Continuous penetration testing is the process of performing a security analysis at the speed of infrastructure change. Unlike traditional pentesting, continuous pentesting doesn’t wait a year or even a few months to test the security of new infrastructural changes.
Why do traditional one-off pentests not cut it anymore? In a world where cybercriminals continue to leverage polymorphic and AI-powered malware and ransomware-as-a-service is continuously on the rise, a unified approach to continuous monitoring is crucial for survival.
Moreover, such a continuous pentest works wonders in the DevOps environment to bring security to the pace of software development.
Traditional Pentest vs. Continuous Pentest
| Feature | Traditional Penetration Testing | Continuous Penetration testing |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | Scheduled assessments such as annual, bi-yearly, or quarterly. | Ongoing assessments with 24/7 monitoring |
| Methodology | Manual testing with some automation | Relies primarily on automated tools |
| Cost | Typically, it has a fixed cost per engagement | Follows a subscription-based model with varying tiers |
| Scope | Focuses on specific systems or applications at a particular point in time | Monitors entire IT infrastructure for vulnerabilities |
| Reporting | Static reports are delivered after the assessment | Dynamic reports with real-time updates are provided to the CXOs |
| Remediation | Delayed due to report turnaround time | Faster patching due to real-time insights |
| Compliance | Can be used to submit official compliance reports | Helps in achieving continuous compliance |
Why Do You Need Continuous Pentesting?
“Over the last few years, the pace of software engineering has skyrocketed. New code is being churned out at a rapid pace, and new servers are being spawned to support the scale. This has led to increased attacks on companies and countries of all sizes.
One-off pentests just don’t cut it anymore. Continuous pentesting ensures every new feature is tested for security loopholes before it hits production, unlike traditional pentesting, where it would have been tested months or years after going into production.” – Shikhil Sharma, CEO, Astra Security
Improve Cyber Resilience
With real-time monitoring, scheduled, and regression scans, continuous penetration testing helps pinpoint, analyze, and prioritize vulnerabilities as they arise to improve your resilience against cyberattacks and helps avoid long lists of CVEs piling up over time.
This is particularly beneficial for scaling SaaS startups and companies operating in industries that require frequent updates, such as insurance and finance.
Enhance Security Posture
Continuous monitoring helps you create a loop that enhances security posture by aggressively identifying live, production, and sandbox vulnerabilities. Moreover, such transparency fosters trust and strengthens stakeholder relationships, particularly for companies handling sensitive customer data.
Make the Leap to DevSecOps
By integrating security scans into your existing workflow and CI/CD pipeline, you can ‘shift left’ to DevSecOps and build security into the fundamental levels of your software development life cycle.
Moreover, with staging environment testing, you can ensure that every update and patch shipped out is secure and resilient to possible attacks.
Achieve Continuous Compliance:
Traditional compliance pentesting often involves a single, in-depth test, leading to lengthy audit cycles. This one-shot approach leaves you with a mountain of vulnerabilities (CVEs) to patch in a short timeframe, leading to poor patches and multiple roadblocks in the process.
In addition to the legal mandates, continuous pentesting helps achieve ongoing compliance, leading to shorter cycles and avoiding hefty non-compliance fees.
Why Astra is the best in pentesting?
- We’re the only company that combines automated & manual pentest to create a one-of-a-kind pentest platform.
- Vetted scans ensure zero false positives.
- Our intelligent vulnerability scanner emulates hacker behavior & evolves with every pentest.
- Astra’s scanner helps you shift left by integrating with your CI/CD.
- Our platform helps you uncover, manage & fix vulnerabilities in one place.
- Trusted by the brands you trust like Agora, Spicejet, Muthoot, Dream11, etc.
Process of Continuous Penetration Test
Phase 1: Preparation
Step 1: Define The Scope:
In this step, collaborate with your stakeholders, vendors, and IT team to collectively define the targets and the attack surface, including applications, cloud infra, and APIs, as well as the depth of analysis to avoid resource exhaustion, ongoing workflow delays, and scope creep.
Step 2: Set-up Scanner Configurations:
Configure your vulnerability scanner according to the above scope, including tailoring the scan depth, plugin selection, and credentialing for optimal accuracy. You can also choose to accept certain risks and focus on KPAs to optimize resource allocation and minimize false positives.
Step 3: Run a Base Scan:
Perform a comprehensive initial scan to establish a security baseline. This will help your team identify new and existing vulnerabilities and provide a benchmark for future comparisons, progress reports, and trend analysis.
Phase 2: Continuous Scanning
Step 1: Schedule Scans
With the ideal automated vulnerability scanner, you can schedule scans based on frequency, e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, etc., as well as regression tests based on specific events such as code deployments and configuration changes.
