The Penetration Testing Execution Standard: a set of guidelines covering an engagement end to end, from scoping to reporting.
PTES is the most complete description of what a full penetration test covers. It is useful as the spine of an engagement, making sure the work does not jump straight to exploitation and skip scoping, threat modeling, or the reporting that actually delivers value to the client.
| Phase | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Pre-engagement Interactions | Scope, goals, approvals, rules of engagement, and tooling |
| Intelligence Gathering | OSINT and other recon to understand the target |
| Threat Modeling | Identify likely attack paths and high-value assets |
| Vulnerability Analysis | Discover and validate vulnerabilities |
| Exploitation | Breach the target using the validated vulnerabilities |
| Post Exploitation | Maintain access, escalate, and assess impact |
| Reporting | Document the process and findings for the client |
I treat the phases as the backbone of the engagement and slot the technique pages in this toolkit into the matching phase. The pre-engagement and reporting phases are the ones least worth cutting under time pressure, because they are what make the test authorized and useful.