Penetration testing, or pentesting, is a fundamental practice that mimics a real-world threat actor’s actions to compromise an application deployed to production. Because it can identify vulnerabilities in software interfaces which could be exploited by malware, annual pentesting is required to comply with the PCI-DSS standard and other regulations.
However, software supply chain attackers tamper with software before deployment, embed malware, and add suspicious behaviors or changes to software updates. Once the compromised software is deployed it is too late to protect the organization from the attack.
Because pentests require software deployment and omit a large portion of the codebase from analysis, they cannot detect embedded threats or software changes that increase risk to business operations.
Additionally, the fees associated with scoping and managing pentests are untenable at the larger scale and frequency required to continually assess software supply chain risk.
Spectra Assure uses complex binary analysis to produce an easily digestible SAFE report, which delivers the most complete software inventory, plus a comprehensive risk assessment which identifies malware, tampering, suspicious behaviors, and more.
Spectra Assure applies a systematic approach for evaluating and articulating a software integrity. Unlike pentesting, the analysis is comparable across different software versions and vendors and it can integrated into automated processes.