What is autonomous penetration testing?

Autonomous penetration testing is authorized offensive security testing performed by AI agents that continuously reason across live applications and infrastructure: discovering attack surface, planning and executing safe exploit attempts, adapting based on system behavior, validating real impact, and producing evidence-backed remediation guidance, without requiring a human in the loop.

Autonomous vs. automated penetration testing: what's the difference?

The terms overlap, but 'automated' often means a scanner or scripted tool, while 'autonomous' means a system that reasons about the specific application, plans multi-step attacks, and validates by exploiting, closer to a human pentester than a scan. With Sybil, pentests can also be scheduled to kick off automatically at a set cadence.

How does autonomous penetration testing work?

It authenticates to the application, maps the attack surface, attacks by chaining weaknesses into exploit paths, and validates exploitability before reporting.

Is autonomous penetration testing just a vulnerability scanner?

No. A scanner matches signatures and flags potential issues. Autonomous penetration testing reasons about your application and proves exploitability by chaining real attacks. Sybil reports only what it has confirmed is exploitable.

Can autonomous penetration testing replace manual penetration testing?

Yes. Sybil covers privilege escalation, multi-tenant isolation, and business-logic flaws that scanners miss, with capabilities continuing to expand for web applications.

Is autonomous penetration testing accurate, or does it produce false positives?

Accuracy depends on validation. Sybil runs every finding through a multi-agent pipeline that drives false positives toward zero.

Does autonomous penetration testing satisfy SOC 2 and ISO 27001 requirements?

Yes. RunSybil customers have satisfied SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 audits using Sybil's output, which ships pre-formatted with CVSS 3.1 scores and CWE IDs.

Do I need to share source code to run an autonomous penetration test?

No. Sybil is black-box by default; credentials and source code are both optional. Providing credentials enables deeper coverage, the same detail as a traditional third-party pentest. Source code is optional and enables deeper white-box coverage and code-level remediation.

Continuous Security Testing for CI/CD

Continuous testing that keeps up with your application

Your team ships every day. A test from six months ago covers a product that no longer exists.

Sybil tests on every pull request, or on a cadence you set, validating and exploiting real vulnerabilities.

No manual kickoff. No waiting for the next pentest.

Schedule a Demo

See continuous testing coverage across every application.

Trusted by security & engineering teams — including at Carta

What is continuous testing?

vs. Continuous scanning

A scanner re-runs signature checks on a loop and flags potential issues. It is rife with false positives. Continuous security testing reasons about what changed and proves exploitability.

vs. Continuous monitoring

Monitoring watches and alerts; it doesn't prove a vulnerability is exploitable. Continuous security testing validates by exploiting, so there's nothing left to triage.

vs. "Continuous" human services

A retainer with human testers still gates on researcher availability. Only an autonomous system can hold an arbitrary recurring cadence or test on every change without that cost scaling with you.

vs. Bug bounty

TEXT HERE

Why Your Current Testing Falls Short

Security testing wasn't built for the speed software ships today. Tests take time to start, coverage gets stale, and every new test or retest requires someone to kick off the process again.

Testing is outdated as soon as you ship

A penetration test captures one version of your application at one point in time. Every change shipped after it creates new surface area that test never covered.

It takes too long to get started

A customer asks for a pentest. A compliance deadline is coming. You need testing now, but a manual pentest can take days or weeks to even kick off.

Every retest starts another manual process

Someone initiates the test. Engineers fix the vulnerabilities. Then someone has to initiate another test to validate the fixes.

More findings doesn't mean more clarity

Security tools can surface more potential vulnerabilities than your team can reasonably investigate. Without validation, you're left figuring out what's actually exploitable and what to fix first.

Two ways to continuously test with Sybil

Sybil connects to GitHub or GitLab, and you choose how testing gets triggered:

On every change.

