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Advanced Security Assessments Australia
CyberPulse delivers advanced security assessments that measure your real exposure, not just your paperwork. From penetration testing and configuration reviews to Essential Eight maturity and cloud security assessments, our consultants combine hands-on testing with clear, prioritised remediation guidance so you know exactly what to fix first.
Trusted by leading Australian organisations
CyberPulse clients include Minter Ellison, Veolia, Sydney Roosters, Utopia Digital and Meshed.
Expose gaps. Validate controls. Prove resilience.
Our advanced security assessments help improve cyber resilience. From adversary simulations to cloud misconfiguration audits and real-time detection rule validation, our services are designed to align your security posture with the threats you face.
Our Assessments
Security Maturity Assessments
Assess your cyber maturity with our best practice aligned Cyber Controls Assessment, based on ISO, NIST and Essential 8. Simple board ready reports to show your posture.
Control Validation
Benchmark your existing security stack against the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Identify redundant tools, configuration gaps, and blind spots in coverage across EDR, SIEM, firewall, and endpoint controls.
Detection Rule Validation
We test the efficacy of your SIEM and EDR detection rules using real-world adversary emulation. Identifying failed logic paths, ineffective rules, broken log pipelines and security blinds spots.
Cloud Security Audits
Audit AWS, Azure, and GCP environments for critical issues such as IAM overprovisioning, lack of logging, shadow admin accounts, public S3 exposure, and insecure APIs.
Ransomware Readiness Assessment
We test your environment’s ability to detect, delay and contain ransomware attacks. Simulating techniques used by groups like LockBit, CIOp, and BlackCat to expose lateral movement and backing targeting weaknesses.
Adversarial Exposure Validation
We mimic modern adversaries across your network to uncover attack paths, domain escalation risks, and identity-based blink spots.
Our track record in numbers
Value of Assessments
- 32% of evasive malware uses Process Injection (MITRE T1055) – the #1 technique in threat simulations 32%
- T1562: Impair Defences has surged 333% year-on-year, with attackers now disabling EDRs before launching payloads 333%
- 88% of threats are logged, but only 12% generate alerts 88%
- 79% of organisations faced at least one cloud security incident in the last year — Picus Red Report 2024, Check Point 2024 79%
- Only 12% of threats trigger alerts, despite 54% being logged—highlighting significant rule-to-telemetry failures. — Red Report 2024 12%
- 79% of organisations experienced a cloud-related security incident in the past 12 months — Check Point 2024 Cloud Security Report 79%
- 40% of enterprises have internal pathways leading to domain admin compromise — MITRE & Enterprise Strategy Group, 2024 40%
What a ransomware readiness assessment covers
A ransomware readiness assessment tests whether your controls would actually detect and contain a ransomware attack, using controlled simulations of real adversary techniques mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.
CyberPulse tests your environment’s ability to detect, contain and recover from ransomware by simulating the techniques attackers use in practice, rather than assuming the security stack works. The simulations are controlled and agreed in advance, and attacker behaviour is mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework so results are concrete. This matters because common evasive techniques slip past unvalidated defences; for example, process injection (MITRE T1055) accounts for 32 percent of evasive malware and ranks as the leading technique seen in threat simulations. The assessment shows whether detection rules fire, whether logging captures the right events and where resilience needs improvement, then reports the specific gaps in board-ready language. It suits Australian organisations that want evidence their defences hold rather than a theoretical checklist.
Types of security assessment offered
CyberPulse offers security maturity assessments, control validation, detection-rule validation, cloud security audits, ransomware readiness testing and adversarial exposure validation.
