Rotating Pen Test Vendors Isn’t the Best Approach: Here’s Why

How do organizations ensure their penetrating testing remains insightful and free from complacency? For many years, the answer was vendor rotation — the practice of changing pen test vendors every few years.

But does this approach still make sense today? While it once served a crucial purpose, the administrative burden it creates can be significant. Thankfully, there are smarter, more efficient methods to achieve the same goal without the burden. Let’s explore them.

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Vendor Rotation for Penetration Testing Has a Hidden Cost

The challenges of early penetration testing made vendor rotation essential. Limited resources and small teams presented several obstacles, such as skill gaps and complacency risks.

For example, using the same pen test vendor over and over again meant being prone to blind spots that left vulnerabilities overlooked or recycled methods that stifled true creativity. 

Organizations then devised a brilliant strategy to rotate these vendors periodically. This provided fresh viewpoints and maintained objectivity in their security assessments, and it remained the gold standard for decades.

But these advantages came at a price, a very steep price for some organizations. And this is becoming increasingly apparent recently. A typical pen test vendor rotation cycle presents:

1. Time-expensive evaluations: You have to assess and choose new vendors through thorough reviews of their qualifications and methodologies.
2. Repetitive scoping: New vendors need to familiarize themselves with your existing systems and past vulnerabilities. This oftentimes duplicates efforts and slows down results.
3. Compliance hurdles: When you bring in new vendors, you have to navigate through internal reviews, contract negotiations, get GRC or finance approvals, and other steps required by your organization for onboarding vendors.
4. Onboarding overhead: Training new vendors to fit into organizational processes takes up time and other resources.

Considering these challenges, is the administrative burden of vendor rotation still justified? For many organizations, the response is shifting from a confident “yes” to a more uncertain “maybe.”

There’s a Better Way: On-demand Pentester Rotation

Instead of going through the resource-intensive process of traditional vendor rotation—which should be obsolete—organizations can now rotate testers within a single vendor framework.

Evaluate once, go through compliance once, and onboard once—and your pentester will still be rotated. This process removes inefficiencies while maintaining access to fresh insights and expertise.

At GlobalDots, we link organizations to innovative platforms that provide customized tester assignments, streamlined operations, and continuity and flexibility. This ensures that you:

• Choose testers based on their expertise and your specific needs for the project
• Keep scoping data and compliance documentation intact
• Retain the knowledge of seasoned testers while easily integrating new talent when you need fresh perspectives.

Organizations that adopt on-demand pentester rotation eliminate the need for repetitive vendor evaluations, onboarding, and contract negotiations. They can also keep workflows smooth with current project teams while easily integrating new testers.

Furthermore, they can adjust the rotation of testers to align with the complexity of each project and combine findings from various security solutions, including pen tests, bug bounty programs, and attack surface discovery.

GlobalDots also ensures that pen tests meet regulatory requirements like PCI and SOC2.

Move Past Outdated Pen Testing Strategies

On-demand pentester rotation removes the administrative burdens of traditional pen test vendor rotation. You get the benefits of fresh insights from thorough and impartial penetration testing without going through the rigors of GRC and vendor onboarding requirements every cycle.

In March 2025, we’re hosting an exclusive event for select GlobalDots clients where industry leaders will share their insights about this and more on the future of cybersecurity. If you’d like to be there, you can register your interest here.

Curious to learn more?