and auditors as large ones, with a fraction of the staff to answer them. Invadel scopes the test to what the request actually needs, fixes the price in writing, and includes a free retest.
The stakes
Why small businesses get tested differently
Attackers do not size their targets by headcount. They scan the whole internet for an exposed remote desktop, a VPN without multi-factor, or a login that accepts a password leaked from another breach, and they send the same invoice-themed phishing email to a 20-person firm as to a bank. A small business is attractive precisely because the defenses are assumed to be thin and the ransom is assumed to be paid.
The pressure to test now comes from paper as much as from attackers. Cyber insurance applications ask whether the network has been penetration tested in the last year. A larger customer’s vendor questionnaire asks for the date and scope of the last third-party test. Accepting cards brings PCI DSS Requirement 11.4 into play, and a medical or dental practice answers to HIPAA. Each request arrives with a deadline and no security team to meet it.
Generic testing fails small businesses in two directions. Enterprise firms quote an enterprise-shaped engagement, priced by the hour and scoped for a company ten times the size, with no SMB option on the price list. At the other end, some providers sell a vulnerability scan with a cover page and call it a penetration test, which the insurer or the customer may not accept. The right engagement is a manual test scoped to the systems the request is really about, at a price that is known before it starts.
What we test
The systems attackers go after first
The company website and customer portal
The public site, its login, its booking or ordering flow, and the plugins and hosting behind it, tested for account takeover and data exposure.
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
The identity and email tenant most small businesses run on, tested for multi-factor coverage, weak conditional access, mail rules, and the paths from one mailbox to the whole company.
Remote access
VPN gateways, remote desktop, and the remote-support tools an IT provider installed, which are the entry points most ransomware cases begin with.
The office network
The file server, the shared drives, the printers, and the domain controller in the closet, tested from an assumed foothold for how far one infected laptop can reach.
Payment and line-of-business systems
Point-of-sale, e-commerce checkout, practice management, and accounting platforms, tested to the PCI DSS or HIPAA boundary that applies.
People
Phishing, voice, and text campaigns that measure whether staff will hand over credentials or approve a wire, and what happens when they report it.
Compliance
The frameworks that usually apply
- PCI DSS
Requirement 11.4 testing for any business that stores, processes, or transmits card data, scoped to the actual cardholder data environment.
- HIPAA
Technical evaluation evidence for practices, clinics, and business associates that handle protected health information.
- SOC 2
The penetration test a small software or services company needs once enterprise customers start asking for an audit report.
Services
What small businesses usually buy
- From $4,200
External Network Penetration Testing
Testing of your internet-facing perimeter, from exposed services and VPN gateways to mail and cloud edges, with a free retest, from $4,200.
- From $1,500
Vulnerability Scanning Services
Managed scanning validated by an analyst, which cuts false positives down to real, ranked risk you can act on at once. From $1,500 per scan.
- From $3,600
Phishing Simulation & Social Engineering Testing
Phishing and social engineering campaigns that measure real-world human risk, with click and credential metrics by department, from $3,600.
- From $5,200
Web Application Penetration Testing
Manual testing of your web application across the OWASP Top 10, business logic, and all user roles, with a free retest included, from $5,200.
- From $6,000
Internal Network Penetration Testing
Testing from an assumed foothold inside your network: Active Directory attack paths, lateral movement, and segmentation, from $6,000.
How it runs
Typical engagements
Illustrative scopes for this industry, written to show what a test covers and what you walk away with.
They are not client stories; our anonymized engagements are on the case studies page.
Typical engagement
Professional services firm before a cyber insurance renewal
A 25-person accounting firm receives a renewal application asking whether the network has been penetration tested and whether multi-factor authentication covers remote access. We run an external network test of the firm’s perimeter and Microsoft 365 tenant and a phishing baseline across the staff. The firm walks away with a report and attestation letter for the broker, three fixes ranked by urgency, and a free retest once they are done.
Typical engagement
Retail brand that started accepting cards online
A 40-person consumer brand moves its checkout in-house and enters PCI DSS scope for the first time. We scope the cardholder data environment with the team, test the storefront and checkout flow, and run the external test Requirement 11.4 asks for. The report is written for the self-assessment questionnaire, and the retest confirms the two serious findings were closed.
Typical engagement
Small software company selling to its first bank
A 15-person software company wins a bank as a customer, and the bank’s vendor review asks for a recent third-party test of the product. We test the web application with accounts in every role and the API behind it, deliver a summary the company can hand to the bank without exposing exploit detail, and issue an attestation letter that answers the questionnaire directly.
FAQ
What small business owners ask
01Does a small business really need a penetration test?
If a customer, an insurer, a card brand, or a regulator has asked for one, yes, and the test needs to be real enough to satisfy them. If nobody has asked yet, the question is whether you would rather learn about the exposed remote desktop from a report or from a ransom note. A scoped external test is the least expensive way to answer it. Our small business cyber attack statistics and cyber insurance claims statistics collect the sourced numbers. You do not need a security team to get tested: our guide to outsourced penetration testing explains how the work splits.
02What should we test first with a limited budget?
Start with what faces the internet: a validated vulnerability scan from $1,500 if you have never looked, or an external network penetration test from $4,200 if an insurer or customer needs a real test. Add a phishing campaign if your risk is wire fraud or email compromise, and test the web application if you sell software or take payments through it. A Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace security review from $4,200 checks the tenant’s MFA, conditional access, mail forwarding rules, and external sharing. We tell you during scoping which of these your request actually requires, and our comparison of penetration testing vs vulnerability scanning explains what each one finds.
03How much does a penetration test cost for a small business?
Validated vulnerability scans start at $1,500 each, external network testing starts at $4,200, phishing campaigns at $3,600, and web application testing at $5,200. Each price is fixed in writing before we start and matches what a large company pays for the same scope. The penetration tests include a free retest. Details are on the pricing page, and our network penetration testing services page explains how the external and internal tests differ.
04Will testing disrupt the business or take up our staff’s time?
Testing is scheduled in agreed windows and never uses techniques that risk taking systems down. Your side of the work is a one-hour scoping call, a point of contact during the test, and a readout at the end. Internal testing is delivered remotely through a small device we ship, so nobody needs to host a tester for a week. Small businesses on Long Island and across the New York metro can also meet us on site.
05Will the report satisfy our cyber insurance application or a customer questionnaire?
That is what it is written for. You receive an executive summary, a technical report for whoever fixes the findings, and an attestation letter that states scope, dates, methodology, and outcome without exposing the findings themselves. The letter is the document brokers and customers file. Once fixes are in, the free retest updates it. Our guide to cyber insurance penetration testing requirements matches each application question to a test. Nonprofits get the same documents written for funders and boards: see cybersecurity for nonprofits.
Get a fixed price for your small business scope
Tell us what needs testing. You get a written fixed price within one business day, with the compliance mapping your auditors and customers expect.
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