Conventional penetration testing wasn’t constructed for in the present day’s cell launch cycles. Annual, semi-annual and even quarterly pen checks don’t minimize it anymore. In case your cell app updates weekly, that’s a dozen untested variations earlier than your subsequent scheduled evaluation. That’s a dozen possibilities for an information leak or privateness flaw to slide by way of. Cellular Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) adjustments the sport by mixing steady automated cell app safety testing with the deep technical experience of pen testing to align correct, scalable safety together with your improvement velocity.
As a substitute of your testing program being strictly a once-a-year occasion, you possibly can and will evolve right into a steady testing, rapid-response mannequin.
The Snapshot Drawback: Challenges of the Speedy-Launch World
Conventional penetration testing performs a pivotal function in cell app threat administration applications. Expert safety analysts dig deep into your functions, uncovering essential vulnerabilities that automated instruments would possibly miss. It stays the gold customary for in-depth utility safety testing.
Regulatory requirements like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, NIS2 Directive and others usually require common penetration testing for techniques that fall underneath their purview. Business greatest practices or compliance usually recommend these assessments be carried out yearly or after important adjustments, and in lots of circumstances, mandate that frequency.
However right here’s the catch: conventional penetration testing offers a snapshot— an in depth however non permanent view of your safety posture. Each time your improvement group deploys new code or introduces updates with no recent spherical of testing, it’s possible you’ll be introducing new vulnerabilities that go unnoticed. The hazard? These flaws may stay undetected for months and even years, relying on when your subsequent scheduled take a look at happens.
Check out the pattern graphic above. The highest depicts a calendar yr. On the left, a single penetration take a look at is scheduled within the spring. Every hexagon alongside the timeline represents new app releases, bigger ones for main releases and smaller ones for minor. The crimson bug icons point out when vulnerabilities had been launched.
Now think about this: an replace to your utility introduces a essential vulnerability in Could, shortly after your one and solely cell pen take a look at for the yr. That vulnerability will not be found till the subsequent annual take a look at rolls round—as much as 10 months later. That’s 10 months of potential publicity.
The Temptation to Check Extra Typically
The pure response is to extend the frequency of penetration checks — quarterly, month-to-month, even weekly. This definitely helps shut the hole between when vulnerabilities are launched and once they’re detected. However it comes with trade-offs:
- Larger prices from repeated engagements
- Delays in launch cycles to attend for pen take a look at home windows
- Burnout for inside groups coordinating fixed testing and remediation
And even with extra frequent checks, you’re nonetheless working with snapshots, not a stay stream of perception.
Evolving Pen Testing to Match a Steady World
To really sustain with trendy DevSecOps software program improvement — agile sprints, CI/CD pipelines, cell app releases, microservices, and each day deployments — you want extra than simply point-in-time testing. You want steady cell utility safety testing that doesn’t burden the group with greater prices, delays and burnout. That’s the place cell Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) is available in.
NowSecure Cellular PTaaS modernizes conventional pen testing by offering:
- Ongoing Vulnerability Discovery
As a substitute of a snapshot in time, PTaaS platforms monitor and take a look at repeatedly whereas aligning the deep-dive efforts of guide testing in the direction of the complicated testing that specialists excel at. Automation can now be used to quickly uncover vulnerabilities as they’re launched in releases, not months later, whereas penetration testing may be reserved for a lot bigger releases or for regulatory compliance, in the end leading to a way more strategic program.
- Tight Integration with DevOps
PTaaS options combine straight with instruments your group is already utilizing — GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Jenkins, and Slack — so vulnerabilities are reported and tracked inside your current workflows. For safety groups working independently of a corporation’s improvement group, requesting binaries to be constructed particularly for testing groups can add extra complexity and trigger friction between groups. By leveraging these identical integrations, binaries may be constructed throughout the pre-existing workflow and instantly delivered to the PTaaS testing group for each automated and guide testing.
By surfacing points instantly, your groups can repair them quicker—usually throughout the identical dash. This drastically reduces the window of publicity.
Due to the always-on nature of the automated testing coupled with a contemporary PTaaS platform, you possibly can quickly detect when privateness or safety points could create compliance considerations; thereby supporting not solely safety and improvement groups, but additionally GRC groups as nicely.
