Security

Real offensive depth

Testing and defence led by a published security researcher with five CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1 Mirai botnet kill-switch.

All security →
Compliance

Audit-ready, fixed scope

SOC 2, ISO, and the Canadian privacy stack, run end to end with an independent auditor.

All frameworks →
Resources

Learn the space

Original research, free tools, and plain-language guides on security and compliance, from a published security researcher.

Read the blog →
home / comparisons / pentest-only shops

A pentest report is the start, not the finish.

Dedicated pentest firms like Packetlabs and Vumetric do solid offensive work, and so do the testing partners we co-deliver with. But a standalone pentest hands you a list of findings and walks away. Someone still has to prioritize, remediate, re-test, and fold it into a real security program. That is the part we own. Here is the honest comparison.

When a pentest-only shop is the right call

We would rather tell you the truth than win a bad-fit client. Here is when the alternative is genuinely the better choice.

  • You already have a security team that owns strategy and remediation and just needs an independent test.
  • A customer or auditor requires a third-party penetration test from a firm with no other involvement, for independence.
  • You have a specific, well-scoped target and you only want the test, not the program around it.
  • You know how to triage and fix what comes back without outside help.

If that is you, a focused pentest shop is a fine choice, and we can recommend good ones. Many teams get the report, then have nobody to act on it, which is the gap we fill.

traztech vs Pentest-only shop

traztech Pentest-only shop
What you get Strategy, remediation, and the program around the test A scoped test and a findings report
After the report We prioritize and fix the findings with you You own remediation, the engagement is over
Offensive testing Run by our offensive-security partner Their core service, done well
Compliance fit Folded into SOC 2 and your broader program A standalone deliverable you map yourself
Who answers the auditor We do, the pentest is one input we manage Not their role
Re-testing Built into the remediation cycle Often a separate, additional engagement

What that looks like in practice

Every number below comes from an engagement record and links to the full case study.

The findings have to close, and the closure is what gets sampled

An auditor testing your vulnerability management control does not want the report. They want evidence that findings were triaged, remediated inside your stated window, and retested. On a zero-exception Type II across 76 controls, that closure evidence is what was sampled.

Read the Type II case study

Physical sites in scope, not just applications

A dual-framework engagement covered three data centre sites with physical and environmental controls in scope alongside a datacenter platform, an AI compute platform, and a self-hosted collaboration stack.

Read the parallel engagement

One vendor instead of a handoff

Where a testing firm and a readiness firm are separate, somebody has to carry findings across the gap at exactly the point evidence matters. One engagement was placed with a single firm that was both a licensed CPA firm and an accredited certification body for precisely that reason.

Why one firm mattered

More at all case studies.

Why teams pick traztech

We close the loop, not just open it

A findings report is only valuable if someone fixes what it found. We prioritize by real risk, remediate alongside your engineers, and re-test to confirm the fix held.

Offensive depth, without the handoff

Testing is run with our partner, an offensive firm with deep hands-on and AI red-team experience. You get the test quality of a specialist shop inside a managed program.

Researcher-grade triage

Our principal has five published CVEs. Findings get triaged by someone who finds vulnerabilities for real, not just by severity score, so you fix what actually matters first.

It feeds the whole program

The pentest is one input into SOC 2, your roadmap, and your auditor relationship. We connect it to everything else instead of leaving it as an orphaned PDF.

Frequently asked

Does traztech do the penetration testing itself?

The offensive testing is run with our partner, an offensive-security firm with deep hands-on and AI red-team experience. traztech owns the strategy, scoping, remediation, and the program the test feeds into. One engagement, one relationship, with the specialist doing the specialist work.

Why not just hire a pentest shop directly?

You can, and for an independent test of a mature program that may be the right move. The gap is what happens after the report. A pentest-only shop hands you findings and leaves. We prioritize, remediate, re-test, and fold the results into your compliance program.

Is the testing quality as good as a specialist firm?

