PlexTrac ConceptsPenetration Testing Report

What you can’t see can hurt you. Let’s say, heaven forbid, you injure your leg. You may need a physical examination, an X-ray, or an MRI. But all of that is meaningless without the report that actually pinpoints what’s wrong. The same goes for penetration testing. Effective penetration testing reporting requires thorough testing, research, and proper documentation that informs the next steps for remediation.

Here we’ll discuss what is penetration testing, how to create an actionable penetration testing report, and how CISOs, auditors, and engineers can leverage the reports to reduce risks faster and improve security posture.

Penetration testing, also known as “pentesting”, is the process of ethical hacking through planned attacks against a company’s systems, applications, or networks. This testing identifies vulnerabilities and risks that need to be addressed before a potential breach.

Penetration tests may be executed by pentesters within the organization’s offensive security team or external penetration testing service providers. According to Cybercrime Magazine, pricing for penetration tests can range from a few hundred dollars to over $100,000, with the average cost being $18,300 per organization.

Penetration testing reports can help meet compliance mandates, like PCI DSS and SOC 2, as well as provide CISOs with executive-level risk summaries and enable engineers to identify vulnerabilities with the technical details needed to remediate risks before they become larger threats.

What Are Common Pentesting Types?

There’s a plethora of pentesting types — even more than we can name here. But here are the most common penetration testing types:

Manual Pentesting

Manual penetration testing is a hands-on security measure where pentesters manually simulate real-world cyberattacks. These attacks involve ethical hacking tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and security gaps proactively.

Automated Pentesting

Automated penetration testing is a proactive security measure that performs ongoing cyberattack simulations against systems, applications, and networks to attempt to exploit vulnerabilities. Automated pentest solutions can be run more frequently with less manual effort by automating routine assessments with continuous monitoring.

Physical Penetration Testing

Physical penetration testing evaluates the physical security controls, such as locks, badge systems, and other potential facility entry points. Physical pentests mimic malicious actors by attempting to breach security gateways through social engineering, lock-picking, and bypassing access controls and surveillance.

Network Pentests

Network penetration testing focuses on internal and external penetration testing to determine the level of security on each network by analyzing the security within assets, such as firewalls, routers, servers, and switches. Internal testing is run within the organization’s network, while external testing is done from an external network to mimic a real-world attack.

Application Penetration Testing

Application pentesting and software penetration testing, as you’d guess, target software, web applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs) to uncover issues, such as SQL injection or broken authentication. Penetration testing in software testing is performed across web applications to identify vulnerabilities in the application’s code.

IOT & Mobile Pentesting

IOT/Mobile penetration testing pinpoints vulnerability exploits on mobile devices as well as all network-connected devices, which may lead to vulnerable vectors for exploitation. This type of pentest pinpoints hardware or software security gaps in connected devices that are not covered within standard network penetration tests.

Learn more about the different types of penetration tests on the Penetration Testing Concept Page.

Most people picture hackers in hoodies, but cybersecurity hackers come in different forms — some good and some bad. Plus, there are even more types of hackers than black, white, and gray hat hackers.

White Hat Hackers

White hat hackers are the ethical hackers who use their skills legally and ethically to uncover and sometimes fix system vulnerabilities. They make a living as employees and contractors who search for vulnerabilities with the sole purpose of protecting that corporation.

Black Hat Hackers

Black hat hackers use their skills for malicious intent and illegal activities by stealing data or causing business chaos when they find the opportunity. Black hats break into systems typically for financial gain (such as stealing payment information or securing data for ransom), personal gain (promoting political beliefs or sabotaging companies), or collective gain (such as hacker groups, like Anonymous). Some black hats are amateurs, while others are experienced security professionals who want to gain some extra bucks, fame, or assist with hacker groups or nation-states.

