Starting your pentest journey with the right penetration testing firm can make a lot of difference when it comes to the impact of the test, the overall experience, and the quality of remediation. Getting on board with the wrong pentest partner would result in unfulfilled expectations, inefficient delivery, unstable quality standards, and unsolicited stress for you and your team. Hence, we are going to talk about the top penetration testing firms and try to understand what puts them at the top. It should give you a good grasp of what you should expect from a penetration testing company and the features you should look for before partnering with a certain firm.
Top penetration testing firms at a glance
| Penetration testing firms | Key Features |
| Astra Security | CI/CD integration, zero false positives, video PoCs, expert help in remediation, scan behind logged-in pages |
| Intruder | Detects configuration
weaknesses, missing patches, application weaknesses |
| Detectify | Scans in the cloud, simple interface, thorough remediation advice. |
| Invicti | Scans 1000 web apps in 24 hours, inbuilt reporting tool, good for detecting SQL injections. |
| Rapid7 | User friendly interface, detects website cloning attacks, phishing campaigns |
What makes a penetration testing firm right for you?
In this section, we will cover two types of information. First, we will go through the general offerings of an average pentesting company. Second, we will look at some specific features that can make life easier for you.
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT)
Your business needs regular vulnerability assessment and pentesting to maintain a strong security posture and stay compliant with security standards. The right pentest company offers you continuous vulnerability assessment and pentesting capabilities.
This helps you keep a handle on the various vulnerabilities taking root around your website, application, or network. You can detect and fix the issues before they attract malicious actors and cause the ruin of your organization.
Vulnerability reporting
Reporting is a crucial aspect of the VAPT process. It documents all the vulnerabilities along with the test cases used to detect them. It also contains the recommended steps for fixing the vulnerabilities. If the report is thorough and easy to follow, the remediation process is eased up.
Remediation support
One common trait that you will find in most of the top penetration testing firms is the remediation support they extend to their customers. Pentest reports are often not enough for the developers to fix the issues. They need some additional inputs from security experts to get it right. A little help from the pentest company in remediating the issues can go a long way in saving valuable time, and other resources for the client organization.
Now, let’s move on to the little, equally important things
Categorization of vulnerabilities and risk scores
The sign of a good vulnerability scanner is its ability to put vulnerabilities into categories depending on their risk score. What is a risk score? It is a combination of the CVSS score of a particular vulnerability and its contextual impact – that is the damage it can cause to the client organization at that given point in time.
Prioritizing the vulnerabilities according to the risk associated with them is crucial for businesses. It helps them allocate the resources efficiently.
A tool for vulnerability management
Life becomes way easier when you have a personalized dashboard to help you monitor and manage your vulnerabilities. You do not have to run to three different places to find the risk scores, assign a vulnerability to a member of your dev team, and see the status of a vulnerability. A solid vulnerability management dashboard lets you do it all from one place.
Zero false positives
These are the issues that do not exist but are flagged by the vulnerability scanners. The problem with false positives is that the developers spend time getting to the roots of these issues only to find that they are not real vulnerabilities and spend a lot of their time in the process. Pentest companies that assure zero false positives by employing manual pentesters to confirm the genuineness of the vulnerabilities flagged by the scanners, should be higher on your list of potential choices.
CI/CD integration
Integrating your pentest tool with your CI/CD pipeline means two things. One, you will not push vulnerable code anymore, two, you won’t have to worry about running to your dashboard to start a scan every time there is an update in the software. It is an absolute blessing for the agile software development teams, and the boldest step towards achieving DevSecOps.
Scan behind the logged-in pages
The problem with scanning behind logged-in pages is that every time a session ends you have to manually authenticate the scanner to continue the scan. There is a solution to this. With a login recorder extension, you can authenticate the scanner once and leave it there. It will keep scanning behind the logged-in pages without requiring you to reauthenticate it.
Video PoCs for reproducing vulnerabilities
Some pentest firms include video PoCs in their reports to help the devs reproduce the vulnerabilities and fix them. It is a fantastic practice as it saves a lot of time and human hours. It makes the process of remediation much easier and the whole operation leaner.
More about the top penetration testing firms
We have discussed the names and the key features of some of the top pentest firms in the market. Let us take a more detailed look at their offerings.
Astra Security
Astra Security has optimized capabilities for web pentest, cloud pentest, mobile app pentest, and blockchain pentesting. They combine a powerful automated scanner that fits into your CI/CD pipeline, with manual pentesting capabilities. It conducts the scans in the cloud which means no stress on your servers. The users can have complete control over the vulnerability management process using Astra’s pentest dashboard. With 3000+ tests, assured zero false positives, and world-class actionable reports, Astra Security is the one to beat.
Intruder
Intruder is a scalable vulnerability assessment solution for enterprise-wide usage. It is useful for detecting security misconfigurations and missing patches. It helps you find vulnerabilities in the exposed areas of your application so that you can fix them before they are exploited by malicious actors.
Detectify
Detectify is an automated, cloud-based pentest tool that helps you detect and prioritize critical vulnerabilities. It comes with a simple vulnerability management dashboard. Your applications and APIs are scanned in the cloud and you get a list of prioritized vulnerabilities delivered to you along with recommendations for remediation.
Invicti
Invicti focuses on fast and accurate vulnerability scans and pentesting. It provides you with a graphical representation of vulnerability analyses and also offers compliance assistance. It is a neat tool for a quick pentest.
Rapid7
Rapid7 is a strong contender for the spot of the top pentest company. They bring the collective knowledge of hackers to help you build a more secure organization. They focus on understanding the hacker mindset and applying security solutions to counter that. They offer vulnerability detection, incident response, and vulnerability management services.
Conclusion
As you may realize, this is not an exhaustive list of the top penetration testing firms. There are others that we have missed. Nevertheless, you have a comprehensive understanding of the features you should look for during your search for a pentest firm. It is important to align their offerings with your specific requirements. Start with this list, look at some other players in the market and work your way towards finding the right pentest partner.
Interesting Related Article: “5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Penetration Testing“