What Is the Difference Between Code Review and Penetration Testing?

Businesses invest in security testing to find weaknesses before attackers can exploit them. But not every security test examines an application in the same way.

Two commonly used approaches are code review and penetration testing. Both can identify security weaknesses, but they work at different stages and provide different types of insight.

Understanding the difference can help businesses decide when they need one, the other, or both.

What Is Security Code Review?

Security code review examines an application's source code to identify insecure coding practices and potential vulnerabilities.

A cybersecurity code review allows security professionals to inspect how an application handles authentication, authorization, input validation, sensitive data, error handling, cryptography, and other security-sensitive functions.

Because the tester can examine the underlying code, they may identify weaknesses that are difficult to detect from the outside.

For example, a developer might accidentally implement an authorization check incorrectly. The application could appear to work normally during everyday use, but an examination of the relevant code may reveal that certain users could potentially access functionality or data they should not have access to.

Businesses looking for a deeper introduction can also read what secure code review is and how it works.

What Is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing takes a different approach.

Instead of primarily examining how an application is written, penetration testing simulates authorized attacks against a live system, application, network, or other agreed target.