Recognition highlights Sara AI Pentesting’s combination of agentic AI and human expertise to expand testing coverage and validate exploitable risk
Mark Kuhr
Angela Heindl-Schober
Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NetSPI+Synack, the leader in expert human + agentic AI pentesting, today announced that Sara AI Pentesting has been selected as “Agentic AI Security Solution of the Year” in the 10th annual CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards program. Conducted by CyberSecurity Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization, the annual program recognizes innovative companies, products and technologies driving progress in the global information security industry.
Sara, the Synack Autonomous Red Agent, expands security testing coverage across external web applications and hosts using AI-driven discovery and analysis. The agentic system handles reconnaissance, testing and analysis, adapting attack paths in real time based on how the target responds. Synack combines this technology with the Synack Red Team, a rigorously vetted global community of security researchers who validate real-world exploitability, identify chained attack paths and apply human judgment to complex security challenges.
“Research from Omdia shows 64% of organizations prefer the combination of agent-led penetration testing with human oversight, compared to fully manual or fully autonomous alternatives,” said Mark Kuhr, co-founder and CTO of Synack. “That’s the model we’re delivering to customers through Sara AI Pentesting and the Synack Red Team.”
The finding comes from Synack-commissioned research conducted by Omdia, examining enterprise adoption of agentic AI in penetration testing.
Sara AI Pentesting uses specialist agents to test for exploitable weaknesses, including injection flaws, broken access control and misconfigured network services. An attack-planning agent prioritizes likely attack paths using known adversary techniques and CVE intelligence, while a separate verification agent independently re-tests potential findings to confirm exploitability. Synack security experts review the results and associated attack chains before they reach the customer.
“Security leaders need confidence that their environments have been tested thoroughly and that the findings deserve their teams’ attention,” said Angela Heindl-Schober, CMO of Synack. “That is why we bring agentic AI and human expertise together: to expand coverage and give customers evidence they can act on. AI finds more. Humans prove what matters. We’re proud to see that approach recognized.”
“Synack’s Platform combines agentic AI with human validation from the Synack Red Team to help organizations uncover, validate, and prioritize real exploitable risk across modern attack surfaces,” said Steve Johansson, managing director, CyberSecurity Breakthrough. “We are thrilled to award Synack with ‘Agentic AI Security Solution of the Year!’”
In its 10th year, the 2026 awards program received thousands of nominations from organizations in more than 20 countries, representing technologies from startups to established global enterprises.
Learn more about Sara AI Pentesting.
About NetSPI+Synack
NetSPI+Synack combine expert human testing with agentic AI to deliver continuous penetration testing and offensive security at enterprise scale. Together, NetSPI’s offensive security professionals, Synack’s global community of vetted researchers and Sara AI Pentesting technology identify, validate and prioritize exploitable vulnerabilities and accelerate remediation. Capabilities include penetration testing as a service (PTaaS), AI penetration testing, attack surface management, breach and attack simulation, and continuous security validation across applications, infrastructure, cloud and AI systems. With nearly 40 years of combined history and more than 13 million hours of offensive security testing, NetSPI+Synack serve enterprises and governments worldwide with one ambition: nothing left to exploit. Learn more at netspi.com and synack.com.
About CyberSecurity Breakthrough
Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in information security and cybersecurity technology companies, products and people. The CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards provide a platform for public recognition around the achievements of breakthrough information security companies and products in categories including Cloud Security, Threat Detection, Risk Management, Fraud Prevention, Mobile Security, Web and Email Security, UTM, Firewall and more. For more information visit CyberSecurityBreakthrough.com.
Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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