Introduction
There are many moving parts to a typical pentest. It begins with scoping the engagement, identifying assets to test, and then running assessments using a mix of automated tools and manual testing.
Once vulnerabilities are discovered, they’re documented in an automated pentest report, along with severity ratings, proof-of-concept details, and recommended remediation steps – and from here, the findings enter the development backlog.
But what happens next? How are these vulnerabilities actually resolved, and how exactly do organisations know which findings should take precedence over the other?
Development Backlog: The Next Steps
Really, this all depends on the organisation in question and how efficient they are at managing and prioritising security work. Sometimes, for instance, findings can sit in backlogs for months, with development teams having no clear strategies to ensure that security fixes aren’t forgotten or deprioritised.
If the security processes are well-defined, however, there should be a clear handling process that not only assigns ownership and prioritises vulnerabilities, but ensures those vulnerabilities are addressed, and the loop is closed between security and development teams.
Prioritisation
The first step, here, is prioritisation. Not all security findings are created equal, of course, with some posing immediate risks, while others posing minor issues that are unlikely to be exploited quickly.
Prioritisation involves assessing each finding’s severity and exploitability, as well as the potential impact on the organisation if the vulnerability were to be exploited.
Assignment
Once the findings are prioritised, they must then be assigned to the right people. This might be an individual developer, a team responsible for the affected service, a cross-functional group (if the vulnerability spans multiple systems) that can coordinate the fix across teams.
The point is that clear ownership is critical, as without it, security findings can often sit idle and be steadily forgotten. Assignment should also include contextual information: proof-of-concept details, links to relevant code or assets, and recommended remediation steps.
Anything that can provide developers with a clearer picture – and thus reduces back-and-forth communication that slows down the fix – is valuable, with pentest platforms like ours automating and tracking the process to ensure it’s done smoothly and transparently.
Tracking and Visibility
Speaking of tracking – whether it’s automated or not – this is one of the most important aspects of the remediation process, as it helps to ensure progress is visible to every party member. Teams need to know when a vulnerability was identified, who it was assigned to, and where the endpoint lies in the remediation lifecycle.
For this, dashboards and integration with development tools like Jira are a great help, as they ensure that security findings remain visible and can be prioritised even if other high-priority work or bug fixes are competing for attention.
Delays and Bottlenecks
It’s also worth noting what happens if there are delays or bottlenecks – issues that slow down remediation or prevent fixes from being completed entirely. Even with a structured system, these can sometimes happen, with some of the common causes including:
- Dependencies on Other Teams
Some vulnerabilities require standardised coordination and testing across a distributed team, such as infrastructure, API, or security groups.
- Overloaded Developers
Developers juggling feature work and other priorities can easily deprioritise important security findings.
- Lack of Expertise
Certain vulnerabilities might require more specialised knowledge.
- Unclear Remediation Steps
Security findings without detailed guidance or proof-of-concept examples can quickly create confusion.
- Incomplete Reporting
Missing context ultimately slows down remediation and leads to ineffective fixes.
Identifying these bottlenecks is essential, since they’ll not only delay security remediation, but could potentially throw the entire backlog workflow off-kilter.
This means regular backlog grooming – working to review, reprioritise, and clarify outstanding findings – combined with sufficient communicative-training and integration of automated tools if manual tracking or reporting delays are the main issue.
Verification and Closure
Finally, we have verification and closure. A fixed vulnerability isn’t truly resolved until the security team confirms the fix through testing, complete with follow-up reports that validate that the issue is no longer exploitable, and update severity if needed.
This step effectively closes the loop, providing confidence that vulnerabilities are actually mitigated rather than simply marked as ‘done’ because they’re cluttering the backlog.
Conclusion
These five steps are what should happen when security findings reach the development backlog, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they do happen.
Many security teams might identify vulnerabilities but lack a structured handoff to developers, or developers might receive findings without clear context or prioritisation.
Again, this is why a comprehensive, integrated pentest reporting platform is so important for tracking and accountability.
A pentest report is only as valuable as its remediation steps, so by assigning ownership and verifying fixes, a platform like ours is effectively opening and closing every loop, giving teams the tools they need to not only find vulnerabilities, but ensure what’s in their backlog eventually moves out of it.
