Offensive Security · Secure Code Review Service dossier · 01/13

Secure Code Review

Some flaws never show themselves from the outside. They live in the source — a missing authorization check, an unsanitised input reaching a dangerous call, a secret committed to the repository. We read your code the way an attacker would, and find them before anyone else does.

Veteran researchers. CERT-In empaneled. Automated analysis for breadth — manual reading for the flaws no tool can reason about.

Discipline
White-box · source review
Standards
OWASP Code Review Guide · ASVS · Top 10
Approach
Automated (SAST/SCA) + manual
Retest
Remediation retest included
Credential
CERT-In Empaneled
02

The flaws that hide in the implementation

Most attacks today land at the application layer — and the application layer is, in the end, code.

Black-box and grey-box testing probe a running system from the outside; they are essential, but they only see behaviour the application chooses to expose. A secure code review removes that limitation. With the source in front of us, we can follow exactly how untrusted input travels through the application, see every branch that authorization depends on, and read the cryptography and secret-handling that no external test can observe directly.

That visibility is precisely why attackers value source code, and why reviewing it well demands more than a tool. A static analyzer is excellent at flagging known-bad patterns across a large codebase quickly — but it cannot tell you whether a finding is genuinely reachable, whether an authorization decision is correct in context, or whether a workflow can be abused. Our reviews are built around that division of labour: automated static analysis for breadth and signal, and experienced researchers reading the code by hand for the data-flow, logic and design flaws that only judgment can resolve.

"We don't just run the scanner. We trace the input from where it enters to where it does damage — and tell you exactly which line to change."
03

What we hunt for in your code

Every finding traces back to something an attacker could do. We read for the vulnerability classes that turn a line of code into a real compromise.

01

Injection sinks

Untrusted input reaching SQL, OS, LDAP, or template/expression engines without proper separation of data from command.

02

Broken authorization

Missing or inconsistent access-control checks: privilege boundaries, insecure direct object references, and logic that trusts the client.

03

Unsafe input handling

Validation that lives only on the client, missing server-side enforcement, and output that is never encoded for its context.

04

Cryptographic misuse

Weak or home-grown algorithms, poor key handling, sensitive data left unprotected in memory, storage or transit.

05

Hardcoded secrets

Credentials, API keys and tokens committed into source or configuration — a single grep an attacker will run first.

06

Insecure deserialization

Untrusted data turned back into objects without validation, a well-trodden path to remote code execution.

07

Session & authentication logic

Weak credential storage, predictable identifiers, and flawed session lifetime, rotation and invalidation.

08

Dependency & supply-chain risk

Vulnerable, outdated or untrusted third-party components and the way they are pulled into your build.

04

Automated first for breadth. Manual always for depth.

We begin with automated static source-code analysis to identify a preliminary set of candidate weaknesses quickly across the whole codebase. Every result is then triaged by an analyst — false positives are removed and reachable issues are kept — before a full manual review of the source for the classes of vulnerability that automated tools cannot reliably find. The manual phase is where the work that matters happens: reading the code in context, tracing untrusted data from where it enters to the sink where it could cause harm, and reasoning about the design and the business logic the way an adversary would.

DOCS, GUIDELINES& STANDARDS DEV TEAMDISCUSSION SECURITY DESIGNISSUES CRITICALAREAS POOR CODINGTECHNIQUES FRAMEWORKISSUES → MANUAL REVIEW
FIG. 01Review execution flow — foundational documentation review feeds five sequential activities
Review documentation, coding guidelines & standards Establish the baseline: architecture, intended security controls, and the standards the code is meant to meet.
One-to-one discussion with the development team Understand the application from the people who built it — design intent, trust boundaries, the areas that worry them.
Identify security design issues Spot weaknesses in the architecture itself, before reading a single risky line: missing controls, flawed trust assumptions, dangerous defaults.
Analyse the application's critical areas Focus first on what matters most: authentication, authorization, the handling of sensitive data, and the highest-value entry points.
Identify poor coding techniques Read for the implementation flaws — injection sinks, unsafe deserialization, weak crypto, hardcoded secrets, broken input handling.
Evaluate framework-specific issues Assess how the chosen frameworks (for example Spring, Struts or .NET) are configured and used, since each carries its own class of risk.
05

Tools find patterns. People find paths.

Static analysis is part of every review. It is never the review itself.

Automated — breadth

Breadth, fast

Static analysis (SAST) and software-composition analysis (SCA) scan the entire codebase and its dependencies quickly, flagging known-bad patterns, risky API calls and outdated components. We treat that output as a starting point — a map of where to look. Every result is triaged by an analyst, and false positives are removed before anything reaches your report.

Manual — depth

Depth, with judgment

The findings that matter most cannot be pattern-matched. Whether an authorization check is correct in context, whether a tainted value actually reaches a dangerous sink, whether a workflow can be abused — these require a researcher reading the code and reasoning about intent. Our team performs source-to-sink data-flow analysis by hand, confirms genuine reachability, and surfaces the design and business-logic flaws no automated tool is built to understand.

