What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing (pentesting) in crypto is the authorized simulation of attacks against smart contracts, infrastructure, and operational processes — identifying vulnerabilities before malicious actors find them.
WHY IT MATTERS
Pentesting goes beyond auditing by simulating real attacks. Instead of reviewing code for known patterns, pentesters try to actually exploit the system — finding vulnerabilities that code review alone might miss, including economic exploits, operational weaknesses, and cross-system attacks.
Crypto pentesting targets: smart contracts (novel exploit vectors), frontend applications (phishing, XSS), infrastructure (server access, key management), and operational procedures (social engineering).
Regular pentesting is a best practice for any protocol handling significant value — it provides realistic assessment of security posture beyond what static analysis and code review deliver.