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37 articles 7 topics Arxiis Research · Updated September 2026
Published
SECURITY TESTING
363days a year untested
Security Testing

The 363-Day Blind Spot.

You test once a year and call it covered. The attacker doesn't work to your audit calendar. Most regulated enterprises run an annual VAPT — and either way, the calendar creates a known, predictable gap that attackers are trained to exploit.

Arxiis Research · · 5 min read Read
THREAT INTELLIGENCE
194days of dwell time
Threat Intelligence

194 Days of Silence.

That 194-day figure is dwell time: the interval between an attacker first getting in and anyone noticing. It is not passive waiting — it's a methodical kill chain, and every step is designed to stay quiet.

· 6 min read Read
IDENTITY SECURITY
51%start with a valid login
Identity Security

They Don't Break In. They Log In.

If more than half of intrusions begin with a legitimate login, a hardened perimeter is solving for the wrong threat. The credential is the new exploit — and most defences aren't built for it.

· 5 min read Read
THREAT INTELLIGENCE
181:29detect vs. takeover
Threat Intelligence

181 Days to Notice. 29 Minutes to Lose Control.

Breach detection time is the quiet number that decides how much a breach costs you. Attackers move fast. Most teams see them slowly. Your last pentest does not close that gap.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
autonomous agents
AI Security

Agentic Red Teaming: From Automation to Autonomy.

The 2026 shift from scripts you babysit to AI that reasons, chains steps, and finishes the attack on its own. What agentic red teaming means in practice.

· 6 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
three testing models
Security Testing

Red Team vs Pentest vs Continuous Validation.

Penetration test, red team, or continuous security validation? A plain guide to the three testing types and when each one is worth the money.

· 5 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
RBI CSF 2026
Compliance

RBI Cybersecurity Framework: Scan to Re-Test (2026).

Regulators want proof you fixed and re-tested, not a single dated report. What banks and NBFCs must show under the updated RBI framework now.

· 6 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
6hincident report rule
Compliance

CERT-In VAPT Requirements in 2026: A Checklist.

The 6-hour rule, 180-day logs, empanelled auditors, and how to stay audit-ready every day of the year. A plain CERT-In VAPT checklist for 2026.

· 7 min read Read
TRUST
live & verifiable
Trust

Most Security Badges Are Stickers. Here's a Verifiable One.

Most footer badges are static images that prove nothing. A verifiable security badge is live, clickable, and re-earned continuously. What a real trust mark looks like.

· 5 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
the untested layers
Security Testing

Attack Surface Coverage: You Test Only Part of It.

Forgotten subdomains, shadow APIs, cloud configs, and third-party integrations rarely get tested. That is exactly where attackers look first.

· 6 min read Read
INDUSTRY
4.8Munfilled security roles
Industry

You Can't Hire Your Way Out of the Talent Gap.

The cybersecurity skills gap sits at 4.8 million open roles and is not closing. Why leverage, not headcount, is the only sustainable fix.

· 5 min read Read
AI SECURITY
92%are worried, few ready
AI Security

92% of Security Pros Fear AI Agents. Should You?

92% of security professionals are worried about AI agents, but only 37% have a policy. The real risk — and how to test agents the way attackers will.

· 7 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
never leaves your walls
Compliance

Data Sovereignty Security Testing: Keep It In-House.

In most security testing, your sensitive data leaves the building. Data sovereignty testing keeps everything on-premise, so your data never leaves your environment.

· 6 min read Read
AI SECURITY
4.8×faster attack chains
AI Security

How Agentic AI Attackers Actually Work.

AI attackers don't follow playbooks — they reason, adapt, and chain exploits autonomously. Here's the anatomy of an agentic attack and why your current defences weren't built for it.

· 7 min read Read
THREAT INTELLIGENCE
22sto hand off access
Threat Intelligence

22 Seconds to Hand Off. 247 Days to Find Out.

Attacker breakout time is 29 minutes and access changes hands in 22 seconds, yet breaches take 247 days to find. Why annual testing cannot close that gap.

· 6 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
78%findings are misconfigs
Security Testing

Cloud Misconfigurations Are India's Quietest Security Crisis.

78% of critical cloud findings are misconfigurations, not zero-days. The attack surface is not your code — it is your configuration.

· 7 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
₹250Crmax DPDP penalty
Compliance

DPDP Act 2023: The Security Testing Obligations Every Data Fiduciary Is Ignoring.

Section 8(5) does not ask whether you have a policy — it asks whether you have evidence. The 18-month enforcement clock is ticking.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
49%BFSI with mature 3rd-party controls
Security Testing

Third-Party Vendors Are Your Biggest Security Gap — And They're Not in Your VAPT Scope.

"Our vendor manages that" is the most expensive sentence in Indian financial security. RBI 2024 MD Clause 4.7 makes it your problem regardless.

· 6 min read Read
AI SECURITY
495malicious models detected
AI Security

AI Supply Chain Attacks: The Threat Your Security Team Has Not Mapped.