Step 2: Generate Customised Reports:
After every scan, the continuous penetration testing software automatically generates actionable reports summarizing identified vulnerabilities, their severity levels, how to regenerate, and recommendations for remediation.
Pro Tip: Find a tool that allows you to customize reports for technical audiences and executive management briefings to facilitate individual use cases.
Phase 3: Remediation and Rescans
Step 1: Remediate Vulnerabilities and Develop Patches
Based on the vulnerability analysis provided by the above reports, your team can address vulnerabilities promptly by patching systems, reconfiguring settings, or implementing compensating controls.
Step 2: Schedule Rescans
Once the patches are ready to ship, a rescan can be run to validate their efficacy and ensure continued security.
Download Your Free State of Continuous Pentesting Report 2025 here (Based on Insights from 900+ Companies, 150K+ Scans & 800+ Manual Pentests)
Top 3 Benefits of Continuous Penetration Testing
Foster Confidence to Innovate Without Fear
Innovation is vital to staying ahead, but frequent code pushes and infrastructure changes often come with security risks. By adopting DevSecOps, continuous monitoring capabilities give your team the confidence to experiment and iterate rapidly without compromising data safety.
Replace Reactive Damage Control With Proactive Defense
Traditional pentesting often identifies issues after a breach or during a scheduled window, leaving you vulnerable in between. Thus, continuous pentesting acts like an early warning system, pinpointing vulnerabilities as they emerge before attackers can exploit them.
Bring Security Closer to The Speed of Engineering
Continuous pentesting integrates with development, finding security issues as you code. Such a “security as code” approach eliminates blind spots and keeps pace with engineering velocity to help your team close the gap between development speed and a secure product.
Astra Pentest is built by the team of experts that helped secure Microsoft, Adobe, Facebook, and Buffer
Key Features to Look For in Continuous Pentesting Platforms
Automated Scan Configurations:
Look for a continuous penetration testing vendor with custom capabilities to run automated vulnerability scans across your IT infrastructure, including web applications, APIs, and containers. This will reduce your security team’s manual work and ensure consistent coverage.
Seamless Integrations
Choose a platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing security tools, such as firewalls, workflow, SIEM, ticketing systems, and CI/CD pipelines. Such streamlined vulnerability management enables automated responses to detected threats.
Pro Tip: Look for integration with SOAR platforms to automate remediation workflows. This could involve automatically deploying patches, quarantining infected systems, or triggering incident response playbooks.
Ease of Navigation
Look for continuous pentesting software that offers clear visualizations, intuitive dashboards, and easy access to critical data such as vulnerability details, remediation steps, and previous reports, particularly for stakeholders from non-technical backgrounds.
Reporting and Management
Focus on platforms that generate comprehensive reports with a detailed list of vulnerabilities, prioritized by risk and offer clear remediation guidance. Trend analysis and historical data comparison features to track your overall security posture are definitely a plus.
Scalability
Considering future progress and company growth, choose a PTaaS platform that can scale to handle increasing scan volumes and support additional integrations as your security needs evolve.
How Can Astra Help?
As an intelligent automated scanner, Astra offers continuous penetration testing services by blending automation and AI with human expertise. Built on OWASP and SANS25, our PTaaS platform runs 10,000+ tests to scan for vulnerabilities and compliance checks.
Most importantly, we guarantee zero false positives with vetted scans on a CXO-friendly dashboard. Our seamless integrations with your existing tech stack smoothen remediation while the dedicated Slack channel allows you to raise requests for a security expert pentest as needed.
Lastly, our login recorder allows you to scan behind login screens, and unique AI test cases help add another layer of security to the manual pentests.
Final Thoughts
Simply put, continuous penetration testing has become crucial in securing your agile development and infrastructural changes. It helps your team identify vulnerabilities early on, eliminate blind spots, and build security into your software from the ground up.
Such a proactive approach, coupled with DevSecOps, can help foster a culture of secure innovation with confidence. Remember, choosing the right PTaaS vendor is crucial. Prioritize features like automated scanning, seamless integrations, and insightful reporting to ensure a successful implementation.
Don’t cut corners on your security. Do it right.
Try for $7 for a weekFAQs
What is the cost of continuous penetration testing?
Continuous testing catches bugs early and often, saving time and money. It automates testing so you can release higher-quality software faster to improve efficiency and reduce risk throughout development.
How much does continuous penetration testing cost?
The cost of continuous penetration testing varies significantly, ranging from $2,000 annually to $100,000 for enterprise-grade solutions, depending on the features, scope, number of targets, complexity, and more.
How often should you perform penetration testing?
There’s no one-size-fits-all, but annual comprehensive pentests are a good starting point with continuous monitoring and scanning capabilities. Consider more frequent tests, i.e., quarterly, for complex systems or after major changes.
