The one where public data led to private access

A fintech company managing over £10 billion in debt resolution for millions of customers had built their security around compliance. Regular penetration testing checked every box, governance processes aligned with industry standards, and their risk management looked bulletproof on paper.

But when their Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance asked the uncomfortable question “What about the risks we can’t see?” everything changed. This is how constant, adversarial pressure revealed the blind spots that traditional testing never touched.

The challenge

This wasn’t a company taking security lightly.

Their business runs on trust, handling vast amounts of personal and financial data that makes them a prime target for attackers. Their security approach had fallen into the compliance trap: scoped, scheduled, and focused on passing audits rather than finding real vulnerabilities.Traditional penetration testing had become routine. It produced reports, not discoveries.

The company needed visibility beyond the audit checklist, into the attack surface that real adversaries would actually exploit.CovertSwarm was engaged to simulate constant attack across their entire estate, using the same reconnaissance methods and persistence as genuine threat actors.

The reconnaissance

We began where every real attacker starts: with open-source intelligence.

By systematically mapping publicly available information about the organization, we identified over 2,000 potential attack vectors. Each one represented a doorway into their infrastructure that malicious actors could find just as easily.From those findings, we developed ten focused attack plans targeting their most critical systems.

One of the first targets was their mobile application, a channel often overlooked by internal testing teams who focus on traditional network perimeters.Within days, we discovered exposed infrastructure that should never have been public. This gave us the opportunity to demonstrate how attackers could pivot from what’s visible online to what’s supposed to be private.

The breakthrough

Through controlled simulation, we demonstrated how this exposure could be exploited to reach sensitive systems. The company’s security tools worked exactly as designed, but they were blind to threats originating from unexpected directions.

By identifying and validating these weaknesses safely, the team gained a clearer view of their real attack surface. This wasn’t about passing a test. It was about understanding the risk that compliance had completely missed.

The exercise revealed something fundamental: their security posture looked strong from the inside, but from an attacker’s perspective, it was full of gaps.

The transformation

The client’s GRC team immediately saw the value in shifting from periodic validation to continuous adversarial pressure. Within months, their detection capabilities improved, their response times accelerated, and their leadership gained confidence that their controls reflected reality, not just regulation.

More importantly, they understood that sporadic testing for a limited time just won’t cut it when it comes to closing the cyber risk gap. Constant threat demands constant, targeted attack.

The reality check

This fintech organization discovered that real security starts where compliance ends. Public data, overlooked infrastructure, and untested assumptions become silent entry points when they aren’t continuously challenged.

The gap between perceived cyber risk and actual risk can be severe, leading to financial loss and reputational damage. Traditional security testing fails because it operates on schedules while attackers operate constantly.

Make our attack your best defense.

Contact CovertSwarm today and discover what your compliance reports can’t see.