Bright Security vs Escape

Bright Security is one of the well-know DAST tools, empowering developers with automated security testing directly within their workflows. It focuses on early-stage testing—starting in the IDE and is designed for an easy integration into CI/CD pipelines.

But how does Bright Security compare to Escape’s DAST capabilities? In this article, we’ll break down the key differences between Bright and Escape.

When it comes to security, choosing the right tool can make all the difference—not just in protecting sensitive data but also in maintaining the speed and efficiency of your application deployment. Let's dive in!

Bright vs Escape: Head-to-head comparison

Now, let's dive into how Escape compares to Bright Security. We've built this comparison based on the following sources:

• Bright Security's official website & product datasheets
• Bright Security's documentation
• Bright Security's publically accessible demos on YouTube
• Feedback from security professionals whether Escape's current clients or prospects

TL;DR

Bright Security

Pros

✅ Developer-centric, with integrations directly in IDEs

✅ According to the docs, easy to set up and start testing whether in a development environment or the Bright UI

✅ Easy CI/CD integration with multiple platforms

✅ Support for several business logic vulnerabilities

Cons

❌ Requires manual API schema uploads for each scan

❌ Limited number of supported API attacks

❌ Remediation suggestions lack specificity for different development frameworks. There is additional ambiguity in features like Bright A-Star for automated remediation — between the product website, the docs, and the changelogs

❌ Limited reporting features make it hard to prioritize business-relevant risks in a consolidated view

❌ No additional discovery options to provide business context related to the APIs (publicly exposed on the internet, whether they can be reproduced with or without authentication...) You have to know what you want to test.

Escape

Pros

✅ OpenAPI specification generation from automated API schema generation. It continuously monitors for and detects any changes or versions in the API schema over time — no need to upload specs manually to set up DAST scans.

✅ Proprietary business logic security testing algorithm for APIs, SPAs and microservices that's able to detect BOLA, IDOR, and Access Control issues

✅ Developer-ready remediation code snippets that are tailored to each development framework

✅ Agentless API discovery in addition to DAST testing for both externally exposed and internal APIs.  

✅ Ability to prioritize the most critical applications by business context, data sensitivity, and exposure

✅ Integration with well-known security platforms like Wiz

Cons

❌ Advanced feature sets like custom security rules may require specialized knowledge, potentially presenting a learning curve for some users

❌ Number of supported integrations with some of the operational tools is limited 

Let's zoom in on the details: Bright Security vs Escape

Security Testing

Deployment

Bright Security

• SaaS Deployment: Bright offers a SaaS model, allowing users to access the platform without any local installations. Users can log in to the Bright application and select the target application to be scanned: via URL or via .HAR file for web apps and via API schema for API. The Bright cloud engines begin scanning the target for issues. Reports that show identified issues start displaying once found. The disadvantage is that you need to know your API and can't disccove and test any shadow APIs exposed in the wild.
• Private Cloud Deployment: For organizations seeking a dedicated environment, Bright provides a Private Cloud deployment. This setup offers a separate, configurable cloud environment managed by Bright, ensuring enhanced security and control over network configurations.
• CI/CD Integration: Bright integrates into CI/CD pipelines. Supported integrations include: GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, Travis CI, JFrog, GitLab, TeamCity
• IDE: via Visual Studio plugin
• Repeater: Bright's Repeater mode allows for secure scanning of internal applications behind an organization's firewall or VPN. The Repeater establishes a secure connection between the Bright cloud engine and the local target, ensuring that internal applications can be tested without exposing them externally.

Repeater Deployment Methods:

• Standalone Application: The Repeater can be installed as a standalone application on a local machine, providing flexibility in various environments.
• Docker Deployment: For containerized environments, the Repeater can be deployed using Docker, facilitating integration into existing infrastructure.
• NPM/Yarn Installation: Developers can install the Repeater using NPM or Yarn, integrating it directly into their development workflows.
• Windows Installer (MSI): A Windows installer is available for easy setup on Windows-based systems.

Escape

• Agentless Deployment: Escape provides an agentless security solution, eliminating the need for installing agents on servers or applications. This approach simplifies deployment and reduces potential performance overhead. You can test all your exposed APIs, SPAs and microservices without the need for deployment. Either enter the domain name or connect the integrations you need.
• CI/CD Integration: Escape integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, enabling automated security testing during the development process.

