Why Continuous Security Testing is a Must for Organizations Today

The global cybersecurity market is flourishing. Experts at
Gartner predict that the end-user spending for the information
security and risk management market will grow from $172.5 billion
in 2022 to $267.3 billion in 2026.

One big area of spending includes the art of putting
cybersecurity defenses under pressure, commonly known as security
testing. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global penetration testing
(pentesting) market size is expected to grow at a Compound Annual
Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.7% from 2022 to 2027. However, the costs
and limitations involved in carrying out a penetration test are
already hindering the market growth, and consequently, many
cybersecurity professionals are making moves to find an alternative
solution.

Pentests aren’t solving cybersecurity pain points

Pentesting can serve specific and important purposes for
businesses. For example, prospective customers may ask for the
results of one as proof of compliance. However, for certain
challenges, this type of security testing methodology isn’t always
the best fit.

1 — Continuously changing environments

Securing constantly changing environments within rapidly
evolving threat landscapes is particularly difficult. This
challenge becomes even more complicated when aligning and managing
the business risk of new projects or releases. Since penetration
tests focus on one moment in time, the result won’t necessarily be
the same the next time you make an update.

2 — Rapid growth

It would be unusual for fast-growing businesses not to
experience growing pains. For CISOs, maintaining visibility of
their organization’s expanding attack surface can be particularly
painful.

According to HelpNetSecurity, 45% of respondents conduct
pentests only once or twice per year and 27% do it once per
quarter, which is woefully insufficient given how quickly
infrastructure and applications change.

3 — Cybersecurity skills shortages

As well as limitations in budgets and resources, finding the
available skillsets for internal cybersecurity teams is an ongoing
battle. As a result, organizations don’t have the dexterity to spot
and promptly remediate specific security vulnerabilities.

While pentests can offer an outsider perspective, often it is
just one person performing the test. For some organizations, there
is also an issue on trust when relying on the work of just one or
two people. Sándor Incze, CISO at CM.com, gives his
perspective:

“Not all pentesters are equal. It’s very hard to determine if
the pentester you’re hiring is good.”

4 — Cyber threats are evolving

The constant struggle to stay up to date with the latest
cyberattack techniques and trends puts media organizations at risk.
Hiring specialist skills for every new cyber threat type would be
unrealistic and unsustainable.

HelpNetSecurity reported that it takes 71 percent of pentesters
one week to one month to conduct a pentest. Then, more than 26
percent of organizations must wait between one to two weeks to get
the test results, and 13 percent wait even longer than that. Given
the fast pace of threat evolution, this waiting period can leave
companies unaware of potential security issues and open to
exploitation.

5 — Poor-fitting security testing solutions for agile
environments

Continuous development lifecycles don’t align with penetration
testing cycles (often performed annually.) Therefore,
vulnerabilities mistakenly created during long security testing
gaps can remain undiscovered for some time.

Bringing security testing into the 21st-century Impact

A proven solution to these challenges is to utilize ethical
hacker communities in addition to a standard penetration test.
Businesses can rely on the power of these crowds to assist them in
their security testing on a continuous basis. A bug bounty program
is one of the most common ways to work with ethical hacker
communities.

What is a bug bounty program?

Bug bounty programs allow businesses to proactively work with
independent security researchers to report bugs through
incentivization. Often companies will launch and manage their
program through a bug bounty platform, such as Intigriti^[1].

Organizations with high-security maturity may leave their bug
bounty program open for all ethical hackers in the platform’s
community to contribute to (known as a public program.) However,
most businesses begin by working with a smaller pool of security
talent through a private program.

How bug bounty programs support continuous security testing
structures

While you’ll receive a certificate to say you’re secure at the
end of a penetration test, it won’t necessarily mean that’s still
the case the next time you make an update. This is where bug bounty
programs work well as a follow-up to pentests and enable a
continuous security testing program.

The impact of bug bounty program on cybersecurity

By launching a bug bounty program, organizations experience:

1. More robust protection: Company data, brand,
   and reputation have additional protection through continuous
   security testing.
2. Enabled business goals: Enhanced security
   posture, leading to a more secure platform for innovation and
   growth.
3. Improved productivity: Increased workflow with
   fewer disruptions to the availability of services. More strategic
   IT projects that executives have prioritized, with fewer security
   “fires” to put out.
4. Increased skills availability: Internal
   security team’s time is freed by using a community for security
   testing and triage.
5. Clearer budget justification: Ability to
   provide more significant insights into the organization’s security
   posture to justify and motivate for an adequate security
   budget.
6. Improved relationships: Project delays
   significantly decrease without the reliance on traditional
   pentests.

Want to know more about setting up and launching a bug bounty
program?

Intigriti is the leading European-based platform for bug bounty
and ethical hacking. The platform enables organizations to reduce
the risk of a cyberattack by allowing Intigriti’s network of
security researchers to test their digital assets for
vulnerabilities continuously.

If you’re intrigued by what you’ve read and want to know about
bug bounty programs, simply schedule^[2] a meeting today with one
of our experts.

www.intigriti.com^[3]