CyberPulse’s assessments address different questions about security effectiveness. A security maturity assessment benchmarks the organisation against a best-practice controls framework and shows where it sits today. Control validation identifies redundant tools, configuration gaps and blind spots across the existing stack. Detection-rule validation uses real-world adversary emulation to test whether SIEM and EDR alerts actually trigger. Cloud security audits examine identity and access management, logging and API security across AWS, Azure and GCP. Ransomware readiness testing simulates the techniques used by active ransomware groups to gauge resilience. Adversarial exposure validation mimics a modern attacker to expose weaknesses and map likely attack paths to domain admin compromise. Each assessment can be run on its own or combined, depending on whether the priority is a compliance baseline or a test of live defences.
Security assessment vs penetration test
A security assessment evaluates the effectiveness and maturity of your overall control environment, while a penetration test focuses on exploiting specific systems to prove what an attacker could achieve.
| Security assessment | Penetration test | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Effectiveness and maturity of your overall control environment | Whether specific systems can be exploited, and how far an attacker gets |
| Scope | Broad: people, process and technology across the environment | Targeted: defined systems, applications or networks in scope |
| Main question | How strong and mature are our controls? | Can an attacker break in, and what is the real impact? |
| Output | A maturity rating and a prioritised improvement roadmap | Exploited findings with proof and remediation guidance |
| Best used for | Board assurance, roadmap planning and tracking posture over time | Validating specific defences and meeting point-in-time test requirements |
These two services are often confused. A penetration test is targeted and depth-first: it attacks defined systems to prove which vulnerabilities are exploitable and how far an attacker could progress. A security assessment is broader and posture-focused: it evaluates whether the organisation's controls, detection and processes are effective across the environment, and how mature they are against frameworks such as ISO 27001, NIST and the Essential Eight. Many organisations need both. A penetration test answers the question of whether a system can be breached, while an assessment answers whether the security programme is actually working and where the gaps are. CyberPulse frequently sequences the two, using an assessment to set priorities and a penetration test to validate the highest-risk systems in depth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What frameworks do your assessments use?
CyberPulse aligns assessments to ISO 27001, NIST and the ASD Essential Eight, and maps attacker techniques to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. The framework used depends on your obligations and goals.
Who is a security assessment for?
Assessments suit organisations that have already invested in security tools and want to know whether those controls are effective, as well as boards and executives who need an independent, plain-English view of their security posture.
What do we receive at the end?
You receive board-ready reporting on your security posture, a list of the specific gaps, blind spots and evasion techniques identified, and a practical remediation roadmap prioritised by risk.
How is a ransomware readiness assessment carried out?
CyberPulse simulates the techniques used by known ransomware groups to test whether your controls detect and contain them, then reports where resilience needs improvement. Simulations are controlled and agreed in advance.
How often should we run a security assessment?
Most organisations assess annually, or after a significant change such as a cloud migration, a merger or a major incident. Regulated entities may need to assess more frequently to meet their obligations.
Do you provide cyber security audit services?
Yes. Our security assessments are a form of cyber security audit: we review your controls, systems and processes against recognised frameworks, identify where you are exposed, and give you a prioritised, practical remediation plan. Whether you need a point-in-time security audit, a ransomware readiness review, or an ongoing assessment programme, we tailor the scope to your environment and risk.
Related Services
View all services →What They Say About Us
The managed service model delivers that, while freeing my team from the bulk of compliance coordination effort and lifting the quality of both controls and supporting evidence. The outcome is a programme with the capacity to mature further and to take on new certification frameworks proactively, ahead of client and regulatory triggers.
What stands out is the depth of expertise. CyberPulse brings real command of the standards and the threat landscape, and applies it with judgement rather than box-ticking. Year on year they strengthen our security and compliance maturity and give leadership confidence that risk is genuinely understood, not just documented.
CyberPulse gave us clarity we didn't have before, not just on where we stood but a practical path forward. The roadmap they delivered has become the foundation of how we think about security investment.
Their guidance was practical, clear, and always grounded in what actually mattered for our business. They didn't just help us tick boxes; they helped us build a security posture we're genuinely proud of. If you're serious about enterprise-grade security, I can't recommend Cyber Pulse highly enough.
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