Why Hexway Hive Report Generator is Ahead of Other Reporting Tools

Penetration Testing is a great way to gain insight into the security capabilities, shortcomings, and scope for improvement for any company. While pentest is an essential tool to maintain a competitive edge over hackers, the efficacy of the test depends on the actionable insights the report offers. However, most reporting tools offer generic advice, without getting into the nitty-gritty. This means your reports may not encapsulate how modern-day hacking techniques have evolved and what could be done to outpace the attackers. Here’s a lowdown on how the Hexway Hive report generator tackles these issues by staying on top of the pentest game.

 

Common problems with today's pentest reporting tools

While pentest is an efficient way of stocktaking of security preparedness, the only way to amplify its findings is by proper reporting. However, most tools have failed to keep up with the changing demands of the readers: 

1. IT staff (technical)
2. Executives (non-technical) 

A sound report must not only be technically correct, but it must also convey actionable insight to the non-technical executives to make informed choices.

Here are some key issues modern-day report generators face:

Communication barrier

Most reporting tools are unidimensional in that they look only into the technical aspects of the discovery, leaving the decision-making executives with little insight. Most tools also hold back on the visual representation of the findings, in whose absence, complex and actionable discoveries are lost in the labyrinth of jargon. 

 

Accuracy and context

Most tools rely on a pre-configured template to convey the report. While they may get the technical aspects correct, they often miss out on the context of the discovery. Executives need actionable evidence to make decisions. Finding and naming a vulnerability may help the technical staff to work out the solutions, but prioritization of such solutions is the domain of the executives, who may require a context to allocate resources.

 

Lack of multi-tool integration

Modern report generators are constrained by a paucity of customizable templates, which is a trickle-down effect of the tools lacking integration with scanners and other tools. Due to this, most tools simply cannot tap into a wide array of information and only churn out reports based on the inputs typed into the template by pen-testers.

 

Claim on pentesters time

Burdened with the additional task of jotting down the findings of the test, pen-testers – who are IT experts, not writers – often find themselves donning a hat they are not accustomed to. So, the time that could have been spent searching for vulnerabilities or updating the database is often lost in handling tasks they are not adept at. Most tools do not offer the benefit of converting the findings of a company into a comprehensive, actionable report. 

 

What Hexway Hive offers?

Hexway Hive is a Red Team workspace developed to optimize all existing routines to save time for pentesters, so they can do what they do the best — hunt for security breaches.

But Hive also gives pentesters a lot more:

• Advanced report generator
• Systematized scanner import 
• Tools and scanners integration
• Shared and personal checklists
• Methodologies
• Applications
• Ability to start providing PTaaS

Hexway’s pentest report generator offers a single repository of all information to keep track of completed and pending actions, too. Team members can share information and notes, arrange output files, screenshots, commands, and scan reports from various tools to create professional security assessment reports. Another feature that eases their burden is our customized report templates. Using the unique placeholders in the template, the testers can tailor reports, and the readers won't be able to tell the difference between automated and handwritten ones.

 

Steps for putting your own template into action:

• Download the Hexway Hive default template and modify it as needed (either way you can ask us to do this for you)
• Import it to Hive and you are done

Simply provide us with your report template, and we will create a comprehensive report for you. As the Hexway Hive report generator is part of a large platform with several tools, you can execute a Nmap scan directly from the application.

 

What's up with the report generator and custom issues? 

It's not only us who find report writing part of pentest essential but still boring. We guess all of us understand how painful reports can be, especially when you need to present them in the most elegant way.
That's why we've developed a customizable report generator. You can set up anything from special fields and names to design. Automated reports will look like you wrote them manually, so you can save up to 3 or 4 hours for something more fun than reports.
Also, we wanted to skip this "sets up" part for our users, so we have started accepting your report examples.
It means we will set everything up for you, you just need to give us an example of how you make reports at contact@hexway.io

To see all this in action, you can book a demo or try Hexway Hive online.