A company has developed a SaaS product for the financial services industry. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SaaS company has engaged an independent third party to run tests against its platfo

For a SaaS product in the highly regulated financial services industry, security is paramount; an independent third party is most likely engaged to perform penetration testing, which actively attempts to exploit vulnerabilities to simulate real-world attacks and provide a comprehensive assessment of the platform's security defenses and compliance readiness.

Load testing focuses on performance and scalability under stress, not the primary security concerns critical for financial services.

While vulnerability testing identifies weaknesses, penetration testing goes further by attempting to exploit them, offering a more complete security validation often sought from independent third parties.

Functionality testing verifies if the application's features work as intended, which is typically an internal quality assurance task rather than the primary reason to engage an independent security firm for a financial product.