EliteSec vs Scanners

Your Scanner Found 47 Vulnerabilities. We Find the One That Matters.

Nessus, Qualys, Burp Suite—great tools. But they can't think like an attacker. They miss business logic flaws, chained exploits, and the context-specific risks that lead to actual breaches. Here's why companies hire us instead of relying on tools alone.

Why Companies Choose EliteSec Over Scanners Alone

Automated tools have their place. But when you need findings that actually improve security—not just a long PDF—here's what you get with EliteSec.

Recommended

EliteSec

Expert‑Led Testing

What Gets Tested

Business logic, authentication flows, authorization bypasses, chained attack paths—the flaws scanners can't see.

Testing Approach

Context-aware testing by OSCP-certified experts who think like attackers.

Report Quality

Prioritized findings with business context. Your devs know exactly what to fix and why it matters.

False Positives

Every finding manually verified. We don't waste your team's time chasing ghosts.

Remediation Guidance

Stack-specific fix recommendations. 5 free re-tests over 12 months to verify your fixes work.

Human Expertise

Direct access to the principal consultant. Questions answered, edge cases explained.

Compliance Value

Board-ready reports that satisfiy auditors and enterprise customers.

Real-World Outcome

Findings that improve your actual security posture and help you close enterprise deals.

Automated Scanners

Nessus, Qualys, etc.

What Gets Tested

Known CVEs from vulnerability databases. The same list everyone else gets.

Testing Approach

Signature matching and pattern detection. No understanding of your application's logic.

Report Quality

Hundreds of CVE entries sorted by CVSS score. No context about what's actually exploitable in your environment.

False Positives

Expect 30-70% false positive rates. Your team becomes the filter.

Remediation Guidance

Generic remediation text copied from CVE databases. No verification that fixes actually work.

Human Expertise

Documentation and community forums. Nobody to ask when the report doesn't make sense.

Compliance Value

Automated scan reports rarely accepted as penetration test evidence for SOC 2, ISO27001, or PCI-DSS.

Real-World Outcome

A long PDF that checks a box. Same vulnerabilities rediscovered next quarter.

Get a Real Pen Test

Real Results

What Clients Say

"

Working with John at EliteSec was a great experience - we're a small software company, and John was able to work with our budget to provide us with penetration testing for our web application. John was professional and prompt and helped us set up for the test and then provided a detailed report complete with steps to remediate any issues that were found. Looking forward to working with John again in the future!

charitycan

Charitycan

EliteSec Client

"

We've had great success with the team at EliteSec. Their thorough review of our products and infrastructure have identified key areas for continual improvement that had been missed by other consultants. This extra front-loaded effort ensures that the solutions they provide align with our needs, not with a cookie cutter.

logisense

Logisense

EliteSec Client

"

My software development team received a great training session from John at EliteSec. The session was targeted to our specific needs, and has helped our team gain the skills and knowledge required to be ready for future challenges. The team felt they were equipped with a good framework for identifying potential security problems going forward.

magnet-forensics

Magnet Forensics

EliteSec Client

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I hire a penetration tester or just run Nessus/Qualys?
It depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you just need a list of known CVEs to patch, automated scanners work fine. But if you're protecting a SaaS application, handling sensitive data, or need to satisfy enterprise customers' security requirements, you need manual penetration testing. Scanners can't find business logic flaws, authentication bypasses, or chained attack paths—the vulnerabilities that actually lead to breaches.
Why are automated scanner reports not accepted for compliance?
Most compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO27001, PCI-DSS) explicitly require penetration testing, not just vulnerability scanning. Auditors know that scanners only check for known issues—they can't assess your application's unique attack surface. A CREST-accredited penetration test report demonstrates that an expert actually tried to break into your system, not just ran a tool against it.
What can a penetration tester find that Nessus or Qualys can't?
Business logic flaws are the big one—like an e-commerce site that accepts negative quantities, or an API that lets you access other users' data by changing an ID. Scanners also miss chained vulnerabilities (combining three low-severity issues into one critical exploit), authentication flow weaknesses, and context-specific risks unique to your architecture. These are often the vulnerabilities that lead to actual breaches.
How much do false positives cost when using automated scanners?
Industry data suggests 30-70% of automated scanner findings are false positives. If your scanner reports 100 vulnerabilities and your dev team spends 30 minutes investigating each one, that's 15-35 hours wasted chasing ghosts. With manual penetration testing, every finding is verified before it reaches your team—we don't report anything we haven't actually exploited or confirmed.
Can I use both automated scanning and penetration testing?
Absolutely—that's what we recommend. Run automated scans frequently (weekly or after deployments) to catch known CVEs quickly. Then bring in EliteSec quarterly or annually for deep manual testing that finds what scanners miss. We can even help you tune your scanners to reduce false positives based on what we learn during testing.

Ready for Findings You Can Actually Act On?

Get a CREST-accredited assessment that goes beyond scanner output. Manual testing. Business logic analysis. Context-specific remediation guidance. Plus 5 free re-tests to verify your fixes.

Request a Sample Report