495 malicious AI models. 969 weaponised agent skills. A 451% surge in poisoned packages. A model checkpoint is an executable — not a static asset.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
5–10×Arxiis cost advantage
Security Testing

NodeZero vs Pentera vs Arxiis: Choosing the Right Platform for Indian Regulated Environments.

Most comparisons miss what Indian CISOs actually care about: native RBI output, data sovereignty, and economics that work in INR. A fair breakdown across 10 criteria.

· 8 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
5 hrsvs 6-week traditional pentest
Security Testing

What Happens During an Arxiis Red Team Engagement: A Step-by-Step Breakdown.

5 stages, 5 hours, a full RBI-mapped report. Here's exactly what our agents do — minute by minute — from scope activation to deliverable package.

· 6 min read Read
AI SECURITY
10ways an agent goes wrong
AI Security

OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications (2026).

AI agents do not just answer. They read, decide and act. Here are the ten ways that goes wrong, in plain words, with a test for each one — plus a profiler that ranks your agent's exposure.

· 21 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
SEBI CSCRF 2024
Compliance

SEBI CSCRF 2024: The Penetration Testing Requirements Every Broker and AMC Is Getting Wrong.

SEBI CSCRF mandates tiered VAPT, event-triggered testing, SOC operations, and red team exercises. Most regulated entities are still misreading the fine print.

· 6 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
RBI ZTA mandate
Compliance

Zero Trust Architecture Is Now an RBI Mandate — But Who's Actually Testing It?

RBI's 2026 Zero Trust mandate is live for Indian banks. Implementation is not validation. Here is the critical gap Indian BFSI is ignoring and what real ZTA red teaming looks like.

· 7 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
quarterly is the floor
Compliance

Quarterly VAPT Is the New Minimum, Not the Goal.

PCI DSS, RBI, SEBI CSCRF and DORA all pair a testing calendar with an "after any change" trigger. What each really requires in 2026, and why continuous wins.

· 6 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
31%breaches start via exploit
Security Testing

6 Attack Vectors Every Web App Should Be Tested Against.

Vulnerability exploitation is now the top way breaches start, at 31 percent. The six web app attack vectors that matter most, mapped to OWASP Top 10:2025.

· 6 min read Read
AI SECURITY
red-team your AI agents
AI Security

Testing the Testers: How to Red-Team Your Own AI Agents.

A practical guide to AI red teaming in 2026. What OWASP's Agentic Top 10 covers, what prompt injection costs, and the six tests to run on your own agents.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
autonomous kill chain
AI Security

Anatomy of an Autonomous Kill Chain: Recon to Report.

An autonomous kill chain runs recon, enrich, exploit, chain and report with no human driving. What each stage does, and why chaining changes the risk math entirely.

· 6 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
RBI Directions 2026
Compliance

RBI Cybersecurity Directions 2026: The VAPT Rules Banks Must Meet.

On 31 July 2026 the RBI replaced its old cyber and IT rules with new Directions that took effect the same day. What they say about testing, clause by clause, per entity type.

· 18 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
12differences that matter
Security Testing

Vulnerability Assessment vs Penetration Testing: Which One Do You Need?

A vulnerability assessment lists what might be wrong. A penetration test proves what an attacker can actually reach. How the two differ, and how often the rules say to run each.

· 21 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
₹20k+to ₹12 lakh per test
Security Testing

VAPT Cost in India (2026): What You Should Pay, and What Drives It.

Published price ranges from Indian providers, the nine things that move a quote, and the costs that never show up on the invoice. Includes a budget estimator.

· 16 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
SEBI CSCRF 2026
Compliance

SEBI CSCRF VAPT Requirements: A Category-by-Category Guide.

How often you must test, who is allowed to test, and the three clocks that start the moment the test ends — checked against the circulars, FAQs and 2026 exchange notices.

· 25 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
10tasks, scored head-to-head
Security Testing

Automated vs Manual Penetration Testing: Where Each One Wins.

AI agents now find real bugs at scale, but they still miss flaws that need context. A ten-task capability matrix, a buyer checklist, and how to use both together.

· 21 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
6hto report an incident
Compliance

CERT-In Explained: The 6-Hour Rule, Log Retention and Empanelled Audits.

Since 2022, most Indian organisations have had six hours to report a listed cyber incident. What the rules actually say, who needs an empanelled auditor, and a plan for those six hours.

· 22 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
5stages of the CTEM loop
Security Testing

Continuous Threat Exposure Management: The Five Stages, In Plain Words.

Scanners find thousands of flaws. Attackers need only a few. CTEM is the loop that finds the exposures that can really hurt you, proves them, and gets them fixed first.

· 21 min read Read
COMPLIANCE
7safeguards to prove
Compliance

DPDP Rules 2025: The Security Safeguards CISOs Must Prove by May 2027.

Rule 6 lists seven minimum safeguards and Rule 7 starts a 72-hour clock. What each one asks, what proof looks like, and how to test it before 13 May 2027.

· 15 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
1login to Domain Admin
Security Testing

Active Directory Penetration Testing: The Attack Paths to Domain Admin.

A phished password should not be able to reach the whole domain. In most networks it can. How the path forms, mapped to MITRE ATT&CK — and how to cut it.

