Parsing and transcribing penetration test (pentest) report findings into a ticketing system is a tedious, manual task. On average, it takes about 5 minutes to copy and paste a single finding - including text, formatting, and images - into Jira or a similar platform.

Suppose a report contains just five findings, this already adds up to around 30 minutes of manual work. Bump up to 10 findings, a reasonable average, and you’re looking at over an hour spent on tedious copy-paste tasks. Now, consider this: if you’re paying a security engineer a total compensation of around USD 170K, and your company runs at least four pentests a year, you’re burning through roughly USD 325 annually on manual report handling alone. That may not sound like a high amount, but it’s likely a very conservative estimate.

Implementing and maintaining an Information Security Management System (ISMS) is a significant investment that is regularly underestimated by organizations. The average cost of obtaining and maintaining an ISMS can range from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the size and complexity of the organization. Industry reports consistently highlight that a substantial portion of this cost is attributed to personnel, consulting fees, and audit expenses. With these costs in mind, small and medium-sized firms naturally explore open-source alternatives, seeking a more budget-friendly approach to achieving ISO 27001 compliance.

The first quarter of 2025 has ushered in a series of unprecedented geopolitical shifts. Long-standing allies are now entangled in escalating trade wars, with markets plummeting under increasing tariffs and businesses struggling to keep up with unpredictable US economic policy. At the same time, the European Union is embarking on a significant rearmament initiative, aiming to reduce its reliance on US military support. Meanwhile, the United States is aggressively pursuing an end to the Ukraine conflict, aligning its diplomacy more closely with Russia and threatening traditional alliances.

When identifying and prioritizing threats, cybersecurity teams have many options available. Plenty of platforms, frameworks, and techniques exist to help prioritize the constant stream of threats that companies face. The problem is that there are too many options available, and many are cost-prohibitive. Consequently, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be rapidly overwhelmed by these options, making it difficult to identify easy-to-implement, cost-efficient, yet effective threat management approaches.

In cybersecurity, threat management refers to continuously identifying, analyzing, and mitigating cyber threats to protect an organization’s digital assets, networks, and systems. It is a critical part of cyber risk management and includes multiple security disciplines.