CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Halo Security vs Synack

Halo Security sells penetration testing and continuous visibility across an attack surface, bringing testing, discovery, and scanning together. Synack delivers continuous penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) that combines agentic AI, the Synack Platform and the Synack Red Team. CISO Tribune files both under Penetration testing and red team services. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Halo Security
  • Synack
Halo Security vs Synack: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
Halo SecurityHalo Security sells penetration testing and continuous visibility across an attack surface, bringing testing, discovery, and scanning together.halosecurity.comSynackSynack delivers continuous penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) that combines agentic AI, the Synack Platform and the Synack Red Team.synack.com
What it sells
  • Penetration Testing[1][2][3][11]Halo Security tests web and mobile applications, APIs, external and internal networks, and wireless environments.
  • Attack Surface Management[1][2]Helps organizations discover and monitor the assets they expose to the internet.
  • Application Scanning[5]Scans web applications for vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
  • Sara AI Pentesting[3][4][5]Sara AI Pentesting identifies, validates and prioritizes vulnerabilities across the enterprise attack surface.
  • Synack Red Team[3][4][5][6]Synack PTaaS brings the Synack Red Team, a community of incentivized security researchers, to the attack surface.
  • Synack Platform[3][4][5][6][7]Synack's PTaaS offering includes the Synack Platform for asset and vulnerability management, test results, reports and analytics.
  • Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS)Synack delivers continuous penetration testing as a service (PTaaS).
  • Active Offense[13]Synack's Active Offense solution combines continuous attack surface discovery with autonomous exploit validation and human-led expert analysis.
  • Managed VDP[15]Synack's Managed VDP handles vulnerability triage with remediation guidance, coordinates researcher recognition and delivers data to support CISA or Board reporting.
  • Synack Missions[14]Synack Missions use the Synack Red Team to complete specific tasks and provide documentation of their work.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesRedwood City, United States[2]
Founded
Not stated on its pages2013[1]
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
Not written yetFrom its own pages, Synack sells its tests to organizations under a flat-fee model. Synack describes its Managed VDP as an option for responsible disclosure for federal teams. Synack describes pulling reports on third party providers or potential M&A targets. Synack describes report generation for executive audiences and compliance auditors. Synack describes testing for mobile, API, web and host assets, and describes Sara AI Pentesting as working across the enterprise attack surface.
Last verified
November 12, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Halo Security and Synack are both filed under Penetration testing and red team services.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Halo Security's primary category is Penetration testing and red team services; Synack's is Bug bounty and crowdsourced testing.
  • Halo Security is also filed under External attack surface management, Vulnerability management and Digital risk protection.
  • Halo Security lists Penetration Testing, Attack Surface Management and Application Scanning. Synack lists Sara AI Pentesting, Synack Red Team, Synack Platform, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Active Offense and 2 more.
  • Synack is headquartered in Redwood City, United States.
  • Synack was founded in 2013.

What it sells: Halo Security

What Penetration Testing does[1][2][3][11]
Halo Security's penetration testing service combines manual investigation with tools whose results are validated by testers. Halo Security tests web and mobile applications, APIs, external and internal networks, and wireless environments. Halo Security offers social engineering and red teaming. An included round of retesting lets customers verify their remediation work.
What Attack Surface Management does[1][2]
Attack surface management covers internet-exposed assets, including websites, APIs, servers, and cloud services. Halo Security continuously checks those assets for vulnerabilities and changes. Halo Security finds and inventories internet-facing assets, including unknown and forgotten websites, IPs, services, and applications.

What it sells: Synack

What Sara AI Pentesting does[3][4][5]
Sara's AI-powered triage is combined with human-in-the-loop expertise to filter which vulnerabilities are exploitable. Synack combines Sara AI Pentesting, the Synack Red Team and the Synack Platform.
What Synack Red Team does[3][4][5][6]
Synack describes a community of 1,500 security researchers from around the world. Synack can limit testing to members of the Synack Red Team who meet certain criteria, such as US-only researchers or Five Eyes only.
What Synack Platform does[3][4][5][6][7]
Synack provides real time analytics of exploitable vulnerabilities that are found and verified in the Synack Platform. Synack lets users issue a patch verification request through the platform, which activates a researcher to test the patch. The Synack API integrates vulnerability findings with tools such as ServiceNow, Jira and Azure DevOps.
What Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) does
Synack lets users choose and launch penetration testing services from the platform on demand, and start, audit and stop tests. Synack PTaaS is available 24/7 via the Synack Platform. Synack tests at multiple stages of development and assists developer and QA teams through real-time reporting and patch verification.
What Active Offense does[13]
Synack continuously discovers, classifies and segments internet-facing and newly exposed assets. Sara's AI-powered triage is combined with human-in-the-loop expertise to filter which vulnerabilities are exploitable.
What Managed VDP does[15]
Synack's Managed VDP is offered as an option for responsible disclosure to federal teams. VDPs provide enterprise security teams a safe and legal means to be notified of vulnerabilities on externally facing infrastructure by the public.

