In Dawadmi's gold belt the asset is small, dense and portable, and the only thing proving where it went is a chain of records. CyberFortify runs manual network, web, cloud and API penetration tests here, concentrating on the integrity of assay, weighing, pour and reconciliation data, aligned to NCA ECC, NCA OTCC and the Saudi PDPL. Active testing stays on IT and non-production; operational technology is assessed passively. Fixed price, free retest.
// 01 Why Dawadmi businesses need penetration testing
Weigh a server rack against the material it accounts for and the economics of this governorate become obvious. Gold is the rare commodity where a quantity carried in one hand outvalues the infrastructure built to track it. That inverts the usual security question. The interesting target in Dawadmi is not the data centre - it is the record saying how much came out of the ground, how much survived the assay, what the pour weighed, and who signed for it at the gate.
Those records live in ordinary enterprise software: laboratory information systems, weighbridge and scale integrations, ERP inventory modules, and the manifests generated for secure movement off site. Each hand-off is a custody transfer, only as trustworthy as the authorisation and audit logging around it. If an assay result can be amended without a second authoriser, a weighing capture overwritten before it posts, or a manifest reissued after dispatch, material can be diverted and the reconciliation will still balance. That is a control question, not a metallurgy question.
Dispersed pit and plant sites sit behind this as a second-order concern. Remote monitoring links and contractor connections extend the attack surface across long distances, and were rarely designed with segmentation in mind. A penetration test establishes whether a foothold in the office estate reaches the systems generating custody records at all - and where the boundary actually falls, rather than where the diagram claims.
// 02 Compliance and regulatory drivers in Dawadmi
Obligations here come from the national baseline, from operational technology guidance, and from the assurance auditors of high-value material expect. These are the requirements we most often map evidence against in the governorate.
NCA OT Cybersecurity Controls (OTCC)
Processing estates in Riyadh Province fall under the NCA's OT controls, which expect defined zones, controlled remote access and assessed boundaries. We evidence those boundaries without directing active testing at live production.
NCA Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC)
Government bodies in the governorate and their contractors fall under the ECC, whose Cybersecurity Defence domain requires periodic vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. Our reporting closes those sub-controls with named evidence.
Custody & reconciliation record integrity
Assay certificates, weighing tickets, pour records and transport manifests are the audit trail behind every gram declared. We test whether they can be amended, back-dated or re-signed, and whether inventory variance reporting would surface it.
IEC 62443
Zone and conduit design is the standard language for separating plant systems from corporate IT. We assess the design against traffic actually observed, so segmentation claims rest on evidence rather than intent.
Saudi PDPL
Operators, contractors, clinics and retailers across Dawadmi hold employee and customer data, and owe appropriate technical measures under the Personal Data Protection Law. Independent testing evidences that those measures were validated, not assumed.
// 03 Penetration testing services for Dawadmi
Which service leads depends on where custody records are generated and held. Heavy-plant operators lead on network and segmentation work; those running reconciliation in cloud ERP lead with cloud and API testing; contractors start at the external perimeter.
Network pen testing
External perimeter, internal Active Directory, remote-access and segmentation testing across offices, plant boundaries and dispersed site links.
Web application pen testing
Manual OWASP-driven testing of laboratory, inventory, dispatch and manifest applications, prioritising authorisation logic over surface bugs.
API pen testing
Object-level authorisation testing on the interfaces carrying assay results, scale readings and inventory postings between systems.
Cloud pen testing
Configuration-aware AWS, Azure and Google Cloud testing for ERP, reconciliation and monitoring workloads, including identity and key handling.
Mobile app pen testing
iOS and Android testing for the field, inspection and driver apps used to capture and sign off movements off-desk.
Red teaming
Goal-based adversary simulation built around record-tampering and insider-collusion objectives rather than generic domain-admin capture.
// 04 How we deliver to Dawadmi
Dawadmi runs on Arabia Standard Time, UTC+3 - the same working day as our Gulf base - so scheduling is straightforward and most work needs no travel in the quote. Site work is planned as one efficient visit rather than repeated trips down the Riyadh road.
What runs remotely
External perimeter, web, cloud, API and reconciliation-application testing from our secure environment during your business hours, with Arabic or English read-outs and same-day escalation of critical findings.
