Network Penetration Testing for Financial Services companies in Newark
Network Penetration Testing for Financial Services Companies in Newark
Financial institutions in Newark and across New Jersey operate in a high-risk environment where cybercriminals actively target payment data, customer records, trading platforms, online banking portals, and internal financial systems. Attacks such as ransomware, phishing, credential theft, malware, insider abuse, and targeted hacking of remote access and VPNs are routinely used to gain access to this information and disrupt operations.
The cost of a breach is especially severe for banks, credit unions, asset managers, fintech firms, and insurance companies that must protect high-value data while meeting strict regulatory expectations from NYDFS, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, PCI DSS, GLBA, SOX and other frameworks. Industry studies report the average cost of a data breach in 2021 at $4.24M (source), and that figure does not include many incidents that are never publicly disclosed.
To stay ahead of these threats, Newark financial services organizations need to regularly review, test, and strengthen their cybersecurity controls. This is where network penetration testing – a controlled, ethical hacking exercise – becomes essential.
Network penetration testing (often called a pentest) is a simulated cyberattack against your IT infrastructure, performed by trusted security professionals. The objective is to identify and safely exploit vulnerabilities in your internal and external networks, firewalls, cloud environments, remote access, and critical banking and financial applications before real attackers do. The results give leadership clear, prioritized insight into:
Which vulnerabilities could realistically be used to compromise your systems or customer data
How effective your existing security controls and monitoring (Blue Team) are in detecting and responding to attacks
Where configuration weaknesses, access issues, and process gaps exist across branches, data centers, and cloud platforms
How well your environment aligns with regulatory and industry security expectations
The outcome is a practical IT security assessment that supports risk-based decision making, budgeting, and remediation planning – without the chaos and cost of learning these lessons during a real incident.
Newark-Focused Penetration Testing for Financial Institutions
OCD Tech provides network penetration testing services to financial services companies in Newark and across New Jersey, including local and regional banks, credit unions, insurance carriers, broker-dealers, private equity and asset management firms, and fintech providers.
Our team combines penetration testing, IT risk advisory, and cybersecurity consulting expertise. We routinely assess environments that must operate under regulatory scrutiny while maintaining uptime for customer-facing services, trading platforms, and core banking systems. That means we design tests to be realistic but controlled – aggressive enough to show real risk, careful enough not to disrupt time-sensitive financial operations.
Each engagement delivers more than a simple vulnerability list. You receive:
Clear, non-technical explanations of risk and impact tailored for executives, boards, and regulators
Technical detail your internal IT and security teams can use immediately for remediation
Prioritized recommendations focused on the highest-risk issues affecting financial data, payment flows, and critical systems
Guidance on hardening configurations of firewalls, VPNs, Active Directory, banking applications, and cloud workloads
The result is a network penetration test that not only identifies where your defenses can fail, but also shows the most effective and realistic ways to strengthen them across your Newark operations and wider footprint.
Network Penetration Testing Methodology
OCD Tech follows a structured and repeatable penetration testing methodology, aligned with industry best practices. For financial services clients in Newark, we adapt this approach to reflect your risk profile, regulatory drivers, and business-critical systems.
Our typical methodology includes:
Passive Reconnaissance – Quietly gathering information from public sources to understand your attack surface, including domains, IP ranges, email formats, and exposed services.
Active Reconnaissance – Safely scanning and probing your infrastructure to identify open ports, services, and potential vulnerabilities in external and internal networks.
Social Engineering (where in scope) – Testing how susceptible staff may be to well-crafted phishing or pretexting attempts, simulating common attack paths against finance and operations teams.
Exploitation – Attempting to exploit identified weaknesses to gain initial access, always under strict rules of engagement to avoid operational disruption.
Post-Exploitation – Assessing what an attacker could do after gaining a foothold: accessing file shares, databases, or systems that process sensitive financial or customer data.
Privilege Escalation – Trying to obtain higher levels of access (for example, domain admin) to demonstrate worst-case impact if a single compromised account or system is not contained.
Lateral Movement – Simulating how an attacker might move between branches, offices, and data centers to reach crown-jewel systems such as core banking, payment processing, and trading platforms.
Maintaining Access – Showing how persistent access could be maintained if not detected, highlighting the importance of logging, monitoring, and incident response capabilities.
Covering Tracks – Demonstrating how an attacker could attempt to evade detection and remove evidence, helping you evaluate log coverage and forensic readiness.
Reporting & Executive Debrief – Delivering a detailed report and walkthrough, including business-focused summaries, technical evidence, exploit paths, and phased remediation guidance.
This approach allows us to effectively simulate real-world attackers, insider threats, and assumed compromise scenarios, while working collaboratively with your internal security (Blue Team) and operations teams to improve overall resilience.
National Reach with Local Newark Focus
While we maintain a strong presence in Newark and New Jersey’s financial sector, OCD Tech also supports clients nationwide. We provide network penetration testing and IT security assessments to organizations in:
This broader experience gives our Newark financial services clients the benefit of seeing how attack patterns, threat actors, and defensive practices evolve across major U.S. financial hubs – and how your security posture compares.
Contact Our Newark Network Penetration Testing Consultants
OCD Tech provides network penetration testing, ethical hacking, and cybersecurity consulting services to financial services organizations in Newark and across New Jersey. Whether you are preparing for an examination, responding to a recent incident, or proactively strengthening defenses, we can tailor a network penetration test to match your risk, regulatory, and business requirements.
If you would like to discuss how we can help protect your financial institution from evolving cyber threats, please complete the form below. A member of our team will contact you shortly to review your environment, objectives, and appropriate testing scope.
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