How Does Synack Compare to Other Security Testing Approaches

How Does Synack Compare To Other Security Testing Approaches: Scanners, Pentesting As A Service (Ptaas) And Consultants

How Does Synack Compare To Other Security Testing Approaches?

Synack is a dynamic, hybrid solution that bridges the gap between vulnerability scanners, PTaaS and traditional security consultants. By delivering a blend of automation and human-in-the loop expert analysis, Synack provides comprehensive coverage that meets AI-driven threats, reduces risk over time and helps to meet compliance objectives.

What Are The Main Types Of Security Testing? 

The main types of security testing approaches differ in speed, scale, depth, cost and accuracy. The three security testing categories evaluated here are automated vulnerability scanners, penetration testing as a service (PTaaS platforms) and traditional security consultants. Below we compare how different testing approaches differ to the Synack Platform. 

How Does Synack Compare To Automated Vulnerability Scanners?

Synack builds on automated vulnerability scanners by combining continuous scanning with human-led penetration testing from their internal pool of vetted security researchers, the Synack Red Team (SRT). Vulnerability scanners find and identify potential Common Vulnerability Exposures (CVE’s), while the SRT finds, validates and attempts to exploit them using real-world attack scenarios and human creativity, to mimic real world hacking techniques. Vulnerability scanners give you a list of potential CVEs for manual false positive verification, while Synack offers you human-led  validation for vulnerabilities, remediation guidance, and retesting for exploitable vulnerabilities. 

What Is A Vulnerability Scanner? 

Vulnerability scanners are automated tools that use a list of Common Vulnerability Exposures (CVEs) to identify and report potential vulnerabilities. Vulnerability scanners are often used for maintaining compliance and meeting the requirement of regular security assessments, baseline security monitoring and compliance.  

Pros Of Vulnerability Scanners

What are the pros of using vulnerability scanners? For large organizations a vulnerability scanner is a fast, scalable and cost-effective way to handle frequent and continuous security checks. As your organization grows the vulnerability scanner can find outdated software, weak passwords, cloud misconfigurations and more. By using a vulnerability scanner you can maintain regulatory and compliance requirements and have constant visibility into your organization’s attack surface. 

Cons Of Vulnerability Scanners

What are the cons of using vulnerability scanners? While vulnerability scanners work fast in finding potential CVEs across a large range of applications, networks and operating systems, your team will still need to manually assess and validate every single vulnerability that your vuln scanner reports. Vulnerability scanners do not check if a vulnerability is exploitable. They provide a low signal to noise ratio and often a never ending list of findings for your team to sift through. Their only job is to report a possible risk. Vulnerability scanners are also not equipped to mimic real world attacker behavior or manage complex attack chains, so they also miss certain types of vulnerabilities.

What Is Pentesting As A Service?

Pentesting as a Service (PTaaS) gives security teams real time visibility into pentest data with a SaaS platform. GigaOm defines PTaaS as “cloud-based cybersecurity solution that provides continuous, automated security testing capabilities. It enables organizations to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities in their IT infrastructure, applications, and networks through ongoing, scalable penetration testing.” The main benefits are more frequent pentesting, scalable testing, and reduced remediation timelines across a variety of assets such as web applications, APIs, hosts and more. This allows security teams to safely test for vulnerabilities in their tech stack and mitigate potential threats. By combining automation and human expert analysis, PTaaS offers a powerful hybrid approach to supplementing your internal team’s resources and manual search and remediation efforts in securing your network. By combining automation with human assessments, PTaaS is also able to identify vulnerabilities that might be missed by your traditional scanning tools. 

Pros Of Pentesting As A Service

What are some pros of penetration testing as a service? Organizations will have access to a centralized platform that offers real-time reporting, communication points with a community of security researchers, and easy to access remediation and patch recommendations from the very teams who found your CVEs. As you initiate things like major code changes, or onboard new applications, you are able to launch additional tests to ensure you haven’t inadvertently exposed new vulnerabilities to your network. PTaaS also offers flexible purchasing options designed to fit organizations of any size or budget. Penetration tests help validate the effectiveness of your existing security stack and ensure that it could perform under real-world conditions. 

