Traditional penetration testing has a fundamental flaw: it relies on a single perspective to identify complex security vulnerabilities. Like trying to solve a puzzle with only one pair of eyes, individual pentesters, no matter how skilled, can sometimes miss critical threats that could expose your organisation to devastating cyberattacks.
The rise of intelligent threats and sophisticated attack vectors demands more than the "lone wolf" approach can deliver. At OnSecurity, we've revolutionised pentesting with our innovative Pod System, bringing together diverse expertise to catch what traditional methods consistently miss.
The Broken Promise of Traditional Pentesting
For a long time, traditional methods of pentesting have relied on a periodic and manual testing approach to identifying security vulnerabilities in an organisation's network. In traditional testing, penetration testing professionals attempt to gain access to an organisation's sensitive data through simulations of real-world attack scenarios, using identified vulnerabilities to build reports detailing attack surface posture and exposed services.
Because of this approach, individual security consultants have long been the backbone of traditional testing. These "lone wolf" professionals typically work independently, bringing their expertise to evaluate clients' security postures. However, with the rise of complex threats, the limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent.
Imagine trying to solve a complex puzzle with only one pair of eyes: while the first few pieces may be manageable, the full picture remains elusive. This analogy perfectly captures the most significant limitation of traditional pentesting: the inherent blind spots of single-perspective security assessments.
When security evaluations rely on individual consultants, they reflect just one viewpoint, one set of experiences, and one collection of technical approaches.
No individual, regardless of skill, possesses sufficient expertise across today's complex spectrum of attack vectors: there are simply too many various components and moving parts. What one pentester might miss, another might immediately spot.
In short, the traditional approach to pentesting is no longer sufficient in tackling the vast number of cyberattack methods used by hackers today. The periodic nature of these assessments leaves organisations vulnerable between tests, while the limitations of individual perspective create dangerous security gaps.
There has long been a critical need for an innovative solution to this traditional testing paradigm.
Introducing the OnSecurity Pod System
We've been rolling up our sleeves and tackling a major headache in the security world: those frustrating disconnected pentesting procedures that leave dangerous gaps in your defences.
Our team is pleased to announce the development of a comprehensive new approach to penetration testing. OnSecurity's Pod System approach brings together diverse expertise and perspectives to hunt down vulnerabilities that traditional methods consistently miss.
Let's Take a Closer Look...
OnSecurity's Pod System approach alleviates the pressure from single security consultants by dedicating an entire cluster, or "Pod", to your organisation's pentesting programme.
Each pod is comprised of four specialised security professionals, each possessing unique expertise within a certain area of pentesting. The specific roles in the pod are as follows:
- Application Security Specialist
- Coding Expert
- Cloud and Security Engineering Professional
- Bug Bounty/Advanced Threat Hunter
By attributing specific responsibilities and cybersecurity challenges to those most adept at dealing with them, our pentesting pods provide a 360-degree security assessment.
This team-based approach allows our pentesting team to work with agility and tackle risks in a supported system instead of in isolation, meaning quicker resolutions and more innovative responses to emerging threats. Happier testers equal better tests!
A Helping Hand: AI-Augmented Penetration Testing
OnSecurity's AI-augmented approach to penetration testing supports our pentest pods by automating repetitive tasks otherwise completed by pentesters. The pods sit on top of our AI/automation layer, which carries out most of the low-value/low-impact work and the majority of the reporting.
Automated scanning tools alone won't provide sufficient results, and that's why we are committed to ensuring our adoption of AI tools as part of a broader testing programme doesn't replace human expertise. Instead, our AI-augmented approach enhances human expertise, empowering our skilled pentesters to devote considerably more engagement time to high-impact security activities that demand human creativity, intuition, and specialised expertise.
The results? More comprehensive and effective security assessments for our clients, and more enriching work for our testing team.
How the Pod System Works
Our Pod System follows a multi-stage approach to ensure thorough testing, placing a strong emphasis on flexibility and creativity. Key steps in the process include:
Kickoff and Initial Testing
- Pod Leaders start by reviewing automation outputs. Any obvious low-risk findings, common misconfigurations, and known vulnerabilities are published immediately, saving valuable client and tester time.
- Testers dive into the application, using a comprehensive checklist to guide initial manual testing. This checklist ensures the pod is covering all standard areas of the application proactively.
Testing, Teamwork, and Tuning
- Testers continue their manual pentesting, but here’s where our model shines: flexibility. If one tester needs help piecing something together, another can jump in to fully assess potential threats, whether it’s a Kubernetes security concern or an evaluation of your IoT devices. We encourage testers within their pod to share findings early, assist each other, and adapt based on what they’re seeing.
- Pod Leaders oversee tester progress, answering questions, and reviewing issues before they’re published. They act as both a guide to ensure quality and focus, supporting knowledge sharing mechanisms between the testers by acting as an additional line of communication.
Deep Manual Pentesting and Specialist Pod Involvement
- Manual testers continue testing and digging deeper into the application in an attempt to find multi-step attack vectors.
- Pods can request help from specialist pod members to escalate the impact of findings or for help in finding missing pieces to put together an attack chain. The specialist pod can jump in and out of tests to identify critical issues, applying their information security expertise to streamline workflows.
- Their flexibility allows them to concentrate on niche areas that need creative exploitation, ensuring high-risk issues are found quickly (if present).
Final testing, Retesting and Reporting
- Testers ensure all summaries have been written up, confirming that all issues within the target system have been finalised. Retests can now also be conducted.
- The Pod Leads ensure summaries are of high quality and do not contain any errors. The executive summaries are then sent off for review.
Benefits of our Pod Pentesting Process
Our pod testing process offers a wealth of benefits for both clients and testing teams. Here's a breakdown of the major benefits experienced by pod testing compared to traditional, periodic testing structures:
- More comprehensive vulnerability detection and accurate results through a blend of human expertise and AI-augmented testing strategies.
- Faster, more thorough assessments are expedited by distributed roles and skill-based responsibilities.
- Reduced the risk of overlooking complex security issues by leveraging the broad range of skill sets within the Pods.
- Cost-effective and considerate of client cybersecurity budgets, offering robust IoT security for a competitive cost.
Why you should invest in collaborative pentesting services
Investing in collaborative, pod pentesting services empowers organisations to take a proactive approach to stay secure against evolving threats.
By attributing an entire pentesting pod to your network, pentesters can examine your potential attack vectors with greater efficacy than an individual consultant, providing accurate insight into your organisation's security measures and the fortitude of your sensitive information more comprehensively than ever before.
Our unique pod methodology yields exciting possibilities for the future of both OnSecurity and pentesting itself. Businesses now face more realistic cyber threats than ever before, making it essential for penetration testing vendors to take initiative by delivering advanced security solutions. Supplemented by automated tools, our pentesting approach ensures not simply tick-the-box, structured testing, but a continuous assurance of your organisation's security posture.
Stay ahead of potential threats and secure your organisation's networks with OnSecurity's Pod Pentesting approach. Get a free pentesting quote.