· 15 min read Read
AI SECURITY
44%confirmed, not 56% raw
AI Security

What 44% Confirmed on XBOW-104 Actually Means.

Arxiis solves 44% of XBOW-104 confirmed and 56% raw. We lead with the smaller number. Here is the method, the level-by-level results, and the parts of the benchmark we are still bad at.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
0%measured false positives
AI Security

0% False Positives Isn't a Feature. It's an Architecture.

A finding is labelled proven only when its evidence binds to a record in the tamper-evident ledger. Everything else is needs review. That rule, not the model, is what produces the number.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
9points to score a vendor on
Security Testing

How to Evaluate AI Pentesting Tools: A 9-Point Scorecard.

Every vendor demos the same way. These are the nine things to score instead, the evidence to ask for against each, and what a weak answer sounds like.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
2gates a human still owns
AI Security

Human-Supervised Isn't a Compromise. It's the Design.

Autonomy sells better than supervision. But authorisation and the destructive-action gate are the two places a human belongs, and removing them buys speed you cannot put in front of an auditor.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
3questions the demo avoids
Security Testing

AI Pentesting Vendors All Demo the Same. Here's What Separates Them.

The live demo is the least informative part of the evaluation. What separates vendors is what happens to a finding after the agent reports it — and whether anyone can check.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
104challenges, one scoreboard
Security Testing

XBOW Alternatives: A Comparison That Admits Where XBOW Is Strong.

XBOW set the benchmark and is good at it. The honest comparison is not who scores higher, but which measure you are being quoted and what the evidence behind it looks like.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
SCOPE+ ROE, in one file
Security Testing

Rules of Engagement Template for Pentests, Including Autonomous Ones.

A written authorisation file naming the targets, the windows and the forbidden actions — machine-readable, so the agent refuses anything outside it. Copy the template and adapt.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
12questions worth asking
Security Testing

An AI Pentesting RFP Template: 12 Questions, and Our Own Answers.

Twelve questions that get past the demo, what a substantive answer looks like for each, and how we would answer them ourselves — including where we come off worse.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
2different jobs entirely
Security Testing

Pentera Alternatives: Start by Asking Which Job You're Buying.

Breach-and-attack simulation and evidence-bound web app testing answer different questions. Picking the wrong category is more expensive than picking the wrong vendor inside it.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
1question: which surface?
Security Testing

NodeZero Alternatives: Internal Network Versus Evidence-Bound Web App Proof.

NodeZero is built for the internal network. If the surface you worry about is the web application and the proof your auditor wants is a ledger record, that is a different tool.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
5jobs, five shortlists
Security Testing

The Best AI Pentesting Tool Depends on the Job.

There is no single best AI pentesting tool. A 2026 shortlist by job type — web-app proof, network validation, BAS, PTaaS and scanners — with where Arxiis fits and where it does not.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
1record per proven finding
Security Testing

Penetration Testing Evidence: What Counts, and What an Auditor Can Check.

What actually counts as evidence for engineers and auditors, how a ledger record backs a finding labelled proven, and how to retain it and hand it over when someone asks.

· 8 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
2triggers: cadence + change
Security Testing

Continuous Pentesting Should Mean Continuous Authorization.

Not a scanner on a loop. A set cadence plus change-triggered runs, each one authorized by a written scope file and evidence-bound — and how to contract for it.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
?needs review, as an output
AI Security

Why We Let Our AI Say “I Don't Know”.

LLMs guess, so AI pentesters hallucinate findings. Arxiis makes needs review a first-class output instead. Why we did it, what it buys, and what it costs us.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
2models, one question
Security Testing

PTaaS vs Autonomous Pentesting: Who Leads the Test?

PTaaS buys human-led testing through a platform. Autonomous pentesting runs part of the test in software. Where each one wins, and how to combine them without paying twice.

· 8 min read Read
AI SECURITY
5controls to check
AI Security

AI Pentest Guardrails: Five Controls, and How to Check Each One.

Authorization file, scope guard, approval gate, evidence isolation and watchdog — what each one does, and the question to put to a vendor about every one of them.

· 8 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
AEVthe slice we cover
Security Testing

Adversarial Exposure Validation: What the Category Means.

What Gartner's AEV category covers, how it differs from breach-and-attack simulation, and the narrow web-app and API slice Arxiis covers today — stated plainly.

· 7 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
50:50an honest split
Security Testing

Autonomous vs Manual Pentesting: An Honest Split of the Work.

What autonomous testing does better, what senior human testers do better, and why Arxiis is leverage for testers rather than a replacement. Weak spots named.

· 8 min read Read
SECURITY TESTING
1page, for the board
Security Testing

A One-Page Board Pentest Report That Keeps Proven and Unproven Apart.

A template you can copy: proven findings and needs-review items kept apart, a trend line, the decisions you actually need from the room, and what to leave out.

· 7 min read Read
AI SECURITY
NOwhen it cannot decide
AI Security

Fail-Closed by Default: Why the Safe Choice Is to Stop.

When an Arxiis control cannot decide, the answer is no. How each control fails closed, what the early-stop report holds, and what that costs us in coverage.

· 7 min read Read

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