Cons Of Pentesting As A Service

What are the cons of Pentesting as a Service? PTaaS platforms often limit testing to standardized web applications and APIs that may fail to cover non-standard or specialized environments such as proprietary IoT devices unique to your organization. This results in critical gaps across your attack surface. Hidden costs for triage, retesting, and limitations on remediation guidance could also incur additional fees, making it expensive to cover your entire attack surface. 

When evaluating a vendor you need to ensure they have a vetted community of researchers to validate findings, and ensure what they offer is not just “automated scanning” that won’t pass audits. What certifications or experience does the PTaaS vendor and its security research team have? Do they have AI in their roadmap for autonomous pentesting capabilities to increase the scope of assets you can test, as well as reduce time to value metrics? Verify that your vendor provides continuous testing support so that the PTaaS vendor scales with you as you add depth and complexity to your systems. Verify that your vendor provides continuous testing support so that the PTaaS vendor scales with you as you add depth and complexity to your systems. 

What Are Traditional Security Consultants And What Do They Do?

Traditional security consultants are firms or individuals who conduct security assessments such as penetration tests and security audits. This helps organizations meet regulatory and security control requirements and obtain certifications like ISO 27001 or Soc 2 Type 2 which ensure customer data is protected. Typically for penetration testing this would be a point in time approach ahead of audits or major security initiatives. By assessing existing security infrastructure, and procedures for vulnerabilities they are able to provide expert guidance on how to align with security protocols and industry specific laws to build a resilient defense and enable you to stay legally compliant. 

What Are The Pros Of Traditional Security Consultants?

Security consultants use their deep knowledge and expertise to provide customized solutions tailored to the specific needs of your organization to help enhance security and meet regulatory compliance requirements. They are able to uncover complex vulnerabilities and provide strategies for technology solutions that cater to your exact security requirements, helping you avoid risk and meet audit requirements. 

What Are The Cons Of Traditional Security Consultants?

Traditional security consultants can be costly, and are often point-in-time assessments. This can get costly over time as you will need to reengage with the consultant every time you onboard new technologies to assess and remediate new vulnerabilities. Traditional security consultants won’t keep your organization safe from the onslaught of new threats each time you onboard new applications, or if security protocols and policies change internally unless you have the budget to regularly employ their help in assessing your environment. 

Feature Comparison 

	Vulnerability Scanners	PTaaS	Traditional Security Consultant	Synack
Quality of Researchers	None	Variable	High	High
Automated Scanning	Yes	Yes (partial)	No	Yes
Human-led Pentesting	No	Variable	Yes	Yes
Human Validation of Findings	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exploitability Verification	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Real-World Attack Simulation	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Continuous Penetration Testing	Yes	Subscription dependent	No	Yes
Point in time Penetration Testing	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Signal to Noise Ratio	High	Low	Low	Low
Remediation Guidance	Basic	Yes	Yes	Yes
Patch Verification (Retesting)	No	Yes	Requires re engagement	Yes
Speed/ Scalability	High	Medium	Low	High
Compliance and Audit reporting	Limited	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cost	Low	Varies	Low	Varies
Ongoing visibility into attack surface	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Integration with DevSecOps tools	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

FAQ

1. What Are Common Approaches To Security Testing Solutions?
   1. Automated Vulnerability Scanners, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Traditional Penetration Testing (consultants), Bug Bounty Programs. 
2. What Is Security Testing?
   1. A process that evaluates or tests software, systems or networks to identify and address security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a hacker. 
3. What Is The OWASP 10?
   1. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 is a standard awareness document that provides developers and web application security teams a reference for the most critical security risks to web applications. 
4. What Is A Common Vulnerability Exposure (CVE)?
   1. A unique identifier for known vulnerabilities in a public catalog established and maintained by the MITRE Corporation. OWASP analyzes MITRE data to inform which vulnerabilities are most exploited and create their top 10 list. 
5. What Is A Threat Vs. Vulnerability Vs. Risk?
   1. A threat is a potential malicious actor or event that could exploit vulnerabilities to cause harm
   2. A vulnerability is a weakness or gap in an organization’s processes or technology that can be exploited if a bad actor were to take advantage of the weakness
   3. Risk is the potential for loss (often financial) when a vulnerability is exploited.