Researchers working on Burra Security audits are world-class. With competency and class, you'll often find ego.
Researchers work independently, and during certain checkpoints throughout the audit, all researchers share their findings and brainstorm together — combining attack vectors, maximizing the outcome, and pushing for really complex issues.
During these sessions, it's PARAMOUNT TO PUT EGO aside and focus on combining attack vectors, maximizing the impact of each issue, and making sure there are no false claims.
Discussions around severity come last.
That's our golden rule!
We try to keep our audits and all the bureaucracy around them dead simple. No introductory or close-out calls — we didn't find any value in having these.
Unless there's a serious discussion happening, they're usually a waste of time.
Instead, at the end of the audit (or at predefined points for longer engagements), each researcher provides their assessment of the work done:
1. On a scale of 1 (likely bugs remain) to 10 (low likelihood of bugs), how confident are you that no serious bugs remain?
2. Are there any contracts or areas you couldn't cover in depth?
We collect feedback from every researcher and sum it up into a general assessment for the client.
The purpose is two-fold. First, we keep each researcher accountable — they own their work at the end of the audit. The outcome is binary: either the project is ready for deployment, or they should spend more time securing their codebase.
Second, the client gets a clear and honest picture of where they stand.
Feedback from clients on this process has been very positive, and we'll keep doing it.