The Challenge
"We were stuck in a cycle of annual or quarterly manual headaches, which treated security as a compliance checkbox instead of a continuous operation," said Yaad Karim, CISO at DigitalRoute, a leader in usage data processing.
DigitalRoute was navigating a growth phase of rapidly scaling both on-premises and new SaaS product lines. This aggressive development roadmap introduced a major security challenge: the need for a partner who could match the high velocity of their releases. Their existing security testing process was manual and reactive. This approach undermined their DevSecOps efforts.
The team's primary pain point was a lack of confidence in the security of their new features. They needed assurance that releases were being stress-tested by vetted subject matter experts, but their current model couldn't keep up. Without an integrated, continuous security operation, DigitalRoute risked releasing new features without the necessary security validation. To support their transformation, they required a dynamic solution that provided both rigor and agility, moving them away from slow, opaque engagements to a strategic, visible partnership.
The Solution
DigitalRoute decided to partner with Cobalt based on two key factors: collaboration and visibility. The platform enabled a direct line of communication with the Cobalt pentesters. Yaad said, "We consider the Cobalt pentesters as an extension of our own security team. We get to triage and remediate findings together."
Cobalt provided the flexibility DigitalRoute needed to operationalize continuous security. Instead of one-off reports, the team received real-time status updates during testing and the ability to retest remediated findings for up to 12 months. This transformed security from a single gate into an ongoing, measurable process. DigitalRoute also expanded their use of the Cobalt platform by implementing DAST on a scheduled basis to further embed security into their operations.
The Results
"We've successfully moved from manual security processes to having continuous security operations embedded in our DevSecOps pipelines," Yaad said, describing how Cobalt helped DigitalRoute fundamentally transform their security culture. This shift provided immediate value early in the development of their SaaS product lines. The Cobalt pentesters uncovered subtle logic issues and configuration flaws, particularly within the access control domain, allowing DigitalRoute to immediately harden their products.
The impact of the findings extended beyond a one-time fix. "The findings helped us incorporate those vectors in our threat modeling process, ensuring similar security vectors are proactively addressed with every subsequent feature release and creating a scalable and forward-looking security model," Yaad stated.
From a business perspective, the outcome has been a clear return on investment by reducing audit overhead. The detailed assessments from Cobalt streamlined the audit process and provided the confidence DigitalRoute needed to innovate securely. Yaad concluded: “I would recommend Cobalt to any security leader out there who has a high cadence of feature releases and is looking for a repeatable, automated way to integrate pentesting into their security program."