It integrates with: GitHub Actions, npm package, Public API, GitLab CI/CD, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps

• Private Locations: Escape's Private Locations enable secure detection, fingerprinting, and scanning of internal applications behind your organization's firewall or VPN. This is achieved through the Escape Repeater, a lightweight, open-source tool developed in Golang. The Repeater establishes a reverse tunnel between Escape and your internal network, providing a secure channel for performing scans and retrieving results.docs.escape.tech
  • Deployment Methods:
    • Docker Deployment: The Repeater can be deployed using Docker CLI, Docker Compose, or other container orchestration tools.
    • Kubernetes Deployment: For Kubernetes environments, the Repeater can be deployed as a Kubernetes deployment, allowing it to access resources within your cluster.

API Scan Management

Bright:

• Does not generate or reconstruct OpenAPI schemas.
• Security scanning relies on manually provided API specifications.

Escape:

• Automatically reconstructs API schemas (OpenAPI format) from discovered endpoints. You can start scanning APIs by using reconstructed schema that'll be stored in your API inventory

• Uses AI-based techniques to infer missing documentation and detect security gaps.

Custom Security Tests

Bright Security offers customization through scan templates, allowing users to configure various scan parameters. However, the platform does not currently support the creation or customization of individual security tests by users. The available tests are predefined within the platform, and users can select which tests to include or exclude in their scans via the scan templates.

On Escape's side, the custom tests feature is called "Escape rules", the setup is based on the YAML operators (detectors/transformations). The feedback-driven exploration engine and the scalar inference system that is built into Escape help you cover all the routes with confidence and abstractions of data manipulated.
Escape rules adapt to the evolution of your existing APIs and to your new APIs without the need to maintain them. Including adapting to database fixtures in a development environment.

Remediation guidance for developers

When it comes to remediation guidance, there is ambiguity on how it's done on the Bright Security side.

Based on screenshots from Bright Security platform and available documentation, Bright Security provides remediation suggestions as short text descriptions for each detected vulnerability.

These suggestions appear both within the Bright Security DAST platform and in integrations like GitHub.

Bright A-Star is mentioned on the product page as a feature that automatically generates and applies fixes for vulnerabilities. It also claims to provide continuous validation to ensure the issue is resolved. However, there is no detailed explanation in the official Bright Security documentation or available demos on how this feature actually works.

Escape offers detailed remediation code snippets that are tailor-made for major frameworks. You can find the full list here with a description of the supported frameworks.

For each vulnerability, security teams can automatically share these code snippets with pre-filled remediation steps in Jira, saving time and ensuring faster resolution. Your developers can hit the ground running with the fix already in hand.

Prioritization & Compliance: the key to strengthening your business security

Bright Security's prioritization is limited to the severity level (red - critical, orange - high, yellow - medium, blue - low) of vulnerabilities, discovery type - archive, crawler, OAS (Open API Specification):

It's also not very clear how each scan impacts each compliance framework, you can only export it as a PDF:

With Escape, each remediation comes with a detailed explanation of why a particular vulnerability is a high, medium, or low risk in your specific context.

Scoring and categorization take into account factors such as

• whether they can be reproduced with or without authentication,
• if the endpoint is publicly exposed on the internet
• if the API schema is public

This detailed scoring and categorization system will help you make informed decisions about which vulnerabilities should be addressed first and allocate your resources efficiently. It prevents unnecessary panic over low-risk issues and ensures that critical high-risk vulnerabilities that are important to your business are promptly remediated.

You can also export reports in PDF tailored to each compliance framework and visualize all applications in compliance matrix:

Conclusion

In conclusion, while both Bright Security and Escape offer robust DAST solutions tailored for modern development workflows, Bright is much harder to set up and get results from, especially for any Shadow APIs that your development team might release in the wild. It requires manual API schema uploads and offers limited support for certain API attacks.

On the other hand, Escape distinguishes itself with automated API schema generation, proprietary business logic security testing algorithm, and agentless API discovery, offering a more comprehensive security posture. Organizations seeking deep insights and advanced automated testing may find Escape to be the more suitable choice.

To put it simply, if your goal is to attain comprehensive security observability and accelerate the remediation process within your development team, Escape is your top choice! With Escape, you can be assured that no Shadow or Zombie applications will slip through the cracks. You'll have the knowledge needed to secure them effectively.

If you still have doubts, take a moment with our team.

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