What we do on-site
Internal network and wireless testing, plant and pit boundary review, and passive observation of operational traffic - scheduled with operations so nothing production-critical is disturbed.
Every engagement opens with a free 30-minute scoping call and a fixed-price quote within the hour. No hourly meters, no scope creep, and a free remediation retest once fixes ship.
// 05 Industries we secure in Dawadmi
The governorate's economy pairs extraction and processing with agriculture and the regional services supporting both. We test across the sectors that define its risk profile:
// 06 Our methodology
Dawadmi engagements follow the same audit-defensible process CyberFortify runs worldwide, grounded in the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES) and NIST SP 800-115, with exploitation mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and application work driven by OWASP. As a CREST Accreditation Pathway firm we lead with manual testing. Automation supports the tester, never replaces one, and is never pointed at a live plant network.
Scoping & rules of engagement
Targets, in-scope ranges, OT exclusions, test windows and abort paths agreed in writing before anything is touched.
Fixed quote in 1hCustody mapping & threat modelling
We trace material from sampling to dispatch, marking every system that creates, amends or attests a custody record.
ATT&CK alignedManual exploitation
Confirmed weaknesses are exploited and chained on IT and non-production estates, with false positives eliminated by hand.
Controlled exploitReporting & free retest
Executive summary, CVSS-scored technical report and NCA control mapping - followed by a free retest once fixes ship.
Audit-ready// 07 Why CyberFortify for Dawadmi
A vendor that tests the wrong asset
A fly-in firm that loads travel into the quote, hands over scanner output as a penetration test, and never asks who can amend an assay result or reissue a manifest - the questions deciding whether your inventory figures mean anything.
CyberFortify in the Gulf
A Gulf-based, CREST-pathway team in your own time zone, delivering remotely with no travel padding. Manual exploitation aimed at the authorisation and audit paths behind custody records, findings mapped to NCA ECC, OTCC and the PDPL, fixed pricing, free retest.
Dawadmi engagements commonly pair network testing with an API assessment, because the weakest link is usually the quiet integration moving a weight or an assay figure into the ledger everyone trusts.
// 08 Frequently asked questions
Why does chain of custody matter more than perimeter security for Dawadmi operators?
Because the material is worth more than the infrastructure holding it. A few kilograms of doré outvalues the entire server estate that records it, and the only thing between that value and a quiet diversion is a chain of records - assay certificates, weighing tickets, pour logs, manifests and the reconciliation tying them together. Perimeter controls still matter, but a test that never examines whether those records can be edited, back-dated or re-signed has not tested what actually protects the asset.
What exactly do you test in an assay and reconciliation environment?
We test the authorisation and audit paths around the records, not the metallurgy. That means whether a laboratory information system accepts an amended assay result without a second authoriser, whether weighbridge readings can be replayed or overwritten before posting, whether pour and inventory records carry tamper-evident logging, whether manifests can be reissued after dispatch, and whether an operator account reaches the reconciliation ledger meant to detect all of it. Findings are written up defensively, as control gaps with fixes.
Will testing put processing plant or pit operations at risk?
No, because we do not aim active testing at live production. Operational technology at plant and pit is handled through passive traffic review, configuration and architecture assessment, and interviews. Active, exploit-driven testing runs against corporate IT, internet-facing services, cloud tenants and non-production environments. Anything touching live production happens only under agreed controlled conditions, in a written window, with operations present and an abort path defined in advance.
Which regulations drive penetration testing for organisations in Dawadmi?
The NCA Essential Cybersecurity Controls apply to government bodies in the governorate and to their suppliers, and the Cybersecurity Defence domain requires periodic vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. Operators running plant and process control fall additionally under the NCA Operational Technology Cybersecurity Controls, commonly evidenced alongside IEC 62443 zone and conduit design. Any organisation holding employee or customer data is covered by the Saudi PDPL, and ISO 27001:2022 certified groups use A.8.29 as the hook for independent testing.
Can you serve Dawadmi remotely, and what needs someone on site?
Most of it runs remotely. Dawadmi keeps Arabia Standard Time, UTC+3, the same clock as our Gulf base, so external, web, cloud, API and reconciliation-application testing is delivered from our secure environment with no travel in the quote. Internal network testing, wireless coverage at dispersed pit and plant sites, and the segmentation review between site and corporate estates are arranged as a single planned visit.