Pen test flagged 40 vulnerabilities — do we really need a dedicated remediation tracking tool?

Turn down that license offer straight away. Don't let 40 items psych you out; knock out the criticals and highs first. You can probably resolve 80% of the actual risk with one solid week of dev time. Just scatter the remaining low-severity tickets across your upcoming sprints and call it a day.

On our 20-person team last year, we got a report back with 38 findings. The auditor tried to sell us a similar tracking portal, but we passed. We just set up a custom tag in our ticketing system. Cleared 34 of them within 45 days and logged the remaining 4 lows as accepted risk. Passed our compliance audit with zero extra spend.

The pentest firm immediately recommending a 6,000-dollar tool right after the test is a classic upsell move. They're probably a partner or reseller for that software and taking a cut per sale. A 14-person company budgeting for a tool like that would be a complete waste of resources.

Here's the technical detail you need to watch out for when migrating these to your current system: Don't just tell the developers "fix vulnerability X." Include the vulnerability score from the report, the affected URL or library version, and the reproduction steps in the ticket description. Otherwise, the dev will say they fixed it, but they might have just renamed a parameter and left the flaw wide open.

Does your testing contract include a re-test clause? If so, what's the timeframe? Most contracts include a 30 or 60-day free verification window for fixes. If you have that, you can just have the consultant do the verification work the tool would do completely covered by your contract.

we just handled it with a simple spreadsheet. set up columns for vulnerability name, severity, assigned dev, and status. like had a 15-min weekly meeting to track progress knocked it all out in two months. zero need to spend that kind of money.

Neither your clients nor regulations require you to use a dedicated vulnerability management tool. All auditors care about is that you have a documented process showing the findings were remediated and that records exist verifying the fixes technically. Your existing ticket history will more than satisfy this requirement.

The general consensus is pretty clear: 1) Don't buy the 6,000-dollar tool, 2) Create tasks in your current project tracker with a security tag, 3) Check your contract for a free re-test window and use that for verification. An extra tool will only add to your overhead.

Let's separate the concepts, they're getting mixed up. Forgotten test environments are more often the entry point than live systems.

Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

Yes, that's exactly how it is with remediation tools. An automated scan report is not the same as a penetration test.

I'd appreciate it if you shared the outcome. Processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Just a heads-up. An automated scan report is not the same as a penetration test.

Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once. Just leaving this note it might be useful.

It's rare to find an explanation this clear. Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval.

Let me summarize the topic, since several different answers were given. Hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Great work. If you don't write this down from the start, it leads to arguments later.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

The discussion got scattered, let me summarize. Solutions that work at a small scale collapse when you grow; I learned this late.

If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong. I'm also curious if anyone does it differently.

I have a question, don't want to go off-topic though. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

The real issue isn't the number, but what it's based on. If you have questions, write them; I'll answer as best I can.

The opposite happened to me, that's why I'm writing. If you get three different answers on a topic the question was asked wrong.

If I were you, I'd go this route.