c3.11 Adopt agentic penetration testing
Complement periodic manual pentests with autonomous, agent-based testing such as AWS Security Agent, which continuously discovers, exploits, and validates real vulnerabilities so you can test far more applications, far more often.
Implementation guidance
Test more applications, more often
Manual penetration tests are valuable but infrequent and expensive, so they usually reach only a few crown-jewel applications once a year. Agentic penetration testing runs continuously and at a fraction of the cost, extending coverage across your portfolio and shortening the time between a flaw being introduced and being found.
AWS Security Agent
AWS Security Agent (part of AWS Continuum) performs on-demand, autonomous penetration testing using specialized AI agents that map the attack surface, analyze business-logic flaws, attempt targeted exploitation, and validate findings — so what gets reported are confirmed, exploitable risks rather than raw scanner noise. It verifies domain ownership before testing your web applications and APIs.
Treat the agent as a privileged identity
An autonomous tester with access to exploit your applications is itself a sensitive principal. Scope its access tightly, log its actions, and route validated findings into your existing DevSecOps and vulnerability-management workflows. Pair it with agentic security review earlier in the lifecycle.
Watch
How to validate
- Is agentic/autonomous penetration testing run continuously, or only ad hoc?
- Which applications are in scope, and how is target authorization managed?
- How are validated findings prioritized and remediated, and within what SLA?
- Is the testing agent’s own access scoped, logged, and reviewed?
Threats addressed
- Relying only on annual manual pentests leaves most applications untested for long periods, so newly introduced exploitable flaws can persist undetected.
- An autonomous pentesting agent with broad, unlogged access is itself a high-value target and a potential source of unintended impact if not scoped and monitored.