Penetration Testing For Law2026-08-27T08:39:35+00:00

Penetration Testing for Law Firms

CodeShield delivers CREST-accredited penetration testing for law firms and legal practices across the UK, from high-street solicitors and conveyancers to barristers’ chambers, multi-office firms and legal technology providers.

Get a FREE penetration test for law quote today

Crest Member Logo
OSCP Logo
Crest LOGO

CREST-accredited penetration testing Services

CREST-accredited penetration testing for the legal sector

Law firms sit on exactly what attackers want: personal and financial data, privileged and commercially sensitive material, and, for firms handling conveyancing, probate, litigation settlements or completions, money in motion. Ransomware crews, business email compromise and payment-redirection fraud all target the profession specifically, precisely because a single successful attack can be so lucrative and so damaging.

Our penetration testing for law firms is tailored to that reality. Whether you are testing to protect confidential client data, to satisfy the SRA’s expectations, to meet a Lexcel, Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 requirement, or to pass an insurer’s or panel’s due diligence, every engagement is scoped around your environment and the real-world threats your practice actually faces.

You work directly with a qualified tester who understands the duties of confidentiality and privilege you operate under, not a call centre and not an offshore checklist.

Man with codeshield shirt looking at screen of penetration testing report
Tom Sabine in front of web application assessment report

The full range of penetration testing for law firms

Different systems face different threats, so we don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Choose a single targeted assessment or combine services for full coverage across your firm’s attack surface.

  • Web Application Penetration Testing: We test the applications your clients and fee earners depend on, client portals, matter-management and case-management platforms, document exchange and internal tools, for vulnerabilities such as injection flaws, broken authentication and insecure business logic. Essential for any firm exposing sensitive matters through the browser.

  • Network Penetration Testing: We assess your internal and external network infrastructure, servers, firewalls, remote access and office Wi-Fi, to find the weaknesses an attacker would use to move through your firm and reach case files and client account systems. Best suited to firms with in-house IT estates or several offices.

  • Cloud Penetration Testing: We evaluate the cloud environments and configurations most law firms now rely on, Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, for the misconfigurations, excessive permissions and exposed services that lead to breaches of email and document stores.

  • LLM / AI Penetration Testing: We test the AI and large language model tools firms are adopting for drafting, disclosure review and legal research, targeting the threats traditional testing misses: prompt injection, data leakage, model manipulation and insecure integrations. Increasingly relevant as firms deploy AI features and work towards standards such as ISO 42001.

  • Social Engineering Testing: Your technology is only as strong as the people using it, and law firms are a favourite target for phishing and payment-redirection fraud. We test how your team stands up to phishing, pretexting, and other human-focused attacks, then help you close the gaps with practical guidance.

  • Mobile Application Penetration Testing: We test iOS and Android applications for insecure data storage, weak encryption and API vulnerabilities, essential for any firm offering clients a mobile app.

START HERE

Not sure which test you need?

Most people searching “pen test” aren’t sure yet, that’s normal. Pick the closest match, or talk it through directly with a tester. We can incorporate multiple testing types for a single project. We often do web app + network testing if a business wants to cover both.

Three men laughing looking at a laptop in meeting room

Web Application Pen Testing

Customer-facing apps, portals and API layers.

Great for SAAS businesses.

Man with codeshield shirt looking at screen of penetration testing report

Network Penetration Testing

Internal and external infrastructure, patch…

Great for network heavy businesses.

Man with codeshield shirt looking at screen of penetration testing report

Cloud Penetration Testing

AWS, Azure, GCP and more environments.

Great for businesses operating in the cloud.

Man looking at penetration testing screen

AI / LLM Penetration Testing

Prompt injection, ISO 42001 readiness.

Great for applications incorporating AI

Two men shaking hands in front of TV

Social Engineering

Phishing, Vishing, SMShing and more.

Great for businesses with staff on the front line.

Three employees looking at each other

Mobile Application Pen Testing

Customer-facing apps, portals and API layers.

Great for apps on IOS & Android

Still not certain? Tell us what you’re building and we’ll scope it with you on a 15-minute call.

WHY TRUST CODESHIELD

Trusted & Independently verified.

Crest Accreditation Logo

“Tom and team helped greatfully to arrange our pentest to suit our scope and requirements. We will be working with them again in the near future for further tests. Well done guys.”

Adrian Morris

“Excellent service, fast turnaround, and very reasonable cost. CREST-approved testing carried out professionally from start to finish. Highly recommended.”

Matt Bell

“Did a great job on our latest pen test. The team was very helpful, knowledgeable and professional. 100% recommend!”

