There are plenty of challenges in offensive security.
Rising report volume, contextualising findings, and validation all spring to mind.
But one challenge that doesn’t get a lot of attention is program management.
Better management of your offensive security program can have a tremendous impact on its outcomes. Plus, if you get it right, you can spend less time on admin, and more time eliminating risk.
The multi-channel testing problem
Offensive security programs ingest findings from a wide range of testing activities. Bug bounty, VDP, scanners, red teaming, and pentests, just for starters.
Anyone who has been involved with offensive security knows that this creates a serious challenge for security teams.
How do you process findings that arrive in dozens of formats, with differing levels of validation, non-standard contents, and varied accuracy? Usually, the answer is: with difficulty. And when the process for handling reports varies by channel, it only gets harder.
External pentests are a microcosm of this challenge.
The curious case of managing pentests
Security teams frequently engage multiple pentest providers, each with its own processes, ideas, and report structures. Consequently, they can have a hard time processing findings consistently even within the single OffSec "channel" of pentesting.
A large organisation today might commission hundreds of pentests per year from dozens of providers. Each provider has its own process and delivers its findings in a different format. Just this challenge alone is enough to cause a huge headache.
Then there's the project management. Scoping, scheduling, credentials, testing windows, progress updates. Most of this happens via email and calls, with no shared record of what was agreed or what has actually been tested.
Then there’s remediation follow-up, which brings another round of chasing. Organising retests, confirming closure, and documenting everything means another round of inefficiencies, and often several weeks of delays.
And that’s before we’ve even considered the mundanity of ingesting findings. PDF reports are fine for auditors, but dreadful for remediation workflows because they inevitably create manual work. Even if you’re lucky enough to have pentest providers who use more modern solutions, your team will still have to deal with a different system for each unique provider.
Differences in templates, reporting mechanisms, follow-up processes, and general communication are a major headache. It’s bad enough with two or three providers, but once you reach 10+, it’s a permanent tax on your team’s resources.
Every minute spent standardising reports, importing findings into your workflows, and manually emailing or calling different providers for context or retests is a minute not spent reducing risk.
7 components of a centralised OffSec program
Although we’ve used pentests as our main example, the problems described above are present across all vulnerability sources. Different tools, OffSec services, and testing modalities come with their own processes and frustrations.
The question is, how do we centralise vulnerabilities from all sources into a single, standardised process and format? We need 7 things:
- Onboard all testing sources. All findings from internal testing, pentest suppliers, Bug Bounty and VDP programs, and scanners should be delivered, managed, and processed through one channel.
- Project management. For human testing, logistics and communication should be centralised. Everything from test scopes and parameters to discussion and follow-up should happen in one place, regardless of who is involved.
- Real-time findings. Waiting weeks for findings is a waste of time. New reports should be available immediately, enabling your team to start processing findings immediately.
- Standardised outputs. Every finding should arrive in the same format, regardless of which supplier (or team) produced it. Severity, asset information, reproduction steps, and evidence should always be in the same fields and formats, making it easy to sort, filter, and process them.
- One workflow (yours). Efficient OffSec requires a single workflow for processing vulnerabilities. That means all testing channels must feed into your workflow (e.g., using connectors, APIs, webhooks, etc.) in a standard format, ready for prioritisation and remediation.
- Program dashboards. You should be able to monitor and analyse all your OffSec activities via a single dashboard, without needing to hop between multiple systems to get the full picture.
- Audit-ready evidence. Standardised reporting is essential, as is the ability to customise reports to fit your specific needs across various GRC requirements.
Centralise your offensive security program
YesWeHack’s Vulnerability Management solution is designed to address the challenges highlighted in this article. By centralising your entire offensive security program into a single platform, you can have the benefits of varied testing modalities and providers without the administrative burden.
Vulnerability Management enables your team to:
- Onboard all testers and tools and interact with testers directly through the platform
- Receive vulnerability reports immediately and process all findings in one workflow
- Standardise report formats and maintain real-time visibility across all channels
- Easily prove compliance and generate evidence for audits
The result: better program governance, more accurate prioritisation, and faster remediation.
