Monthly Vs. Annual Penetration Testing: Key Statistics for 2025

In today’s rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape, it’s getting harder and harder for organisations to justify treating security testing as a once-a-year checkbox.

Traditional annual penetration testing, while once a gold standard, is facing stiff competition from monthly automated testing, which is growing at an astonishing rate in the face of sophisticated and constantly shifting attack vectors.

Monthly automated penetration testing offers a modern approach for continuous insight, faster detection, and a stronger security posture. Below, we break down the compelling reasons why this shift towards monthly testing is happening, as organisations look for new, cost-effective methods to reduce their cyber risk and ensure they remain compliant.

1. Faster Vulnerability Detection & Response

One of the most significant advantages of monthly automated testing is speed and efficiency.

• Organisations using continuous or monthly penetration testing reduce Mean-Time-to-Detect (MTTD) vulnerabilities by up to 80%.
     → Source: SANS Institute

• Monthly automated testing identifies vulnerabilities up to 6x faster than annual testing.
     → Source: Ponemon Institute

Key Takeaway: Faster detection means fewer open doors for attackers to exploit.

2. Reduced Risk of Breaches

The risk of cyber breaches decreases substantially with more frequent testing.

• Companies that undertake security tests more frequently (monthly or continuously) experience 50% fewer successful breaches compared to those testing annually.
     → Source: IBM Security X-Force

• Over 60% of breaches exploited known vulnerabilities that had been fixable for months before discovery – often due to infrequent testing.
     → Source: Verizon DBIR

Key Takeaway: Monthly testing minimises the window of exposure.

3. Improved Compliance and Risk Posture

Compliance with frameworks such as ISO 27001, NIS2, Cyber Essentials Plus, and PCI-DSS is increasingly dependent on continuous monitoring and proactive security controls.

• Automated monthly testing leads to 40% higher audit readiness and significantly improves compliance metrics for certifications such as ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS.
     → Source: Gartner

• Organisations with automated pen testing report 30–40% higher security maturity scores than those relying on traditional annual pen tests.
     → Source: Forrester Research

Key Takeaway: Security is no longer just about passing a yearly audit, it’s about proving resilience every day. Frequent testing supports a culture of continuous compliance.

4. Cost Savings

Whilst the thought of monthly penetration testing may sound more resource-intensive initially, the cost savings over time are significant. It’s also important to note that the time it takes to remediate issues is drastically reduced after the first 1-2 months. From month 3, it’s typically 1-2 informational or low risk issues that will be discovered, which will be easier to sustain and keep on top of.

• Monthly testing reduces long-term costs by preventing high-impact breaches, which cost an average of £3.25 million per incident.
     → Source: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report

• Automated testing cuts average testing costs by 30–50% due to reduced manual labour and streamlined processes.
     → Source: Vonahi Security

Key Takeaway: Automated testing pays for itself in breach prevention alone, and you get 12 x tests for significantly less cost than 1 x traditional manual test.

Final Thoughts

In cyber security, frequency equals resilience. Relying on an annual pen test snapshot of your security posture leaves lengthy gaps for weakness to develop and for exploits to sneak through. Monthly automated penetration testing offers the speed, consistency, and depth that modern organisations need to stay ahead of threats and meet evolving compliance expectations.

If your organisations still relies on legacy penetration testing cycles, now could be the time to upgrade to protect your data and reputation.