What Continuous Offensive Security Testing Is and How to Implement It
Security Boulevard, Friday, October 9th, 2026
Escape explains Gartner's continuous offensive security testing model, which runs adversary-style tests whenever something material changes.
In an Escape blog syndicated to Security Boulevard, continuous offensive security testing (COST), a term introduced by Gartner, is described as running adversary-style tests whenever something material changes, such as a release, a new internet-facing asset or a control change, instead of an annual pentest.
Offensive security spans vulnerability assessment, penetration testing and red teaming, and findings should count only once reproduced in your own environment with the requests and identities needed to repeat them, then rerun as regression tests.
The guide includes a small local test harness readers can run.