Gray Hat Hackers

Gray hat hackers blur the lines and operate in a moral gray area, sometimes exploiting vulnerabilities without authorization. Gray hat hackers are typically security researchers, corporations, hobbyists, or bug bounty experts who make a living by identifying vulnerabilities in a system without the system owner’s explicit permission to test. Once reported, gray hats often request a fee for their discoveries. And if it’s not paid, gray hats sometimes publish their findings online, thus showing their dark side.

Red Hat Hackers

Red hat hackers are similar to white hat hackers in that their actions are ethical and legal — but they may be a bit more aggressive in their approach. For instance, if a red hat hacker discovers a black hat attempting to exploit something, they launch targeted attacks to crash the attacker’s system or network.

Blue Hat Hackers

Blue hat hackers are typically external computer security consulting firms that bug test systems before launch. They look for exploits to remediate before the product goes live, hence the term “blue,” for vigilance.

Green Hat Hackers

Green hat hackers are known as the newbies in the hacking community. They’re often eager to learn and gain more knowledge by experimenting and watching their peers.
Although each seems like its own distinct bucket of hackers, it’s not so black and white. Many hackers wear many “hats” and may toe the line when it comes to ethics.

Pentesting is often underrated. However, a business is only as strong as its defense. So if someone asks you, “Why penetration testing is important?”, there should be no argument that it helps fortify the business by protecting customer information, employee intel, product research, business operations, finances, reputation, and more.
Moreover, pentest reporting not only identifies security gaps but also prioritizes risks based on actionable reporting insights and detailed remediation recommendations. In fact, the need for penetration testing is anticipated to rise according to Cybersecurity Ventures. They predict the global penetration testing product and service market will exceed $5 billion annually by 2031.
But if you’re still getting questions around why a penetration testing report matters, then maybe it’s time to point out some real-world examples that could have been avoided through proper pentesting and vulnerability assessments.

Real-World Data Breach Examples

According to CSO, these are some of the biggest data breaches to date that may have been prevented through ongoing attack surface monitoring & continuous penetration testing services.

1. The Chinese Surveillance Database | June 2025 | 4 Billion Records Impacted

Known as the largest data leak to date, the Chinese Surveillance database of 631GB was attacked, leaking 4 billion personal records containing bank details, private chat conversations, and profile information of hundreds of millions of users. It was said to be left open without password protection on the web.

2. Yahoo | August 2013 | 3 Billion Accounts

In 2016, Yahoo first announced the 2013 incident as it was in the process of being acquired by Verizon, and estimated that more than 3 billion customers had their data exposed by a hacking group.

3. Real Estate Wealth Network | December 2023 | 1.5 billion records

Sadly, misconfigurations were to blame when this Real Estate Network (1.16TB) database exposed sensitive data, including property histories, financial records, tax IDs, and high-profile celebrity personal information.

Security gaps such as these are commonly detected and quickly remediated prior to a breach, through ongoing penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, least privilege implementation, and regular data backup and recovery plans.

If you’re wondering, “What does a pentest report look like?”, we’ve got you. Creating a standard, yet customizable, penetration testing report format will streamline your reporting process by eliminating repetitive tasks. Plus, it ensures that no matter who authors the report, it will always be consistent, professional, on brand, and readable.

A Pen Test Report Sample

Use this penetration testing report example as a blueprint for success that you can reference time and time again. The pentest steps can vary slightly from report to report, but this is the standard penetration testing report format that we recommend.

Step 1: Executive Summary

When creating your executive summary for the penetration report, make it simple.  Focus only on the critical items. Always include the state of work (SOW) and explain the objectives of the test, along with a summarized section of the most crucial findings that need to be remediated quickly.

Although it’s not in this section, you’ll want to include a cover page and table of contents in the front of the report to make it as easy to review as possible.

Step 2: Scope and Methodology

With a mix of technical folks and business-minded executives, you’ll need to explain your pentest tactics and tools in a simplified way while outlining how you met the SOW. In this section, you should also detail the threat model used and explain your attack narrative by quickly outlining where you succeeded or failed in penetrating their defenses.

