What elements should you be sure to remove from an exploited system before finalizing a penetration test?

User accounts created during testing must be removed to ensure no unauthorized access paths remain after the engagement ends.

Shells spawned during exploitation - including backdoors, listeners, and reverse shells - must be terminated and deleted, as leaving them active creates persistent unauthorized access paths into the target system.

Any files left behind such as exploit payloads, tools, or scripts must be deleted to eliminate forensic artifacts and avoid leaving weaponized content on client systems after the test concludes.

The Administrator account is a native built-in system account that existed before the penetration test began and must not be removed, as doing so would cause operational damage and falls outside the scope of post-test cleanup.