Case Study · Banking & Financial Services
$754B Global Bank
How a $754B global bank reduced penetration testing costs by 20 percent without sacrificing quality.
Key outcome: Reduced penetration testing costs by a minimum of 20 percent while maintaining high-quality, in-depth testing across cloud, applications, infrastructure, people, and physical environments.
The Challenge
As Vice President of Security Architecture Engineering and Cyber Security at a $754B global bank, this executive was responsible for ensuring the security of highly complex, interconnected systems supporting core banking operations, digital channels, cloud infrastructure, and a global workforce.
The bank conducted penetration testing on a regular basis, but as the environment expanded, leadership identified gaps between testing outcomes, remediation effectiveness, and overall business value.
“At our scale, penetration testing must validate real-world attack scenarios, not just identify isolated technical issues.”
Key challenges with prior penetration testing engagements included:
- Limited cloud security and architecture coverage, particularly around identity, access, and cross-environment attack paths
- Siloed testing across endpoints, servers, applications, and users
- Ineffective communication of findings between testing teams, security teams, and engineering teams
- Remediation efforts that lacked prioritization, ownership, and validation
- Inconsistent severity ratings across testing domains
- Difficulty translating testing results into an enterprise risk view for leadership
- High costs driven by fragmented vendors and duplicated testing efforts
The bank needed a penetration testing partner that could operate at global scale, improve outcomes, and reduce cost without compromising quality.
The Solution
The bank engaged Fortrex to deliver a coordinated, enterprise-scale penetration testing program designed to reflect realistic threat scenarios across technology, people, and physical environments.
Fortrex partnered closely with the VP of Security Architecture Engineering and Cyber Security to align testing scope, methodology, and reporting with the bank's architecture, threat models, and regulatory expectations.
“We needed a partner who could scale with us, improve communication, and help us get more value from penetration testing.”
Fortrex delivered a consolidated penetration testing engagement covering:
- Thousands of user endpoints across the enterprise
- Hundreds of on-premise and cloud-based servers
- Cloud infrastructure testing focused on identity, access, and misconfiguration risk
- Penetration testing of critical banking applications and supporting APIs
- Physical security penetration testing at selected facilities
- Wireless and WiFi penetration testing
- Social engineering testing across approximately 800 randomly selected employees, including phishing and vishing
The engagement emphasized realistic attack chains, active collaboration with internal teams, and clear linkage between findings and remediation.
The Results
Improved cloud and architecture-level risk visibility
Fortrex identified weaknesses across cloud identity, access paths, and architectural assumptions that were not visible through prior testing approaches.
Enterprise-wide attack path validation
By testing endpoints, servers, applications, cloud infrastructure, physical locations, and users together, the bank gained insight into how attackers could move laterally across environments.
Clear, actionable findings and prioritization
Findings were delivered with exploitation context, business impact, and remediation guidance, enabling teams to focus on material risk rather than noise.
Stronger communication and coordination
Close collaboration between Fortrex, security teams, and engineering teams improved clarity on findings and reduced friction during remediation.
Improved remediation effectiveness
Remediation efforts were better prioritized, tracked, and validated, increasing confidence that fixes meaningfully reduced risk.
Enhanced human risk awareness
Phishing and vishing testing provided measurable insight into employee susceptibility, informing targeted awareness and control improvements.
Executive-level visibility
Leadership received a consolidated, decision-ready view of penetration testing outcomes, highlighting systemic risks and control gaps.
Cost savings without sacrificing quality
By consolidating scope and execution under a single coordinated program, the bank reduced penetration testing costs by a minimum of 20 percent while maintaining high-quality, in-depth deliverables across all testing domains.
Greater confidence in defensive readiness
Penetration testing evolved from a fragmented technical exercise into a strategic security control supporting enterprise risk management and regulatory assurance.
“Fortrex delivered enterprise-scale penetration testing that improved outcomes, strengthened collaboration, and reduced cost, without compromising the depth or quality we require.”
Vice President, Security Architecture Engineering and Cyber Security
$754B Global Bank
Enterprise-scale penetration testing that delivers value
Talk to Fortrex about coordinated penetration testing across cloud, applications, infrastructure, physical, and human risk for global financial institutions.