Sybil tests on every pull request or push, reading the diff and testing exactly what changed, informed by everything it already knows about your app.
‍
Additionally, Sybil can test against changes it detects on the attack surface, so that even without code access, an evolving application is tested accordingly

On a schedule you set.

Sybil runs on a recurring cadence you define, independent of whether an engagement is black-box or white-box, so testing keeps happening even between code changes or when you need a full test for compliance or customers.

Either way, findings show up where your engineers already work:

Apply fixes through AI coding assistants

Get a confirmed retest same-day, in under an hour, no scheduling required

Run Sybil within Linear, Github, or Jira to automatically push, update, and track security findings as tickets in your existing workflow.

A human tester can't match either mode at scale: they are not running new tests on every merge, and can't hold an arbitrary recurring cadence without it costing more every time you add one. Automating both is what makes continuous coverage possible.

Continuous Security Testing with RunSybil

Continuous testing only works if you know whether it's actually happening. With each test, Sybils learns more about your application, referencing previous runs and information from your knowledge base to provide agents richer testing context.

RunSybil gives you a portfolio-level view of testing activity:

Completed tests from the last 90 days

Gaps in expected testing coverage

Recurring testing activity across your portfolio

Output stays audit-ready: CVSS 3.1 scores, CWE IDs, and SOC 2 Type II / ISO 27001-ready formatting

Cursor uses Sybil's self-serve retest to confirm fixes without coordinating with a consultant.

Sybil delivered a full pentest within two weeks of first contact — fast enough to unblock an active enterprise sale. Sybil traced complex, multi-step exploit chains across Cursor's cloud and application surface, and Cursor's own team retested fixes on their own schedule, no waiting required.

Every run has a history

Each schedule keeps a record of what happened every time it fired.

CREATED

A test was successfully created and started.

SKIPPED

No test was needed—for example, because a Change Test found no relevant changes.

FAILED

Something prevented the test from running, with the reason recorded.

PENDING

The scheduled run is still being processed.

Faq

Frequently Asked Questions

What is continuous security testing?

Continuous security testing is the practice of automatically running tests on an ongoing basis rather than relying only on manually initiated testing. RunSybil applies this to application security with recurring Full Tests and Change Tests that check what has changed before determining whether another test is needed.

Is continuous testing the same as continuous scanning?

No. Continuous scanning repeatedly checks for potential vulnerabilities. Continuous security testing goes further by actively testing the application and validating findings. Sybil is built to produce validated security findings rather than another queue of scanner alerts.

How is continuous testing different from penetration testing?

Traditional penetration tests usually happen at a specific point in time. Continuous penetration testing makes that testing recurring. Sybil automates the testing process so teams can run penetration tests repeatedly without coordinating a new manual engagement each time.

How does a RunSybil Change Test work?

At the scheduled time, Sybil checks the connected repository and branch for changes since its previous baseline. It reads the diff, identifies security-relevant changes, and creates a test when those changes warrant testing. If nothing relevant changed, the run can be skipped.

How often can Sybil run continuous tests?

Continuous tests can currently be scheduled daily, weekly, or monthly. Each schedule can also specify a time and timezone. Teams can use Run now when they want an additional test outside the normal cadence.

Can I pause continuous testing?

Yes. A schedule can be paused without deleting it. When you're ready to resume continuous testing, you can enable the existing schedule again without rebuilding its configuration.

What happens if nothing has changed?

For a Change Test, Sybil can skip the test when it doesn't identify relevant changes to investigate. The run is still recorded in the schedule history, so your team can see that the scheduled check occurred and why no test was created.

Can I see continuous testing across multiple applications?

Yes. RunSybil's Continuous Testing dashboard shows testing activity across applications, including completed tests, upcoming scheduled runs, and gaps in testing coverage.

Let's scope what black box or white box would find in your last release.

Bring us the app. We'll tell you honestly whether black box, white box, or both is the right way to test it — then run it in days, not quarters.

SEE HOW AN ENGAGEMENT RUNS

TALK TO US ABOUT SCOPING