PCI Penetration Testing Cost With Astra Pentest
Updated on: November 23, 2023
Nivedita James Palatty
9 mins read
The 2019 Security Report by Verizon showed a 27.5% drop in PCI-DSS compliance since 2016 indicating that most companies aren’t taking the necessary steps to stay compliant with PCI-DSS to ensure customer payment data security.
PCI penetration testing is a mandate for companies that deal with payments to maintain PCI-DSS compliance (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). It was put forward by the Payment Card Industry Standards Council (PCI-SSC).
PCI penetration testing cost varies depending on the packages offered by various companies. However, it is an essential step in ensuring your organization’s customer payment data safety.
Introduction
It is crucial that you opt for the right pentesting company for your PCI penetration testing. A penetration test can cost anywhere from $500 to $ 50,000 depending on the methodologies, type of pentest, number of assets, and pentesters required.
With Astra, your PCI penetration testing cost would come around to:
- Scanner – $ 1,999 per year
- Pentest – $ 5,999 per year
- Expert – $ 7,999 per year
This article will shed more light for you on the cost of a PCI penetration test with Astra and the different features available in detail for each package offered. It will also elucidate the benefits of conducting a PCI penetration test and mention the factors you need to consider when choosing pentest provider.
What Is PCI-DSS?
PCI-DSS or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard was created by major credit card companies like Visa, AmericanExpress, MasterCard, and others to reduce the risk of fraudulent activities.
It ensures that companies strive, update and constantly improve their security measures to safeguard the entire payment card ecosystem.
If you are a merchant or belong to any financial institution that deals with the processing, storage, and or transmission of credit card data, PCI penetration testing must be standard procedure to ensure continued PCI-DSS compliance.
Here’s the list of 12 PCI-DSS requirements that need to be met by organizations to stay compliant with PCI-DSS.
12 PCI-DSS Requirements To Be Met For Compliance
Below mentioned are the 12 requirements put forth by the PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry Standards Council) to meet PCI-DSS compliance:
- Maintain firewall configuration to protect customer credit card data.
- Don’t use the passwords set and given by vendors as a default.
- Protect customers’ credit card information.
- Encrypt the credit card information of customers across public networks.
- Have antivirus software in place and ensure it’s constantly updated.
- Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
- Limited access to credit card information on a need-to-know basis.
- Unique IDs for everyone with computer access.
- Restriction of physical access to customer credit card data.
- Regularly test and monitor network and credit card data.
- Regular testing of your security systems and processes.
- Maintenance of policies addressing data security for all employees.
Now that we have an idea of the various requirements that need to be met by your organization for its successful compliance with PCI-DSS, let us check out the PCI penetration testing cost with Astra Pentest.
PCI Pentesting Cost With Astra Pentest
A PCI penetration test with Astra Pentest comes in various packages with a wide variety of features in each. In this section, we explore the cost of PCI pentest for web and mobile applications.
Read more on Penetration Testing Quote
Enterprise Plan
The Pentest plan provided by Astra is a fully comprehensive yearly package with a cost of $7,999. It includes the following features:
- PCI Penetration Testing
Astra provides both manual and automated penetration testing options. More than 8000 tests are carried out to detect, identify and exploit vulnerabilities.
Once the penetration test is finished, a suitable, well-detailed report is generated with risk scores and easy steps for remediation and prioritization.
- Vulnerability Scanning
Astra’s powerful vulnerability scanner can detect vulnerabilities based on CVEs, previous pentest data, intel, OWASP 10, and SANS 25.
It follows OWASP and NIST testing methodologies to carry out seamless scans.
- Business Logic Testing
At Astra, pentesters not only test for the usual vulnerabilities but also for business logic errors.
This helps you identify and remediate any business logic errors that may be affecting your business revenue.
- Contextual Support
Astra’s intuitive dashboard comes with plenty of features including real-time updates, and a comment option for quick query clearance.
Collaboration between pen-testers and developers is also possible through the dashboard for easy remediation of vulnerabilities.
- Publicly Verifiable Pentest Certificates
Once PCI pentest is completed with Astra including taking successful steps for remediation followed by rescan, Astra provides its customers with a publicly verifiable pentest certificate.
This certificate is valid for 180 days from the date of receiving.
Read more on : Astra Pentest Certificate
- Compliance Scans
Astra provides specific compliance scans for various global standards like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, and SOC2.
Compliance-specific reports generated details on areas of non-compliance to be remediated so as to avoid hefty fines.
- CI/CD Integrations
At Astra, your assets can be scanned continuously with the help of our unlimited CI/CD integration.
Astra can be integrated with JIRA, Slack, GitHub, and GitLab for easy updates as well as continuous scanning of developing codes.
- Everything in the Pentest Plan.