- Versatile, Scalable Testing
Whether or not you push one launch a month or dozens per week, a PTaaS resolution scales to your wants. You get steady testing protection, irrespective of how briskly you progress.It’s essential to notice: PTaaS doesn’t get rid of the necessity for expert-led deep dives. You continue to profit from devoted guide testing and the strategic insights of seasoned pen testers and it’s a mandatory a part of any true PTaaS platform. Gartner defines PTaaS as the mix of automated testing and human experience. In any case, it’s nonetheless a requirement of many regulatory requirements to implement penetration testing. However as an alternative of your testing program being strictly a once-a-year occasion, you possibly can and will evolve right into a steady testing, rapid-response mannequin.
How PTaaS Addresses Danger Administration
Fashionable threat administration applications require ongoing vigilance, speedy response, and complete protection. PTaaS addresses these wants by aligning straight with acknowledged threat administration requirements reminiscent of ISO 31000, NIST SP 800-53, and COSO ERM frameworks. By offering steady vulnerability evaluation, PTaaS ensures organizations have real-time visibility into their safety posture, enabling them to proactively handle and mitigate dangers earlier than they materialize into incidents.
PTaaS helps threat administration by:
- Steady Danger Identification: Continuously scanning for vulnerabilities, PTaaS identifies rising threats promptly, considerably decreasing the time between vulnerability introduction and detection.
- Prioritized Danger Mitigation: By integrating straight with DevOps and current workflows, PTaaS offers quick visibility into essential points, enabling prioritized and environment friendly remediation aligned together with your group’s threat urge for food and operational priorities.
- Compliance Alignment: PTaaS platforms assist guarantee your group stays aligned with evolving regulatory necessities (PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, and so on.), offering steady compliance validation and detailed audit trails to fulfill regulatory requirements.
- Danger Visibility: PTaaS platforms ship detailed reporting that integrates seamlessly into governance, threat, and compliance (GRC) applications, enhancing executive-level visibility into cybersecurity dangers.
What to Search for in Your PTaaS Vendor
Choosing the appropriate PTaaS vendor is essential to your group’s safety posture. Right here’s what it’s best to think about:
✅ Automation and Human Experience Each Contribute
Guarantee your vendor integrates automated testing at scale with expert-led guide assessments. The most effective distributors leverage automation to shortly determine frequent vulnerabilities and implement steady testing at scale, reserving human experience for complicated, context-sensitive evaluations, saving money and time within the course of.
✅ Confirmed Business Experience
Skilled offensive safety professionals are a should for any PTaaS resolution. Be certain that they’ve business expertise, acknowledged certifications (OSCP, GPEN, and so on), and superior levels. Consultants ought to have a variety of expertise to fulfill cell, internet, API, OTT, SDK and automation testing wants.
✅ Devoted Specialists
Crowdsourced pen testing (e.g., bug bounty or community-driven applications) entails inviting a worldwide pool of moral hackers to check your techniques. Sadly, you by no means know who will choose up the problem or what elements of your app they’ll deal with. Testing could also be shallow or redundant, leaving blind spots in essential areas. It’s rather more exploratory — not structured or methodical like formal pen checks.
Crowdsourced pen testers usually function very like bug bounty researchers, committing time of their off-hours or along with different work. Their backgrounds could range and vetting of experience could also be restricted. As a substitute select a PTaaS vendor with full time workers who’ve the business experience and who will give their full focus to your evaluation.
✅ Tailor-made Strategy
There’s no “one measurement matches all” in safety testing. Make it possible for your vendor takes the time to know your utility(s), structure, business, consumer base, and the targets you hope to perform. Ask them to suggest a programmatic method to assembly these wants after which ask for justification. A clear and reliable PTaaS vendor ought to be capable of present personalized testing primarily based in your particular app and organizational dangers plus engagement complexity.
✅ Clear and Versatile Reporting
Reporting must be simple to know, comprise visuals, govt summaries, detailed descriptions of the problem, steps to breed and supply clear explanations and steerage for remediation. The best way you obtain outcomes must be versatile, from the basic report back to govt briefings to even supporting templates and file codecs or integrations with all main bug/concern monitoring and administration techniques. Reporting also needs to accommodate the top aim, be in safety and privateness consciousness, audit readiness, proof of compliance, or acquisition analysis.
