Diving into the fast-evolving world of cybersecurity, we’re thrilled to sit down with Malik Haidar, a seasoned expert who has spent years safeguarding multinational corporations from sophisticated cyber threats. With a deep background in analytics, intelligence, and security, Malik has a unique ability to blend technical prowess with business strategy, making him a go-to mind in offensive security. In this conversation, we explore the shortcomings of traditional penetration testing, the transformative power of Continuous Penetration Testing (CPT), and how it aligns with today’s dynamic digital landscapes. From real-world stories of security turnarounds to debunking myths about CPT, Malik sheds light on how organizations can stay ahead of attackers in an ever-shifting threat environment.
How have you seen traditional point-in-time penetration testing fall short in today’s fast-paced environments, and can you share a specific example that illustrates this gap?
Well, traditional point-in-time testing is like taking a photograph of a moving train—it captures one moment, but by the time you look at it, the train’s long gone. I’ve seen this play out starkly with a client in the financial sector a few years back. We conducted a thorough pentest on a Monday, identifying a handful of vulnerabilities in their cloud setup, but by Friday, their engineering team had pushed a new update that introduced an entirely new attack vector none of us had accounted for. The snapshot we delivered was obsolete almost instantly, and they were blindsided by a minor breach a week later because of that untracked change. It was a frustrating moment for everyone involved, smelling the bitter coffee in endless late-night meetings as we scrambled to patch things up. That experience drove home how static testing just can’t keep pace with environments where cloud assets and code deployments shift daily.
Can you walk us through a case where an organization struggled with the return on investment from static pentesting, and how moving to Continuous Penetration Testing changed their outlook?
Absolutely, I worked with a mid-sized tech firm that was pouring resources into annual pentests, but the ROI just wasn’t there. They’d spend weeks on scoping meetings, vendor coordination, and then get a thick report that was outdated before they could even act on half the findings—think of it as buying an expensive car that starts rusting the moment you drive it off the lot. Their remediation cycles dragged on for months, and leadership was frustrated because they couldn’t show measurable progress to the board. When we pivoted them to CPT, it was like flipping a switch; findings came in smaller, actionable chunks tied to real-time changes, cutting their remediation time by nearly half in the first six months. I remember the relief in the CISO’s voice during a review call, saying they finally felt in control rather than constantly playing catch-up. It wasn’t just about cost—it was about turning security into a story of improvement they could actually track.
The concept of the “invisible gap” in security due to expanding attack surfaces like cloud assets or third-party integrations is eye-opening. Could you share a story where this caught a company off guard and how CPT helped address it?
Oh, the invisible gap is a sneaky beast. I recall a retail client who thought they had a tight grip on their environment until a third-party integration they’d added for payment processing quietly expanded their attack surface. They had no idea this integration exposed a misconfigured API until a point-in-time test missed it, and a low-level attacker exploited it weeks later for a data leak—it was a gut punch hearing the panic in their IT manager’s voice over the phone. Once we implemented CPT, we set up dynamic asset discovery to catch these shadowy additions in near real-time, and human testers validated the risks before they became disasters. Over the next few months, their visibility improved dramatically; they stopped having those heart-stopping surprises and started proactively locking down new assets as they appeared. It was a journey from chaos to confidence, one small win at a time.
How does Continuous Penetration Testing integrate with modern engineering practices like DevOps, and can you describe a team’s experience adopting it into their workflow?
CPT fits into DevOps like a glove because it’s all about continuous feedback, much like CI/CD pipelines. I worked with a software development team at a SaaS company that lived and breathed rapid deployments, but their old pentesting model was a clunky once-a-year ordeal that clashed with their workflow. When we introduced CPT, we aligned testing cycles with their sprints, feeding findings directly into their ticketing system so engineers could address issues without breaking stride. The biggest hurdle was initial skepticism—some developers worried it’d slow them down—but after the first month, they saw remediation times drop significantly because issues were caught early. I still picture their lead engineer grinning during a demo, amazed at how seamlessly a critical bug fix was validated through retesting without derailing their schedule. It became a natural extension of their process, not a roadblock.
The hybrid model of combining automated reconnaissance with human-led exploitation sounds intriguing. Can you tell us about a time this approach uncovered a vulnerability that might have been missed otherwise?
