Network Penetration Testing for HR Companies in New Orleans

 

HR firms in New Orleans and across Louisiana handle some of the most sensitive information a business can store: employee records, background checks, payroll data, health information, and recruitment pipelines. That data is exactly what cybercriminals want.

Common attacks such as phishing emails to recruiters, malware in candidate resumes, password attacks against HR portals, and ransomware targeting payroll and applicant tracking systems are all designed to steal or lock your HR data. The average reported cost of a data breach in 2021 reached $4.24M per incident—and that excludes the unreported cases and long-term reputation damage with employees and clients.

For HR companies in Louisiana, this is not just an IT problem. It is a regulatory, contractual, and trust problem. Breaches can impact:

• Compliance with employment, privacy, and industry-specific regulations
• Client contracts that require strong data protection and security assessments
• Employee trust when personal and payroll data is exposed
• Business continuity when HR and payroll operations are disrupted

This is where network penetration testing (net-pen testing) becomes essential. It is a controlled, ethical hacking exercise where security specialists simulate real-world attacks against your HR systems, networks, and cloud services to uncover weaknesses before criminals do. The results help leadership:

• Identify and prioritize vulnerabilities in HR and corporate networks
• Validate effectiveness of existing IT security controls and monitoring
• Strengthen defenses around HRIS, ATS, payroll, and background-check integrations
• Demonstrate due diligence to auditors, regulators, and enterprise clients

 

Louisiana Network Penetration Testing Experience for HR Firms

 

OCD Tech provides network penetration testing and IT security assessments to HR companies in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana. We work with:

• Local and regional HR outsourcing and PEO providers
• Recruiting, staffing, and executive search firms
• Background screening and verification providers
• In-house HR departments at mid-market and enterprise organizations

Our specialists combine deep penetration testing skills with a clear understanding of HR workflows, third-party integrations, and insider threat risks. We focus on how attackers would actually move through your environment—starting with HR targets like:

• Internet-facing HR portals, employee self-service, and career sites
• VPN and remote access for recruiters and HR staff
• Cloud-based HRIS, ATS, payroll, and document management platforms
• Email and collaboration tools used for candidate and employee communication

The outcome is not just a list of vulnerabilities. You receive clear, prioritized remediation guidance tailored to HR operations in Louisiana—including practical steps for your internal IT team, managed service provider, or cloud vendors.

 

Network Penetration Testing Methodology

 

OCD Tech follows a structured, repeatable penetration testing methodology that mirrors how real attackers operate, while maintaining control and avoiding disruption to your HR operations. Typical activities include:

• Passive Reconnaissance – Quietly gathering information about your HR systems, domains, and exposed services without direct interaction.
• Active Reconnaissance – Scanning and probing networks and applications (such as HR portals and VPNs) to identify live systems and open doors.
• Social Engineering – Testing how easily attackers could trick recruiters or HR staff via phishing or pretexting, always within agreed boundaries.
• Exploitation – Attempting to exploit discovered weaknesses to gain access to HR or corporate systems.
• Post-Exploitation – Assessing what an attacker could actually do with access: view employee data, modify payroll, or pivot deeper into your network.
• Privilege Escalation – Trying to move from regular user to HR admin or domain admin to evaluate worst-case impact.
• Lateral Movement – Moving between systems (e.g., from HR to finance or file servers) to simulate realistic attack paths.
• Maintain Access – Demonstrating how attackers might persist in the environment, while ensuring your environment is fully restored.
• Covering Tracks – Showing how logs and evidence could be tampered with, highlighting monitoring gaps, without hiding our own activity from you.
• Reporting – Delivering a clear, non-technical executive summary for HR and leadership, plus detailed technical findings for IT and security teams.

For HR organizations, we pay particular attention to configuration reviews of HR platforms, access control policies, vendor connections, and logging around sensitive data—areas attackers favor and auditors routinely question.

 

National Reach

 

Although we work extensively with HR companies in Louisiana, OCD Tech also provides network penetration testing and security assessments to organizations across the U.S., including:

• Boston (MA)
• New York City (NY)
• Washington DC
• Philadelphia (PA)
• Dallas (TX)
• Los Angeles (CA)
• Chicago (IL)
• Baltimore (MD)

 

Contact Our Louisiana Network Penetration Testing Consultants

 

OCD Tech provides network penetration testing, ethical hacking, and cybersecurity consulting to HR companies and in-house HR teams in New Orleans and across Louisiana. If you would like to discuss a security assessment or full penetration test focused on your HR environment, complete the form below and a team member will follow up with you shortly.