Why Pen Testing Is Functionally Required for Cybersecurity Compliance

IoT developers are swimming, but the water level is really rising fast. um So we have things like the EU radio equipment directive, RED for short, which specifically calls out cybersecurity requirements in articles 3.3 D, E and f um and at the risk of getting too involved with that. um ah Pen testing for these regulations is not specifically called out as you must have had a pen test. However, all of these standards, all of these controls that these regulations like the EU Cyber Resilience Act, CRA, EU RED, FDA pre-market guidance and you know EU Red's cousin, the Executive Order 14.028, all of those require you to prove that you have instilled these controls. You have good security practices. You have a secure SDLC practices. You have good static code and in dynamic analysis. You have continuous monitoring. how do you How do you prove that you have instilled these controls? to satisfy the standard to get that marking. And the only way to really do that is to get a penetration test to validate these controls. So yeah although it may not be explicitly mandated that thou shalt get a penetration test, it is... implicitly required that you do in order to validate these controls or else, you know, regulators don't take word of mouth. They take a report that goes through and say, yes, here's the evidence. We've had people go through this. We've shown that it's non exploitable. We've shown that we are implying, uh, applying this control and here's the report and pen testers are the people who do that. Um, so, you know, too long didn't read version is pen testing is functionally required, even though it's not explicitly called out in cybersecurity regulations because regulations, especially eu red and CRA demand proof of effective procedures, not just policies or claims. so Both red article 3.3 and CRA require manufacturers to identify risks, implement controls and validate their effectiveness. And you can't do that credibly without testing. And so penetration testing is how you prove that your device as deployed, uh, holds up against real world threats.