That hybrid model is where the magic happens. I remember a project with a healthcare client where automation flagged a slew of potential weak points in their web app infrastructure, but it was the human element that connected the dots. One of our testers noticed a subtle misconfiguration in a chain of API calls that automation tagged as low-priority—on its own, it was nothing, but paired with another obscure flaw, it opened a path to sensitive patient data. Digging into that exploit felt like piecing together a puzzle in a dimly lit room, pure adrenaline as we realized the potential impact. When we presented it to the client, their security head was stunned; they admitted automation alone would’ve glossed over it, and their gratitude was palpable during that tense briefing. The human mindset—thinking like an attacker—made all the difference in catching a threat that could’ve been catastrophic.
There’s a common myth that CPT overwhelms teams with too many findings. Have you encountered a client who feared this, and how did the reality play out for them?
That myth pops up a lot, and I get why—nobody wants to drown in alerts. I had a client in the logistics sector who was dead-set against CPT at first, worried their small security team would be buried under constant reports. But when we rolled it out, the opposite happened; instead of a tidal wave of findings like their annual pentest dumps, CPT delivered steady, manageable insights tied to specific changes in their environment. Their workflow smoothed out—remediation became a daily habit rather than a quarterly panic, and they reported a noticeable drop in team stress during our follow-up chats. I can still hear their IT director laughing over a call, saying it felt like switching from firefighting to gardening—just tending to small issues before they grew. The volume curve flattened, and they actually felt more in control.
Unlimited retesting is highlighted as a major benefit of CPT for validating fixes. Can you share an example where this proved critical for a client’s security posture?
Unlimited retesting is a game-changer, no doubt. I worked with an e-commerce company that patched a critical vulnerability after a CPT finding, but they were nervous about whether the fix would hold under pressure. With unlimited retesting, we hammered that fix from multiple angles over a few weeks, simulating real attacker behavior until we were certain it was solid. One retest actually caught a partial regression—a related issue that crept back in with a new update—and we helped them lock it down before it became a problem. The ripple effect was huge; their security lead told me it gave them rock-solid confidence to report to leadership that their defenses were truly battle-tested. Watching their relief during that final review meeting, knowing their platform was safer for millions of users, was incredibly rewarding.
Real-time transparency in CPT, like seeing tester activities in a single feed, sounds like a powerful feature. Can you describe a situation where this made a significant difference for a client?
Transparency in CPT is like having a live map during a treasure hunt—it keeps everyone on the same page. I had a client in the energy sector who struggled with communication between their security and ops teams during traditional pentests; they’d wait weeks for updates and often misalign on priorities. With CPT’s real-time activity feed, they could see exactly what was being tested and when, which let them deconflict with their defensive tools on the fly and shorten response cycles by days. I remember their ops manager messaging me mid-test, thrilled that they could watch a simulated attack unfold and immediately validate their mitigations. Their feedback was glowing—they said it felt like having a partner in the room, not just a vendor dropping a report, and it built a trust that carried through every engagement.
Tracking metrics like time-to-detect or attack path reduction seems vital for leadership reporting with CPT. Can you share a moment where these metrics helped make a strong case to a board or influence strategy?
Metrics are the language of the boardroom, and CPT delivers them in spades. I worked with a CISO at a manufacturing firm who was under intense pressure to justify security budgets to their board. Using CPT, we tracked trends like time-to-remediate and attack path reduction over several months, showing how exposure windows shrank with each cycle of testing and fixing. During a pivotal board meeting, the CISO presented these numbers—hard evidence that vulnerabilities were being caught and resolved faster—and I later heard the board approved a significant budget increase for expanding CPT across more business units. The CISO called me afterward, voice brimming with pride, saying those metrics turned abstract security into a tangible story of progress. It wasn’t just data; it was a narrative that shifted their entire security strategy.
Finally, looking ahead, what is your forecast for the role of Continuous Penetration Testing in the future of cybersecurity?
I’m incredibly optimistic about CPT’s trajectory—it’s poised to become the backbone of modern cybersecurity as environments grow even more complex. With the rise of cloud-native setups, IoT, and relentless attacker innovation, static testing will fade into irrelevance, and CPT will step in as the only way to maintain real-time resilience. I believe we’ll see even tighter integration with AI for acceleration, but human creativity will remain irreplaceable for those breakthrough moments of insight. My forecast is that within the next few years, CPT won’t just be a best practice—it’ll be the standard for any organization serious about staying ahead of threats. We’re already seeing the shift, and I can’t wait to witness how it reshapes the industry.