Step 3. Findings

During each of the penetration testing phases, you’ll want to take notes to easily input into the report as you go. The pentesting findings part of the report is where you can show off your hard work. But stay cautious and avoid overly technical jargon. This section should include a Summary of Findings with a name, number, and severity ranking. After that, a client should be able to scroll down to the Detailed Findings Section, which will be much more technical.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

Provide a concise summary with your thoughts on the client’s current security posture. Be sure to offer future recommendations that include additional security gaps, even if they are outside of your scoped work, as they should be aware of them, and it could lead to more projects with you.

5. Appendices

Here you can bear all your hidden secrets and nuggets of information from your penetration testing techniques. Drop screenshots and proof of work for the security experts to admire. Match your appendices to the ID number in your findings section. Provide plenty of information, but be sure not to overwhelm the readers.

Note that one size doesn’t always fit all when it comes to penetration testing reports. Your report should adapt to each industry, assessment, and engagement scope. However, you can save time and customize your pentesting report template to ensure your findings are actionable and valuable.

Want to create a template that works for you? Download our eBook, How to Create a Killer Pentest Report.

Often, pentesters use some kind of reusable template, whether it’s as simple as a pentest report template Word document or a specialized pentesting reporting tool. You can create an optimal pentesting report template in-house or leverage penetration testing reporting tools to make it easier.

Popular penetration testing reporting tools include:

Looking for more pentesting and reporting tools? Check our blog on The Most Popular Penetration Testing Tools in 2025: 30 Products to Support Your Pentesting Efforts This Year.

With all the different tools in the penetration testing space, it can be difficult to know how to choose what’s best for you. Often, it comes down to the features and function of the product. That’s why we’ve outlined some of the features that our customers find most important below.

If you want to learn how to write a pentest report, you’ve come to the right place. You need to go beyond simply documenting findings and tell an impactful story. You can do that with the five steps that we outlined in our quick infographic.

Infographic: How to Create a Killer Pentest Report

Follow these more detailed steps, and feel free to leverage this as your pentest report writing checklist:

1. Prepare with a clearly defined scope and limitations

First, create an agreed-upon statement of work (SOW) before the project starts. Include the SOW in your report to show how your work aligns with the defined scope and note any constraints. Then, test the predetermined areas and gather findings for the report.

2. Provide clarity, structure, and organization

Include a cover page, table of contents, and executive summary at the start of the report to align all stakeholders. Throughout the report, explain the methodologies, provide risk assessments with prioritized risk ratings, and give recommendations for the security team to fix the most critical risks first. Risk assessment frameworks, such as CVSS or OWASP Risk Rating Methodology, may be beneficial for ranking risks appropriately.

3. Communicate the data effectively without tech jargon

As we discussed above, there is a time and a place for the technical details. It’s essential to communicate the risks and vulnerabilities clearly without too much technical language or abbreviations. Remember, the organization or team that you are performing the pentest for doesn’t do this like you do. They hired you for your expertise and want to see your work prove itself with screenshots, code snippets, and metrics.

4. Provide a complete and accurate analysis

Be thorough in your pentest and report. Map out and set achievable deadlines to ensure you have enough time for a complete analysis without overlooking potential threats or compromising compliance efforts.

Provide actionable mitigation recommendations with quick overviews for non-technical stakeholders. Remember, you don’t have to trade off between speed and quality. Save time and still deliver a high-quality security evaluation by setting realistic timelines, using standardized templates, and implementing pentest reporting automation.

5. Proofread and finalize the report

Just like any document, you’ll want to review the report to ensure it makes sense for your full readership. Evaluate the report’s quality assurance and run through the final assessment before delivering your report.

Admittedly, a good pentest report takes time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t maximize your pentesting report efficiency. To learn more about pentesting report optimization, read our blog, 7 Common Pitfalls of Penetration Testing Reports.

Penetration tests follow a structured process in order to report accurate and useful findings. For each organization, the pentest process can be a little different, but they follow a similar format to these penetration testing phases.