Billy Carey

Penetration testing for law firms of every shape and size

Legal practices come to us because security isn’t optional in their world, it’s a professional duty and a condition of winning work. Our penetration testing for the legal sector supports:

  • Solicitors & high-street firms: Protecting confidential client data, wills, property files and the client account against fraud and ransomware.
  • Conveyancing & property firms: Defending against payment-redirection (“Friday afternoon”) fraud and business email compromise at the exact moment large sums change hands.
  • Barristers’ chambers: securing case papers, instructions and the shared infrastructure that connects members and clerks.
  • Multi-office & national firms: assessing larger internal networks, connected sites, remote access and corporate Wi-Fi across the practice.
  • In-house legal & general counsel teams: testing the systems that hold privileged advice and commercially sensitive corporate data.
  • Legal technology & LegalTech providers: independent testing of the platforms you sell into law firms, ready for enterprise procurement and due diligence.
  • Alternative Business Structures & legal aid providers: meeting the security expectations attached to regulated work and public contracts.

If your firm handles privileged client information, moves client money, or sells software into regulated legal markets, our penetration testing for law firms is built for you.

Three men laughing looking at a laptop in meeting room

Meet your compliance requirements with confidence

Many firms first come to us because an accreditation, insurer, auditor or panel requires an independent test. We make that requirement straightforward to satisfy, and turn a tick-box exercise into genuine security improvement.

  • SRA expectations: evidencing that you keep client information and client money secure, in line with the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s standards and Codes of Conduct.

  • Lexcel: independent testing to support the information-management and security elements of the Law Society’s practice-management standard.

  • Cyber Essentials & Cyber Essentials Plus: hands-on assessment beyond the self-certified baseline, increasingly expected for panel membership, legal aid and public-sector work.

  • ISO 27001: independent testing to evidence your information security controls.

  • UK GDPR & the Data Protection Act 2018: demonstrating appropriate technical measures for the volume of personal data a law firm holds.

  • Professional indemnity & cyber insurance: satisfying the security questions insurers now ask before they renew or quote.

You’ll receive a clear, audit-ready report that maps findings to what your framework actually asks for, with practical remediation advice to close the gaps, not just document them.

WHY CODESHIELD – 20+ YEARS EXPERIENCE

You work with the person doing the testing.

At CodeShield, our UK penetration testing team brings 20+ years of combined expertise delivering practical, results-driven security solutions tailored to your business.

You work directly with a fully-qualified pen tester. You meet them before you pay, so you know who you’re working with.

  • Find & Fix Vulnerabilities: Uncover hidden threats with expert-led testing and gain true confidence in your security.
  • Simplify Compliance: Navigate ISO, PCI DSS, SOC 2 & DSPT with clear, actionable guidance, not just box-ticking.
  • Strengthen Your Defences:  Prioritise real risks and improve your security posture with insights from seasoned professionals.
  • Save Time & Reduce Complexity: We handle the technical details, letting you stay focused on your business.
Two men looking at a laptop in a meeting room

Our Values

Open Mindedness

We believe there’s no single solution to a security challenge. By staying open to new ideas and approaches, our teams find the best outcomes for every unique obstacle we face.

Honesty & Integrity

We believe there’s no single solution to a security challenge. By staying open to new ideas and approaches, our teams find the best outcomes for every unique obstacle we face.

Professionalism

We believe there’s no single solution to a security challenge. By staying open to new ideas and approaches, our teams find the best outcomes for every unique obstacle we face.

Collaboration

We believe there’s no single solution to a security challenge. By staying open to new ideas and approaches, our teams find the best outcomes for every unique obstacle we face.

What’s in your penetration testing report

The report is where a penetration test earns its value. A test is only as useful as the document that comes out of it, and ours are built to be read and acted on, not filed away. Every engagement ends with a clear, structured report that works for your technical team and your senior stakeholders alike.

  • Executive summary: A plain-English overview of what we tested, what we found, and what it means for your business, written so a non-technical reader can understand your risk position in a couple of minutes.

  • Risk-prioritised findings: Every vulnerability and misconfiguration we identify, rated by severity and real-world impact, so you know exactly what to fix first. No noise, no padding, just the issues that matter, in the order they matter.

  • Technical detail and proof of concept: For each finding, a clear explanation of the issue, proof-of-concept evidence showing how it could be exploited, and everything your team needs to reproduce and verify it.

  • Benchmarking against best practice: Where relevant, findings are mapped against CIS benchmarks and cloud provider best practice, so you can see exactly where your configuration drifts from a secure baseline.

  • Practical remediation advice: Actionable, specific guidance on how to fix each finding, not generic best-practice statements, but steps tailored to your environment. This is the part clients tell us they value most.

  • Debrief and support: The report isn’t the end of the conversation. We walk your team through the findings in a debrief session, answer their questions, and stay on hand as you work through remediation.

