As risk actors develop quicker, stealthier, and extra persistent, the strategy to pentesting must hold evolving. Conventional, periodic assessments not sustain with quickly altering assault surfaces. Static exams provide a snapshot, however attackers see a reside stream. Safety testing must shift testing fashions to reflect how real-world attackers function.
At Sprocket Safety, our Steady Penetration Testing (CPT) resolution is an all the time on, all the time lively, and hybrid pentesting mannequin.
On this article, we are going to examine the most typical fashions — Level-in-Time Pentests, PTaaS, Bug Bounty Applications, Automated Instruments, and Steady Penetration Testing — to discover why CPT is rising as the simplest mannequin for proactive security groups.
The Present Panorama of Penetration Testing Choices
Pentesting isn’t one measurement matches all. Thus, a number of fashions have emerged, every making an attempt to steadiness depth, velocity, and protection. However not all pentests are created equal.
Understanding how these approaches differ is crucial to selecting the best offensive security technique on your group.
Under, we break down the 5 most typical fashions by strengths, limitations, and the place they slot in a proactive security program.
1. Level-in-Time Pentest
What it’s: Scheduled handbook exams, usually annual or quarterly, centered on predefined scopes.
Strengths: Thorough, compliance-friendly, human-driven.
Limitations: Rare, static, restricted to the second in time it was performed.
Value: One-time value, however with no ongoing protection and extra charges for retesting.
Additionally referred to as legacy exams, they usually discover actual points, however these rapidly go stale as infrastructure, purposes, and threats evolve.
2. PTaaS (Penetration Testing as a Service)
What it’s: Platform-based testing with dashboards, ticketing, and extra accessible reporting.
Strengths: Simpler to handle, quicker supply, scalable.
Limitations: Nonetheless scoped and scheduled like legacy exams, not actually steady, reactive by design.
Value: Decrease upfront prices with a subscription-based pricing, however pricing varies extensively based mostly do platform options and distributors are inclined to cost for every check.
PTaaS improves the testing expertise however doesn’t basically change the cadence or mindset of testing.
3. Bug Bounty
What it’s: Incentivized, crowdsourced testing by unbiased researchers.
Strengths: Broad attacker creativity.
Limitations: Inconsistent protection, duplicate noise, lengthy suggestions loops, and lack of strategic context.
Value: Whole spend is unpredictable and may spike with researcher exercise. Additionally, it requires inner sources to tirage and validate.
Bug bounties can catch edge-case bugs however are unreliable as a main offensive security technique.
4. Automated Safety Testing
What it’s: Instruments like SAST, DAST, and scanners built-in into pipelines or manufacturing.
Strengths: Quick, scalable, nice for surface-level protection.
Limitations: Excessive false positives, lacks human creativity, and don’t emulate actual attackers.
Value: Decrease prices than different testing however restricted long-term worth with out human validation.
Automation is crucial, however with out human oversight, it misses crucial logic flaws, chained exploits, and contextual nuances.
5. CPT (Steady Penetration Testing)
What it’s: An always-on offensive security strategy combining human-led testing with automation. Simulates persistent attackers working towards your assault floor on daily basis, not simply annually.
Strengths: Actual-world assault simulation, contextual findings, real-time alerts and remediation assist, limitless retesting, and lowered time to remediation.
Limitations: Nonetheless requires strategic scoping and inner readiness to behave on findings.
Value: Increased ongoing funding than point-in-time exams, however delivers steady protection, limitless retesting and quicker remediation cycles.
CPT integrates together with your groups and aligns with present wants and priorities, decreasing remediation lag and preserving exploitation home windows brief.
Legacy penetration exams have been normal in security for a very long time however go away you susceptible if you’re not actively being examined.
With steady pentesting, you possibly can take a proactive strategy to security, addressing vulnerabilities as they come up, and taking motion to remediate.
Keep Forward of Threats with CPT
The Rise of CPT
At the moment’s exploitation panorama strikes at a velocity that almost all testing strategies can’t sustain with.
Annually, over 19,000 crucial and high-severity vulnerabilities are disclosed. The common time to weaponize a newly disclosed vulnerability is simply 5 days.
Examine that to a legacy pentest, which can take 20 days to finish and solely occurs a couple of times a 12 months.
That leaves organizations with a whole bunch of untested, high-risk days, throughout which attackers have the higher hand.
Attackers don’t wait so that you can schedule your subsequent pentest. They scan, exploit, and pivot 24/7. That’s the place an answer like Sprocket Safety’s CPT comes into play.
Sprocket’s Steady Safety Testing
Our CPT resolution was constructed to counter this actuality. We use a mix of assault floor administration and people to detect change and carry out steady testing that removes time constraints.
This extra carefully simulates the conduct of a persistent attacker and helps groups reply earlier than vulnerabilities grow to be incidents.
Right here’s how Sprocket delivers real-world safety:
- Actual-time visibility: Steady monitoring of vulnerabilities and assault floor adjustments.
- Limitless retesting: Retest anytime at no additional value to rapidly confirm fixes.
- Skilled assist: Get remediation and testing steering from our group, not simply stories.
- Decreased publicity time: Cut back the window between vulnerability discovery and remediation, which ends up in fewer emergency patches and decrease probability of exploitation.
- Keep compliant: All the time-on testing to fulfill SOC 2, PCI, ISO, and extra.
CPT doesn’t simply discover vulnerabilities, however helps you reply quicker, patch smarter, and construct resilience towards the tempo of recent threats.
Why CPT Is the Future
CPT aligns security with the velocity and persistence of recent growth and threats. By combining expert-driven testing with real-time, actionable insights, security groups are empowered to maneuver quick with out sacrificing safety, determine real-world assault paths, and construct a extra resilient system over time.
CPT additionally performs a foundational position in enabling Steady Menace Publicity Administration (CTEM). This proactive technique is targeted on figuring out, validating, and remediating danger by means of its 5 phases — scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization.
CPT enhances this framework in highly effective methods to assist your group assess threats, validate exposures, and strengthen security.
It’s not simply testing. It’s steady, clever danger administration designed for the way attackers function at present.
Actual-World Success: From Annual to Steady Mannequin
A Sprocket Safety consumer within the healthcare trade was not glad with the protection their annual pentest was offering them. They moved to our steady mannequin, which enabled their small security group to detect and remediate dangers, serving to defend affected person knowledge and uphold model belief year-round! All with out growing their very own headcount.
This shift didn’t simply enhance security, however reworked their complete strategy to danger. With CPT, the consumer moved from a reactive, compliance-driven strategy to a proactive security technique that scales with their enterprise.
At the moment, they’ve steady insights into their risk publicity, quicker remediation cycles, and better confidence that their most delicate knowledge is protected on daily basis of the 12 months.
Conclusion: Safety is a Journey, Not a Snapshot
Safety isn’t static and your testing shouldn’t be both. Whereas legacy pentests, PTaaS, bug bounties, and automation every convey a stage of worth, none provide the constant, attackerfocused perception that CPT delivers.
Steady Penetration Testing is greater than a way of testing — it’s a mindset shift. It replaces outdated snapshots with real-time perception and fixed attacker-focused validation. It’s how proactive security groups keep forward, cut back danger, and construct long-term resilience.
Sprocket Safety is able to assist your group, Watch our platform demo on-demand or attain out to request a quote from our group!
Sponsored and written by Sprocket Safety.