The Pentest Process

1. Setup & Planning: Define the scope, process, goals, people involved, and testing rules of engagement.
2. Discovery & Enumeration: Validate assumptions made in the first pentesting phase by collecting information about the IT infrastructure and identifying potential vulnerabilities.
3. Detection and Exploitation: Attempt to gain access by exploiting discovered vulnerabilities and determine if persistent access can be maintained without detection.
4. Post-Exploitation & Reporting and Read-Out: Prepare a clear, actionable report that summarizes the findings and recommendations for remediation.
5. Remediation and Final Testing: Help the organization demonstrate progress, meet compliance requirements, and re-test any remediation actions to ensure improvement in the overall security posture.

Additional Penetration Testing Stages

Looking for a more in-depth pentesting process? Check out our Introduction to All the Phases of Penetration Testing for the full 10-step process.

P.S. Want to shorten your penetration testing cycle? Read the Hack Your Penetration Test Routine Whitepaper for the best tips and tricks.

The Report Flow

The report flow typically follows a process like this:

1. Executive Summary: Draft a simple, high-level overview for decision-makers that focuses on the SOW, objectives, and summaries of crucial findings.
2. Scope & Methodology: Explain what was tested and how it was tested by describing your threat model and attack narrative.
3. Detailed Findings: Describe each vulnerability with the name, number, severity ratings, and evidence that an attack or escalated privilege is possible.
4. Conclusions & Recommendations: Include a concise summary with actionable remediation tactics that are prioritized by risk.
5. Appendices: Provide proof of your work, including technical logs, screenshots, and proof-of-concept exploits.

Following this report flow ensures the report will always be consistent and isn’t just a list of vulnerabilities. It should serve as the organization’s roadmap for improving the overall security posture. If you want more about an effective report flow, check out the section above, “What’s in a Penetration Testing Report?”.

Continuous testing and Pentest as a Service (PtaaS) are seen as the future of pentesting because, as soon as a pentest is completed, a new vulnerability may emerge. For instance, traditional pentests are point-in-time tests that are often manual, which take a long time to process and may leave weeks unaccounted for — leaving room for new threats to slip in.

On the other hand, modern reporting models like PtaaS and continuous testing platforms provide real-time visibility, continuous updates, direct integrations to tools like Jira, Slack, or ServiceNow, and provide more business context as a whole.

Even the Pentest as a Service Reddit feed confirms that continuous testing, validation, and monitoring can stop attacks quicker than traditional pentests, which is why continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) was introduced.

CTEM helps continuously simulate attacks, identify risks, prioritize, and remediate them so that organizations can manage their security gaps and adapt in real time to better protect their infrastructure and assets.

AI and the Future of Penetration Testing Report

On top of PtaaS and CTEM, AI can optimize penetration testing reporting by:

• Quickly adding expert insights to reports.
• Differentiating report content for unique audiences and technical knowledge.
• Inserting context around vulnerabilities and potential business impact.
• Scaling vulnerability identification and management.
• Leveraging AI and different language models to identify hackers and their tactics.

Discover in this video how you can automate the entire vulnerability lifecycle — from discovery to remediation and validation — increase operational efficiency, standardize workflows, and accelerate time to remediation across the vulnerability lifecycle with PlexTrac. Or book a PlexTrac demo, and we’ll show you in real time.

Pentest reporting supports ongoing security efforts and provides documented proof for compliance and regulatory frameworks that require organizations to consistently review and optimize their security posture.

In addition, pentest reporting supports proactive risk management by helping organizations pinpoint and repair vulnerabilities before a potential breach — leading to a more robust and resilient security program.

Examples of compliance and regulatory frameworks that require pentesting reports:

• PCI DSS: Requires secure networks, encrypted transmission, and cardholder data protection.
• HIPAA: Ensures patient data security with documented vulnerability assessments.
• GDPR: Protects the data privacy of all residents and citizens in the EU.
• FISMA:  Requires federal agencies to establish comprehensive information security programs.
• CMMC: Mandates defense contractors to protect sensitive government information.
• SOC 2: Demonstrates the commitment to data security and integrity as an organization.

