For most organizations, pentesting is the periodic independent validation that security controls are working effectively to satisfy compliance requirements like PCI/DSS, NIST, SOC 2, FedRAMP, DORA, HIPAA and ISO 27001. These and other regulatory frameworks serve as a structured, systematic approach for validating security posture and protecting enterprises from cyber risks. While the mission of ensuring compliance should improve an organization’s security posture, the pentesting process, including how results are delivered, has gone largely unchanged for 20+ years. It’s way overdue for an overhaul that transforms the process to better align with today’s realities and improve the return on investment of your pentesting program.
Synack’s Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) platform enables organizations to transform their pentesting programs to match the agility and sophistication of today’s attack surfaces. This on-demand and flexible approach to penetration testing isn’t just a better way to find vulnerabilities; it’s a revolutionary way to validate compliance and reduce risk.
Here’s why Synack PTaaS is the right choice for compliance validation.
1. On-Demand and Flexible Pentest Provisioning
Historically, penetration testing operates on a rigid, scheduled basis with long lead times to start testing. You might need to book a test months in advance and limit it to a specific scope, even if your business priorities or application features change. This inflexibility can create delays and miss critical windows for security validation.
With Synack, you get on-demand self-service with access to a global community of vetted security researchers. This means you can:
- Launch a test at a moment’s notice. Whether it’s for a new feature, an urgent fix or a sudden compliance audit, you have the flexibility to start a test when you need it.
- Scale the scope of your test. Easily increase or decrease the testing scope to match the complexity and risk profile of a specific application.
- Adapt to business needs. As your development cycles or compliance requirements change, Synack PTaaS adapts with you, ensuring your security program remains agile and effective.
This flexibility allows you to align your security testing with the speed and demands of your business, ensuring that validation pentesting for compliance is never a bottleneck.
2. Actionable, Real-World Remediation & Retest
Many compliance frameworks require more than a list of findings; they may demand proof of remediation and retest. Traditional pentesting reports can often be cumbersome and difficult to translate into actionable steps for development teams.
The Synack PTaaS platform provides a more effective solution. Every vulnerability is validated by a human expert who confirms that it is an exploitable risk. The findings come with clear, detailed remediation guidance and verified exploits, which empowers developers to fix the issues quickly and effectively. This direct, hands-on feedback loop streamlines the entire remediation process, making it easier to demonstrate compliance.
| Compliance Framework | Pentesting Required | Remediation Required | Retest Required |
| PCI/DSS | Mandatory | Mandatory | Mandatory |
| NIST | Mandatory for federal agencies; Best Practice for others | Defined in report’s post testing activities | Defined in report’s post testing activities |
| ISO 27001 | Highly recommended | Defined in remediation plan | Defined in remediation plan |
| SOC 2 | Highly recommended | Defined in remediation plan | Defined in remediation plan |
| DORA | Mandatory for EU financial entities | Defined in remediation plan | Defined in remediation plan |
| HIPAA | Highly recommended | Defined in remediation plan | Best Practice, defined in remediation plan |
| FedRAMP | Mandatory | Mandatory for high risk findings | Mandatory for high risk findings |
3. Transparent and Auditable Documentation
Documentation is one of the biggest pain points of compliance. The process of gathering evidence, tracking progress and generating reports can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Synack has designed its PTaaS platform with transparency and auditability in mind. It provides:
- Centralized Dashboards: A single pane of glass to view all testing activities, vulnerabilities and remediation progress.
- Automated Reporting: Generate easy-to-read reports that are tailored for developers, security teams and auditors.
- Full History: A complete, auditable history of all security testing, from initial finding to verified fix.
This level of detail and real-time visibility is crucial for proving compliance with rigorous standards and regulations.
4. Alignment with Modern Security Standards
Compliance frameworks like OWASP Top 10, ASVS (Application Security Verification Standard) and NIST have evolved to emphasize continuous monitoring and proactive defense. A point-in-time test is no longer sufficient to meet these modern standards.
Synack’s approach to PTaaS, which combines automated testing with human intelligence, aligns perfectly with these frameworks. Automated scanning ensures broad coverage for common vulnerabilities, while human-led testing drills down into complex logic flaws and business-critical issues that automated tools might miss. This blended approach provides the most comprehensive and auditable validation possible.
5. Continuous Validation for Proactive Risk Reduction
By leveraging the Synack PTaaS platform for your compliance-driven pentests, you can also use the results to reduce risk. For those looking to go beyond point-in-time testing, today’s realities make it essential: rapid development cycles can render a January test obsolete by June, while dynamic attack surfaces and AI-powered attackers create new risks daily. Point-in-time compliance testing alone leaves dangerous vulnerabilities undiscovered and unaddressed for extended periods.
Synack’s PTaaS platform operates as a continuous process, integrating seamlessly into your security and operational workflows for ongoing security testing and continuous risk reduction. This enables you to:
- Test new features and code upon release.
- Proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they escalate into compliance issues.
- Demonstrate continuous due diligence to auditors and regulators.
This continuous model guarantees a constant state of readiness, providing auditors with a real-time, comprehensive understanding of your security posture.
6. CTEM-Aligned Pentesting
When integrated with a Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) strategy, Synack pentesting findings become a part of a centralized system. This allows for real-time tracking of remediation progress, automated retesting and auditable evidence that vulnerabilities have been successfully addressed. This streamlined process ensures insights from the pentest lead to real-world security improvements.
| CTEM Stage | Description | Synack PTaaS Functionality |
| 1. Scoping | Define scope and integrate asset inventory | Synack native EASM, EASM integrations |
| 2. Discovery | Deploy exposure discovery and prioritization | Synack Asset Insights, Sara Agentic AI |
| 3. Prioritization | Integrate validation (PTaaS, BAS, Red Teaming) | Synack penetration testing |
| 4. Validation | Integrate with risk (GRC, Ops) | Synack integrations (Jira, ServiceNow, Tenable, Splunk, Palo Alto Networks and more) |
| 5. Mobilization | Measure and iterate | Synack Executive Reporting, Test Coverage Insights |
7. Analytics and Reporting
A successful pentesting program doesn’t sacrifice efficacy or risk reduction for compliance. Rather, test efficacy and risk reduction are the foundation for a modern pentesting program. If you employ Synack PTaaS for test execution, data can be retained and analyzed to identify trends and root cause(s), enabling you to take action to stop teams from introducing vulnerabilities in the first place. Here are a few examples of metrics and analysis that offer insights for both the auditor and security teams.
| Metrics | Compliance Value | Risk Reduction Value |
| Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) | Shows that the organization has a defined process for managing vulnerabilities and is meeting its patching SLAs. It provides evidence that controls for vulnerability management are operating effectively. | Measures the efficiency and effectiveness of the security team. A decreasing MTTR demonstrates a maturing program that can quickly reduce attack surface risk and respond to new threats. |
| Vulnerability Categories | A low recurrence rate provides assurance that security controls, coding practices and remediation processes are sustainable. | Highlights systemic problems allowing for root cause analysis. |
Synack PTaaS: Come for the Compliance, Stay for the Risk Reduction
Synack PTaaS is more than just a new way to conduct penetration testing; it’s the natural evolution of compliance validation. By shifting from reactive, point-in-time assessments to an on-demand, self-service model, organizations gain flexible, timely, robust and fully auditable compliance validation that also mitigates risk and improves security posture.
Jeff Barker is Synack SVP of product management.