Pentest Plan
The expert plan for PCI penetration testing is available as a yearly plan at a cost of $ 5,999.
- Integrations
This plan comes with unlimited CI/CD integration possibilities with various communication and management forums like Slack and Jira.
It can also be integrated with GitHub, GitLab, and Jenkins.
- Vulnerability Scans
Astra’s expert plan provides unlimited vulnerability scans based on OWASP and NIST methodologies.
- Provides four expertly vetted scans to ensure that the vulnerability scan results are devoid of false positives. This is billed annually.
- Everything in the Scanner Plan.
Scanner Plan
The Scanner plan is the most basic PCI penetration testing package offered by Astra. It is available both as a yearly plan and a monthly plan.
Yearly – $ 1,999
Monthly – $ 199
- This plan comes with weekly vulnerability scans that carry out more than 8000 tests to detect vulnerabilities.
- An intuitive dashboard that has features like risk scores, and comment options to clear queries.
- Developers can be added to the dashboard for easier remediation with the help of pentesters.
- Scans behind logins are possible.
6 Benefits of PCI Penetration Testing
- Maintain Compliance
PCI penetration testing is an essential mandate put forward by the PCI SSC, without which an organization would be considered non-compliant with PCI-DSS.
This can lead to hefty fines. Conducting PCI penetration tests twice a year ensures continued compliance with the minimum yet vital security standards put forth by PCI-SSC.
- Data Security
PCI pentesting ensures that all vulnerabilities related to payment card information, its storage, and transmission are found before any hackers can exploit them.
This, therefore, keeps vital customer credit card and other payment data safe from attackers.
- Find Vulnerabilities
PCI penetration testing is an exploitive method of detecting vulnerabilities and using them to mount attacks.
This helps an organization understand the full impact of a vulnerability and the exposure it could cause.
- Avoid Penalties
One of the 12 requirements for continued PCI-DSS compliance is the bi-annual PCI pentesting of computer systems and assets to ensure that the security is up-to-date without any vulnerabilities.
This can in turn help avoid hefty penalties organizations would have to face if they did not meet the PCI-DSS requirements.
- Increased Trust
Carrying out a PCI penetration test and being PCI-DSS compliant leads to customers and other organizations finding your services more trustworthy in terms of storing their payment information.
- Achieve Other Compliances
Conducting PCI pentest not only helps in staying or achieving compliance with PCI-DSS but also paves the way for you to attain other compliances like GDPR, and ISO 27001 among others.
Having seen the varied benefits provided to you by carrying out a simple PCI penetration test now let us delve deep into the factors that you need to consider when choosing the right PCI penetration testing company.
Factors in Choosing the Right PCI Pentesting Partner
1. Experience
Make sure the company chosen by you for PCI penetration testing comes has experience pentesting for compliance like PCI-DSS but also for GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and more.
2. Certifications
Ensure that the pentesters have the required qualifications that make them eligible to carry out scalable PCI pentests. This includes:
- Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
- GIAC Certified Pentester (GPEN)
- IT Health Check Service (CHECK) Certification
3. Expense
Make sure the PCI penetration testing cost fits well within the budget decided by your organization and comes with the features you required to successfully uphold your compliance status with PCI-DSS.
4. Reporting
Make sure the PCI pentesting services shortlisted by you provide well-detailed reports that include the various types of tests done, the findings of non-compliance, and the remediation suggestions for them.
5. Remediation
Ensure that the PCI pentest provider also provides remediation services and does not leave you stranded once the penetration testing is completed.
Conclusion
PCI-DSS compliance is a must for your organization if it deals with payments and storage of payment information. That said, the best way to achieve said compliance is through meeting the 12 requirements laid down by the PCI SSC.
An important requirement among them is the conduction of PCI penetration testing. PCI penetration testing cost with Astra has been mentioned in detail for you to make the right choice.
Along with this, the benefits of PCI penetration testing and the factors to look for when choosing the right pentest partner have also been mentioned. So folks, make the right choice today to uphold your compliance and increase your organization’s trust factor.
FAQs
Is penetration testing mandatory for PCI-DSS compliance?
Yes, penetration testing must be done at least twice a year to maintain compliance with PCI-DSS.
What are the three types of penetration testing?
The three most common pentesting types are white-box, black-box, and grey-box penetration testing.
1. White box: Testers are aware of the details regarding the system they are going to exploit.
2. Black box: This is a penetration test where pentester does not know anything regarding the target to be exploited.
3. Grey-box: Here pentesters have partial relevant information regarding the targets.
What are the steps in a penetration test?
A penetration test usually starts off by defining the scope, which is followed by scanning the determined assets for vulnerabilities, exploiting them, and reporting the learnings found.
Nivedita James Palatty