Questions about Halo Security and Synack

What do Halo Security and Synack sell?
Halo Security sells Penetration Testing, Attack Surface Management and Application Scanning. Synack sells Sara AI Pentesting, Synack Red Team, Synack Platform, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Active Offense and 2 more.
Are Halo Security and Synack in the same category?
They share Penetration testing and red team services. Halo Security's primary category is Penetration testing and red team services and Synack's is Bug bounty and crowdsourced testing.
Where are Halo Security and Synack headquartered?
Synack is headquartered in Redwood City, United States.
When were Halo Security and Synack founded?
Synack was founded in 2013.
Who are Halo Security and Synack sold to?
From its own pages, Synack sells its tests to organizations under a flat-fee model.

About Halo Security

Halo Security sells penetration testing and continuous visibility across an attack surface, bringing testing, discovery, and scanning together. Halo Security tests web and mobile applications, APIs, external and internal networks, and wireless environments. Halo Security offers social engineering and red teaming. Halo Security's penetration testing service combines manual investigation with tools whose results are validated by testers.[1][2][3]

Halo Security's ethical hackers explore how an attacker could get in, what they could reach, and how to close the gap. Customers work directly with US-based experts at Halo Security. Halo Security includes one round of retesting so customers can verify their remediation work. Halo Security provides reports and attestation letters that give a customer's team, auditor, and prospects evidence of its security. Halo Security reports support SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, and other compliance needs.[1][2]

Attack surface management helps organizations discover and monitor the assets they expose to the internet, including websites, APIs, servers, and cloud services. Halo Security continuously checks those internet-exposed assets for vulnerabilities and changes. Halo Security finds and inventories internet-facing assets, including unknown and forgotten websites, IPs, services, and applications. Halo Security identifies open ports and internet-facing services so customers can monitor changes. Halo Security tracks certificates, security headers, third-party scripts, and other security controls across websites. Halo Security detects known vulnerabilities, missing security patches, and outdated software across external servers. Halo Security scans web applications for vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Halo Security monitors for leaked employee credentials, exposed data, and mentions of an organization on the dark web. Halo Security can identify issues like subdomain takeovers, domains for sale, forgotten projects, and misconfigured cloud services. Halo Security risk scores show the external security posture of different teams and business units.[1][2][4][5][11]

Halo Security is a PCI Security Standards Council Approved Scanning Vendor, and its certificate number is 5078-01-11. Halo Security customers can set scans to run daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or on-demand. Customers with multiple business units can generate separate reports in the Halo Security portal. Halo Security scans look at an organization from the outside, with nothing to install and nothing to configure.[6][7]

Halo Security connects to AWS to import assets from Route53, ElasticIP, and Elastic Load Balancer. Halo Security creates and tracks security issues in Jira, and it streams security events and findings into Splunk. Halo Security syncs security findings with Vanta for compliance monitoring and reporting, and it sends real-time security alerts to a Slack workspace. Brinqa ingests external attack surface findings directly from the Halo Security platform. Halo Security also runs a Security Review, offered quarterly or semi-annually, in which its team works with customers to identify gaps in their coverage.[8][9][10]

The Halo Security platform helps organizations of all sizes achieve PCI compliance. In 2013, the operation was spun out to form PathDefender, which was shortly thereafter rebranded as TrustedSite. In 2022, the TrustedSite Security services were rebranded as Halo Security, and the TrustedSite brand remains for certification and marketing solutions. Halo Security has a team of over 30 people. Halo Security was originally based in San Francisco and now offers fully remote working opportunities.[1][5][6][7][10][11]

Halo Security on the record

Sources

Halo Security full record

  1. [1]halosecurity.comHalo Security · halosecurity.com · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Trusted, US-Based Penetration Testing | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]12 Questions to Ask a Pentesting Company | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Attack Surface Management Features | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Assess security program effectiveness | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Achieve PCI Compliance | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]PCI Compliance Scanning from an ASV | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Integrations | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Halo Security + Brinqa: EASM Meets CTEMHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Security Review | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Customers | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]About Us | Halo SecurityHalo Security · undated page, accessed November 12, 2026 · Tier A

Synack full record

  1. [1]AboutSynack · synack.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]ContactSynack · synack.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]AI + Human Penetration Testing | PTaaS | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed October 29, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Penetration Testing Platform | Pentesting platform | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed October 29, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Penetration Testing as a Service | Synack PTaaSSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Vulnerability Management Solutions | Continuous Vulnerability ManagementSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Cloud Penetration Testing Services | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]API Penetration Testing Services | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Third Party Risk Management | Pentesting | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]AI Penetration Testing | LLM Pentest Services | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Cybersecurity Skills Gap Solutions | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Active Offense | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Compliance Penetration Testing | PCI, SOC 2 | SynackSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Vulnerability Disclosure Program | Synack VDPSynack · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

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