VAPT stands for Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing. The vulnerability assessment part identifies weaknesses across your systems, networks and applications; the penetration testing part goes further, with skilled testers actively trying to exploit those weaknesses the way a real attacker would. Together they tell you not just what's theoretically vulnerable, but what can actually be broken into — and how to fix it.

A VAPT is a technical test of your defences — it finds and proves exploitable security flaws. A compliance audit measures your controls and processes against a standard like ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, DPDP or RBI expectations, and tells you where you fall short of that framework. One asks "can we be hacked?"; the other asks "do we meet the required standard?". Many organisations need both, and a VAPT is often one input into a compliance audit.

CERT-In maintains a panel of security auditing organisations it has assessed and empanelled. For certain government, public-sector and regulated engagements, an audit from a CERT-In empanelled auditor is expected or required, because the report carries recognised standing. If your driver is a regulator, a government tender or a large enterprise customer, empanelment often matters; for internal assurance it may not. We help you determine what your situation calls for.

Automated scanning is useful and cheap, but it only finds known, surface-level issues and produces false positives and negatives. It can't chain weaknesses together, test business logic, or think creatively like an attacker — which is where real breaches happen. A scan rebranded as a "penetration test" can give dangerous false confidence. Genuine expert-led testing costs more but finds the issues that actually matter, which is why we highlight methodology so clearly.

A common approach is at least annually, plus after major changes such as a new application, cloud migration or infrastructure overhaul — and as your customers, regulators or standards require. Regular testing also supports DPDP, RBI, PCI-DSS and CERT-In expectations around assessing and managing risk. Pricing is usually per engagement, scaled to scope and depth, with retesting sometimes extra. Figures here are illustrative, and this is general guidance, not legal advice — confirm current requirements with the provider and your advisors.