A penetration testing report bridges the gap between finding and actually fixing vulnerabilities. It can bring insights to executives about their security posture, directions to engineers for remediation, and confidence to auditors in seeing the organization’s improved security protocols.

The value of penetration testing lies in the report output that provides actionable insights to fix any security gaps and prioritize remediation of the most critical risks. To maximize the value of penetration testing, use templates and reporting tools for consistency, speed, and regular compliance for frameworks like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2.

As we look at the future of pentesting, we’re seeing a push towards Pentest as a Service (PtaaS) and continuous testing models. By leveraging AI, organizations can get real-time reporting with seamless integrations into operational and QA workflows, which ultimately reduces mean time to respond and remediate.

With PlexTrac, you can cut pentest reporting time by up to 75%. Our AI-powered platform for pentest reporting and threat exposure management optimizes the pentest reporting process so you can spend less time writing reports and more time finding and fixing security flaws.

No matter the pentest stage, we’ll help you streamline and automate your reporting workflow, so you can deliver impactful reports in less time. Imagine auto-generating descriptions, analyzing report content, and delivering consistent, reusable content, including writeups, narratives, and procedures that can be built into repeatable test plans.

You’re not dreaming. Replace manual efforts with automation and collaborate from start to finish with PlexTrac’s penetration test reporting and exposure management platform.

What are you waiting for? See for yourself. Request a PlexTrac demo to see how you can:

• Consolidate data from multiple scanners and tools.
• Save time with our industry-first AI pentest report authoring capabilities.
• Reduce risk faster with our context-based risk-scoring prioritization.
• Close the loop on continuous validation.

What Is a Pentest Report?

A pentest report is a documented output of tests and findings of a penetration test. It outlines the scope of work (SOW), the testing methods leveraged, vulnerabilities discovered, their risk severity, and recommendations for remediation.

Ideally, the report should relay complicated security vulnerabilities in an easy-to-understand manner, for both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and provide actionable input on how to resolve the biggest security risks first and close any gaps quickly.

What Is Penetration Testing In Software Testing?

When it comes to penetration testing in software testing, pentesters will test and search for vulnerabilities in code, APIs, and configurations. They do this by running simulated cyberattacks against each area of interest to see how attackers could potentially exploit the security flaws. Penetration Testing as a Service (PtaaS) can help with software pentesting because of the need for scalable, ongoing testing.

For example, a software penetration test might attempt to:

• Bypass authentication or authorization controls
• Exploit insecure APIs
• Inject malicious code (e.g., SQL injection, XSS)
• Access sensitive data stored in the application

The penetration tests are meant to uncover flaws before malicious actors do and provide developers with clear guidance on how to fix them.

Who Writes Penetration Testing Reports?

Penetration testing reports are written by security professionals, such as pentesters, who conduct the tests. Ethical hackers or security consultants may also author these pentest reports and gear them towards the organization’s CISOs, engineers, auditors, and other non-technical stakeholders.

How Do I Automate Penetration Testing Reporting?

You can automate penetration testing reporting by using pentest reporting tools like PlexTrac, Dradis, AttackForge, Ghostwriter, PwnDoc, and modern Penetration testing as a Service (PtaaS) platforms that help optimize the reporting process. You can automate finding collection, template formatting, and always generate consistent, professional reports.

Is Penetration Testing Required For Compliance?

Yes, many regulatory and compliance frameworks, such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, FISMA, CMMC, and SOC 2, require penetration testing to prove security controls and procedures are effective. A pentest report provides documented proof for auditors and regulators that the organization is consistently reviewing and optimizing its security posture.

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Remediation and Final Testing Phases: Show Progress, Enhance Security Posture
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Video: The Continuous Pentesting Gold Standard: Taking what’s great and making it better
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