Yes, because the testing is done by a specialist firm. Our partner runs the offensive work. The difference is that with traztech the test sits inside a managed program with remediation, instead of being a standalone deliverable.

Can you use our existing pentest report?

Yes. If you already have a recent pentest, we will triage the findings, build a remediation plan, fix what matters, and map it into your SOC 2 evidence. You do not have to re-test from scratch unless the report is stale.

Will an independent auditor accept a test run through your partner?

Yes. The test is performed by our partner as an independent offensive firm, which preserves the independence auditors and customers look for. We manage the relationship and the remediation around it.

What if the pentest finds something serious?

That is exactly the case we are built for. We triage it by real exploitability, remediate it with your team, and re-test to confirm. A pentest-only shop would hand you the finding and bill the re-test separately. Remediation is part of our engagement.

Before you pay for any of them

traztech Workspace covers the same self-assessment ground for nothing: every control in plain English, an evidence register, policy templates, a risk register, and vendor questionnaires. It does not do continuous monitoring or auto-collection, and we say so plainly. If all you need right now is to understand the scope, you do not need a subscription for that.

No credit card, no trial clock, no locked features. We make money when someone wants help closing the gaps, not from the Workspace.

traztech Workspace Other GRC platforms
Licence cost $0. Free forever, no card, no paid tier $7,500 to $50,000 a year, on an annual contract
Control library, evidence register, policy templates, risk register, vendor questionnaires, readiness scoring Included Included
What it costs inside an engagement with us $0. You need a workspace either way Unchanged. The subscription sits on top of the fee
What it does to your audit quote $11,000 off a five-figure quote on one engagement, for a documented readiness position Nothing. The audit firm prices your readiness, not your tooling

Pricing in the right column is what compliance automation platforms are publicly reported to charge; none of them publish a number, so treat it as a range rather than a quote. The $11,000 came off the audit firm's own number once the readiness position was documented (the engagement). Where a paid platform is the better buy, and the fuller comparison, is on the Workspace page.

Get the test and the team that fixes it.

Specialist offensive testing through our partner, wrapped in strategy, remediation, and a program that an auditor will accept.

Ready to move? Start with SOC 2 readiness in 75 days or see our pricing.

Book a strategy call

Weighing your options?

Get Jacob's honest take, by email

Comparing approaches is the right move. Jacob sends a few short, candid notes on choosing the right security and compliance path for your stage, no fluff. Reply anytime; it reaches him directly.

From Jacob Masse, principal of traztech. No spam, unsubscribe in one click.

Track record

Who is actually doing the work

We are deliberately not a large firm, and we would rather show you the work than a wall of logos. Here is what is behind the advice.

5
Published CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1
76
Controls taken from nothing to a passed SOC 2 Type II
Zero
Exceptions on that Type II report
75 days
Readiness window we have hit every time we have run it
20+
Penetration testing engagements delivered

Published vulnerability research

Five published CVEs. CVE-2024-45163 (CVSS 9.1) is a flaw in the Mirai botnet itself, which gave defenders a way to shut down attacker infrastructure. CVE-2026-42626 takes HP ENVY 5000 printers offline from any unauthenticated device on the same network.

The printer is the one that matters on a compliance page: an asset nobody counts as a computer, on a flat network, downed by a device that never had to log in. Auditors ask how controls fail. We have found out first-hand.

A SOC 2 Type II built from nothing

At Humera, a venture-backed US security company, Jacob built the compliance programme in-house from nothing: no report, no policies, no documented controls. It ended in a Type II attestation across 76 controls with zero exceptions, on a team of 15.

The platform held 99.9% uptime throughout, which is the part most readiness projects get wrong: controls are easy to design and hard to retrofit onto a system people already depend on.

Recent engagements

For a Waterloo data centre operator we ran SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 together rather than one after the other, across a production campus, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack. Scoped so further Ontario and Quebec sites enter as they reach production. Findings delivered and remediated.

For an Ontario medtech company putting an AI clinical assistant in front of practitioners, we ran the gap analysis and built the evidence programme behind their SOC 2.