See a sample report

Want to see the quality of our reporting before you commit? Download an anonymised sample penetration testing report and see exactly what you’ll receive: the structure, the depth of detail, and the clarity of our remediation advice.

Green technical background

When does a law firm need a penetration test?

Penetration testing isn’t a one-off box to tick. It’s something to build into the key moments of your business. You should consider a test when:

  • You’re launching a new client portal, app or case-management system: test before it’s exposed to real clients and real attackers, not after.

  • You’re preparing for a Lexcel, Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 assessment: these frameworks expect independent testing as part of certification.

  • An insurer, panel or client is asking for it: professional indemnity renewals and enterprise clients increasingly require evidence of penetration testing before they’ll proceed.

  • You’ve made significant infrastructure or software changes: cloud migrations, new integrations or major releases can introduce vulnerabilities that weren’t there before.

  • You’re merging with, acquiring or being acquired by another firm: understand the security posture of what you’re taking on, or reassure the people investing in you.

  • You’ve had a security incident or a near miss: verify the gap is closed and check for anything else an attacker may have reached.

  • It’s simply been a while: best practice is at least once a year. If you can’t remember your last test, you’re overdue.

Not sure which of these applies to your firm? A quick scoping conversation will tell you what you need, and, just as importantly, what you don’t.

LIVE REPORTING

Stay informed throughout your penetration test with real-time access to findings through our secure client portal.

As vulnerabilities are identified, they’re immediately available for your team to review, giving you complete visibility into the assessment as it progresses. Any High or Critical findings are communicated straight away via your agreed contact channels, ensuring urgent risks are never left waiting until the final report.

Our collaborative approach also allows for interactive re-testing during the engagement. As fixes are implemented, our consultants can validate them in real time, helping to reduce outstanding vulnerabilities before testing is complete.

At the end of the engagement, your portal is updated with the final quality-assured report, providing a comprehensive record of the assessment, findings, remediation guidance, and supporting evidence.

DCSync Finding

TRUSTED UK PENETRATION TESTERS

Contact CodeShield today for penetration testing for law firms

At CodeShield, our UK penetration testing team brings 20+ years of combined expertise, delivering practical, results-driven security tailored to your firm.

Get a FREE penetration test quote today

Crest Member Logo
OSCP Logo
Crest LOGO

Penetration testing FAQs

How does the shared responsibility model affect testing?2026-07-27T07:27:38+00:00

Cloud providers secure the underlying infrastructure, but securing how you configure and use their services is your responsibility. Our testing focuses squarely on that customer side, where the vast majority of cloud breaches actually occur.

Do you offer retesting after we fix the issues?2026-07-20T08:39:27+00:00

Yes. Our support doesn’t end at the report. Once you’ve addressed the findings, we can retest to confirm the fixes are effective, giving you and your stakeholders verified assurance that the risks have been closed.

How much does network penetration testing cost?2026-07-27T08:41:24+00:00

The cost depends on scope: the size and complexity of your network, the number of live hosts and sites, and whether you need internal testing, external testing, or both. Rather than quote a misleading flat rate, we scope every engagement individually so you only pay for testing that delivers real value. Get in touch for a tailored quote.

Do you test APIs as well as the application?2026-07-27T09:02:51+00:00

Yes. APIs are one of the most common sources of serious vulnerabilities, so every connected endpoint receives the same scrutiny as the application itself, including tests for authentication gaps, excessive data exposure, and broken object-level authorisation.

How often should we carry out penetration testing?2026-07-27T07:52:27+00:00

Industry best practice is to test at least annually, and after any significant change to your infrastructure or applications. Frameworks such as PCI DSS and ISO 27001 typically require annual testing. We’ll help you define the right cadence for your organisation.

What’s the difference between black box, grey box, and white box testing?2026-07-27T09:03:25+00:00

In black box testing the tester has no prior knowledge of the application. In white box testing they have full access to code and documentation. Grey box sits in between, with partial knowledge for a realistic yet efficient assessment. We’ll help you choose the right approach for your goals during scoping.

Will testing disrupt our live app or users?2026-07-20T08:39:38+00:00

No. Wherever possible we test against a non-production environment such as UAT or QA, so there’s no risk to your live service. If that isn’t possible, we take a more cautious approach to post-exploitation testing to protect your users.

What’s the difference between a network pen test and a vulnerability scan?2026-07-27T08:41:38+00:00

A vulnerability scan is automated and flags known issues. A penetration test adds expert human analysis, actively exploiting weaknesses to understand the real business impact and uncovering the misconfigurations, credential issues, and lateral movement paths that scanners simply cannot find.

Go to Top