06

What we review against

Our coverage follows the OWASP Code Review Guide and is benchmarked against the OWASP Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS). Across a review we systematically examine the following areas of the codebase:

01 Design & architecture Whether intended security controls actually exist in the code, how privileges and roles are enforced, how public and restricted interfaces are separated, and whether sensitive data is correctly identified and protected.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
02 Authentication & credential handling How credentials are stored and transmitted, the strength of password and lockout policy, handling of resets and account-management events, and detection of suspicious activity such as repeated failures or session replay.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
03 Authorization Authorization enforced as the first action of every sensitive request, default-deny behaviour, granular and role-based checks, and resistance to tampering with parameters or cookies.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
04 Data validation & output encoding Server-side validation of all external input, separation of data from commands and from client-side script, and safe handling before input reaches SQL, OS, LDAP or third-party calls.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
05 Cryptography Use of strong, standard algorithms over home-grown ones, protection of sensitive data in memory, storage and transit, and secure handling and storage of cryptographic keys.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
06 Session management Identifiers that are complex and never exposed in URLs, secure storage, sensible timeouts, and proper invalidation on logout and on detecting an invalid session.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
07 Error handling & logging Failing safely without leaking internal detail, rolling back cleanly on error, and logging enough to reconstruct events without recording sensitive data.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
08 Configuration, dependencies & business logic Secure framework configuration, up-to-date and trusted libraries, least-privilege execution, removal of debug and test code and backdoors, and the abuse cases unique to the application's own logic.
OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS
07

Strongest in combination

A secure code review and a penetration test answer different questions.

The pen test asks what can an attacker do to the running system from the outside? The code review asks what is actually wrong in the implementation, and exactly where? Run together — white-box reading alongside black-box and grey-box testing — they cover each other's blind spots: the review confirms the root cause and the precise line behind a finding the test surfaced, and the test proves the real-world impact of a flaw the review found in the source. The combination is especially powerful for complex or business-critical applications, and lets us target the framework-specific weaknesses that only show themselves when code and behaviour are read side by side.

White-box — this page

Secure Code Review

Reads the source itself for root cause, design and logic flaws.

Black-box / grey-box — Application VAPT

Web Application VAPT

Attacks the running application to prove exploitable impact.

→ Web Application VAPT
08

How an engagement works

A clear path from agreeing how we'll review to verifying the fixes — built to fit the way your team already ships software.

01
Agree the review process
We define how the review will run — scope, depth, what's in and out, and how findings reach your team — so the engagement fits your codebase and your workflow from day one.
02
Fit it to your secure SDLC
Where you want it, we align the review with how you build and ship — integrating into pull requests and CI/CD so security signal arrives in the developer's workflow, not after release.
03
Take a risk-based approach
We prioritise by risk, focusing the deepest manual attention on the most sensitive and highest-exposure parts of the codebase rather than spreading effort evenly.
04
Prepare the review
We assemble what we need to read effectively — source access, build and dependency information, architecture context, and a conversation with the developers who know it best.
05
Review, by tool and by hand
We run static analysis for breadth, triage out the noise, then read the code manually — tracing input to sink, checking authorization logic, and proving which findings are genuinely reachable.
06
Countermeasures, mitigation & retest
We deliver prioritised findings with the file, the line and a concrete fix — then re-verify the remediation so you can confirm each issue is genuinely closed.
09

What we can review

Wherever the source lives, the same attacker mindset reads it.

10

Languages we read

Our researchers review across the languages and frameworks modern applications are built on. The list below is representative, not exhaustive — tell us your stack and we'll confirm fit during scoping.

Java .NET (C#) JavaScript / TypeScript (incl. Node.js) Python Go PHP and others on request
11

What you receive

Every review ends in a report your team can act on — written for both the engineers who will fix the code and the leaders who must understand the risk.

01

Executive summary

Risk posture and business impact in plain language for leadership.

02

Detailed findings

Each issue with severity, the affected file and line, the data-flow path where relevant, and clear evidence of why it matters.

03

Remediation guidance

Specific, prioritized, code-level fixes — not generic advice.

04

Standards mapping

Findings mapped to the OWASP Top 10 and the OWASP Code Review Guide, and benchmarked against OWASP ASVS.

05

Remediation retest

We re-review the fixes so you can confirm the risk is genuinely closed.

06

Direct researcher access

A debrief with the people who read your code, not a handoff to a call centre.

CERT-In Empaneled OWASP Code Review Guide OWASP ASVS OWASP Top 10

Supports ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS and RBI/SEBI assessment requirements

12

Frequently asked questions

How is a code review different from a penetration test?

A penetration test attacks the running application from the outside and proves what an attacker can do. A code review reads the source from the inside and finds the root cause and exact location of a flaw — including issues that never reveal themselves externally, such as hardcoded secrets, weak cryptography or a missing authorization check on a rarely used path. They are strongest run together.

Isn't a static analysis (SAST) tool enough?

A scanner is fast and broad, but it reports patterns, not paths. It cannot reliably tell you whether a finding is actually reachable, whether an authorization decision is correct in context, or whether a workflow can be abused — and it produces false positives that waste engineering time. We use static analysis as the first pass, then read the code by hand for everything it cannot reason about.

Do you need access to our entire codebase?

We scope to what matters. For some engagements that's the whole repository; for others it's the most security-critical components and the paths that handle untrusted input or sensitive data. We'll agree the scope, the access method and any confidentiality requirements before we begin.

Which languages and frameworks do you cover?

Our researchers review across the common stacks — including Java, .NET, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Go and PHP — and their major frameworks. Tell us what you've built and we'll confirm fit during scoping.

Can you fit into our pipeline?

Yes. Where you want it, we align the review with your secure SDLC — integrating into pull requests and CI/CD so findings arrive in the developer's workflow. The deep manual reading still happens with a researcher; the tooling simply meets your team where they already work.

Do you retest after we fix the issues?

Yes. Remediation retesting is included — we re-review the changed code so you can confirm each finding is genuinely resolved.

Related
Offensive Security · Secure Code Review

Find it in the code, before they do.

Tell us what you've built and we'll scope a review that fits — or connect you directly with a researcher.