2024 Retrospective: Lessons from the Field

As 2024 ends, we reflect on what we've seen across red team and penetration testing engagements. Here are the themes that stood out.

Access Control Still Broken

Broken access control remains the most common serious finding. Organisations implement authentication well but often neglect authorization. We find IDOR, privilege escalation, and misconfigured roles in the majority of web application tests. Fix it.

Cloud Misconfiguration Everywhere

Cloud deployments are rarely secure by default. We find exposed storage, permissive IAM, and weak network segmentation. The cloud makes deployment fast; it doesn't make it secure. Dedicated cloud security testing is essential.

Supply Chain Awareness Growing

More clients are asking about supply chain risk. We're seeing increased demand for dependency analysis, build pipeline review, and third-party assessment. The trend will continue.

What to Prioritise in 2025

Authorisation, cloud configuration, and continuous testing. If you haven't had a red team or penetration test in 2024, schedule one for early 2025. Contact us.

Operational Implications

The key takeaway from this topic is execution discipline: identify exploitable paths early, assign ownership quickly, and validate remediation under realistic conditions. Teams that operationalise security into release and change workflows generally reduce high-risk exposure windows and avoid repeat findings.

Use this insight to prioritise what is exploitable now, what can chain into broader impact, and what should be validated again after fixes are deployed. Evidence-led prioritisation consistently produces faster and more durable risk reduction than checklist-only approaches.

Implementation Checklist

• Define a clear owner for each critical finding and remediation deadline.
• Validate exploitability before and after remediation with reproducible evidence.
• Document impact in business terms for leadership, not just technical severity.
• Schedule follow-up verification so fixes are confirmed, not assumed.

Related Next Steps

Translate this topic into action by aligning the right engagement model to your current risk profile. For targeted validation, start with Security Services. For practical examples of measurable outcomes, review Case Studies. You can also browse the latest guidance in our blog archive.

Need a Practical Plan?

If you want this assessed against your own environment, we can scope it quickly and provide an evidence-focused route to remediation. Get in touch and we will recommend the most effective next step based on your architecture, timeline, and risk priorities.