How to Establish an Effective Security Testing Plan

A recent poll by the SANS Institute found that the top barrier cited by security practitioners to improving their security testing is a “Lack of a systematic approach to defining testing (e.g. lack of testing plan).” In fact, this echoes questions we get from security professionals we meet at conferences, as well as organizations getting started with their own automated security testing.

Building a Security Risk Assessment Plan

So, how do you establish an effective security risk assessment plan to verify that your security controls are effective? Here are a few guidelines to help you get started:

#1 Choose Your Approach

Every organization is different. Depending on your vertical, location(s) and threats you have encountered, you likely already know your top concerns.

Generally speaking, there are five approaches you can take:

• Leverage the 290+ MITRE ATT&CK^TM framework techniques. By methodically testing against all of them, you’ll know that you’ve covered the basics.
• Challenge your defense controls across the kill chain. By testing systematically across the attack kill chain, you can measure and optimize all the security controls deployed in your infrastructure.
• Mimic APT groups that concern you. By simulating specific APT groups’ modus operandi, you can address geopolitical concerns and continually tweak controls to stay prepared.
• Simulate specific types of threats. Challenging your controls with different payloads, and methods of compromise helps you get the answers to your most pressing questions.
• Ensure defensibility against the latest threats. As new malware strains emerge daily, sporting new indicators of compromise (IoCs) it stands to reason to test against them as frequently as possible.

#2 Automate as much as Possible

Once you’ve selected your approach or know which one you want to start out with, it’s time to automate as much as possible. For example:

• Create attack simulation templates to test security controls against certain sets of threat techniques.
• Schedule simulations in advance to run hourly, daily, weekly etc.
• Automate reporting to get notified of identified gaps, along with how they can be remediated by the security team. Management can also automatically receive executive-level briefs on the latest assessments.
• Set up automated alerts that notify you each time you’ve deviated from your baseline exposure score.

#3 Consider Your Team’s Skill Level

With the shortage in skilled cyber security practitioners well established, it becomes important to enable different individuals on your team to run attack simulations and follow up on their results. The simpler testing is to perform, the more you will test, the more gaps you will identify, and—ultimately the safer your organization will be.

#4 Select The Right Testing Tool(s)

There are a wealth of pen testing and red teaming tools out there, both proprietary and open source, to help you test your infrastructure, including MITRE Caldera, Red Canary Atomic Red Team and the Metasploit Framework, among others. However, they require some technical expertise to use, provide few remediation guidelines and cannot be used to prioritize remediation.

This is where Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) platforms come into play, taking the complexity out of attack simulations so that anyone on the team can perform tests and address identified gaps with the help of comprehensive mitigation guidelines.

As security teams are already pressed for time, the automation in testing, alerting and reporting offered by BAS platforms ensures you can continually improve your security posture without incurring additional overhead.

Transform Security Testing into Continuous Exposure Management

Establishing an effective security testing plan is only the first step toward building lasting cyber resilience. Cymulate’s Exposure Management platform empowers organizations to move beyond ad-hoc testing and adopt a continuous, systematic approach to validating and optimizing security controls. By combining automated attack simulations, real-time exposure insights, and actionable remediation guidance, Cymulate helps security teams identify and prioritize true risks before attackers can exploit them. The result is a more resilient security posture, measurable improvement over time, and the confidence that your defenses are ready for whatever comes next.