✅ Automation Integration
The PTaaS platform ought to seamlessly mix automated testing outcomes with guide assessments and combine into your CI/CD pipeline, permitting you the flexibility to supply testers the newest binary in manufacturing or improvement environments for testing. Equally, the platform ought to present mechanisms and fine-grained management over integrating these outcomes again into your vulnerability administration techniques.
✅ Regulatory Compliance
Your vendor should possess deep information of related regulatory requirements and be able to offering personalized compliance reporting to exhibit adherence to OWASP MASVS, ADA MASA, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIAP, and different frameworks.
✅ Speedy Outcomes
With trendy PTaaS options, it’s best to be capable of shortly start testing and getting actionable outcomes. You shouldn’t have to attend for a penetration take a look at to finish earlier than you possibly can start remediation.
✅ Skilled Assist and Collaboration
Select a vendor dedicated to partnership past easy reporting. They need to provide ongoing assist, retesting, collaboration, and steerage to repeatedly enhance your safety posture.
Guidelines for Selecting a Cellular Pen Testing as a Service (PTaaS) Vendor
To help additional in your choice course of, obtain our complete PTaaS vendor analysis guidelines to make sure your safety technique aligns completely together with your group’s wants.
How NowSecure Helps
With greater than a decade of hands-on cell app safety expertise and over 11,000 pen checks underneath their belt, the NowSecure group is aware of how you can uncover what others would possibly miss. NowSecure Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) brings collectively automated SAST and DAST and enhances it with professional guide testing and compliance know-how to cowl all of the bases — from cell to OTT and internet apps.
As a substitute of cookie-cutter testing, all the pieces begins with understanding your distinctive app setting. Whether or not it’s an iOS or Android app or one thing rather more specialised, assessments dive deep into every platform’s nuances. Our analysts actually dig in—manually reviewing how knowledge is saved, what the app talks to over the community, the backend API behaviors, and even digging into the binary code. They reverse engineer, examine crypto utilization, and determine susceptible libraries. They’re additionally prepared for difficult stuff like BLE or near-field communication, wearables, sensors, and IoT situations. Meaning groups get related, focused findings they will act on quick.
For streaming and over-the-top (OTT) apps, like these constructed for Roku or Tizen, they take a look at content material safety, DRM, and API protections to maintain your knowledge—and your customers—secure.
And in in the present day’s economic system, the place vendor consolidation is on everybody’s thoughts, it helps that NowSecure also can deal with complicated internet and API testing or leverage business companions so you have got the peace of thoughts that your total assault floor is addressed.
NowSecure Platform integrates straight into your CI/CD pipeline, so each automated safety checks and penetration take a look at outcomes grow to be simply one other a part of your improvement rhythm. You’ll get alerts on new points as quickly as they pop up, with the bonus of clear, visible studies—all the pieces from govt summaries to deep-dive technical breakdowns.
The group doesn’t simply drop a report and disappear, both. They keep engaged, providing assist with remediation, coaching classes, and retesting—all included. That type of partnership turns one-time checks into ongoing safety enchancment; a essential a part of an efficient threat administration program. What actually units NowSecure’s PTaaS aside is the best way we collaborate. From begin to end, you get actual folks serving to you’re employed by way of vulnerabilities, giving sensible recommendation, and confirming fixes are efficient with free retesting. As soon as all the pieces’s within the clear, we provide letters of attestation and might even present certifications to indicate your app meets rigorous requirements. That’s an enormous credibility enhance for compliance efforts and buyer belief alike.
Able to Elevate the Bar on Safety, Privateness & Compliance?
In case your present safety method feels outdated or gradual to maintain up with in the present day’s rapid-release cycles, think about making a change. NowSecure PTaaS is constructed for the tempo of recent improvement, combining quick outcomes with deep insights and professional assist whereas making certain that the options supplied meet the wants of a corporation’s cell app threat administration program.
Whether or not releases happen month-to-month, weekly or each day, that is your likelihood to remain forward of threats and show your dedication to safe, compliant, high-quality apps and transfer the mindset from a once-a-year checkbox right into a strategic benefit. Get began with PTaaS in the present day.