Crowdsourced Penetration Testing: Understanding the Risks for Better Decision-Making

• CPT vs. Bounties: CPT is a time-boxed, structured test for compliance reports with a fixed cost. Bug Bounty is ongoing, open-ended discovery paid per valid vulnerability found.
• Mitigate Key Risks: Watch for poor researcher vetting, potential data exposure/exfiltration by bad actors, and labor misclassification risks from global contractor engagement.
• Selection Essentials: Demand rigorous identity verification, confirmed CREST certification for reports, and ethical procurement policies ensuring fair labor standards.

Crowdsourced penetration testing promises broad coverage, flexible resourcing, and cost efficiency by tapping into a distributed pool of security testers.