Cyber incidents can have both operational and reputational impact. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, reported losses totaled $1.8 billion in 2020, underscoring the importance of proactive cybersecurity practices. The damage doesn’t stop there. 55% of U.S. consumers say they’d be less likely to work with a company that has been hacked.
To maintain your organization’s reputation and long-term viability, it’s essential to identify and address vulnerabilities before they evolve into actual breaches. That process depends on a broad, collaborative network of cybersecurity specialists and independent researchers dedicated to preventing, detecting, and reporting cyber threats.
From internal security teams to independent ethical hackers, these contributors strengthen your business’s defenses and integrity.
Internal Software Security Teams
Every organization that develops technology and software must ensure that cybersecurity isn’t an afterthought. In fact, these processes should be established from the start, and that requires a concerted effort from multiple internal teams. This approach helps promote accountability while ensuring that every stakeholder is responsible for their product’s security.
For instance, instead of relying on a centralized software security team, Axis embraces a “security by design” culture across its organization. These teams are applying secure coding principles, threat modeling, and testing throughout the development process so cybersecurity becomes an integrated part of innovation instead of a separate checkpoint or late-stage add-on.
Each time a new feature or update is introduced, the responsible development team performs a structured cybersecurity assessment in collaboration with Axis’s overarching security specialists. Cybersecurity reviews and testing also occur continuously throughout development to maintain a strong and consistent baseline. This process is intended to identify how and where vulnerabilities might emerge. The findings then inform targeted testing to ensure that risks are accurately recognized and mitigated.
This developmental model isn’t static since some product lines are more mature than others. However, the shared framework ensures consistency and accountability across the board. When a vulnerability is detected internally, it’s immediately addressed and patched. When an external researcher reports a potential issue (more on this below), that feedback flows directly into the same process, validating and strengthening this thorough approach.
The partnership between internal and external testing serves as a pseudo quality control loop. Internal teams work at different cadences depending on product maturity and lifecycle stage, while external submissions help confirm the reliability of the systems. Together, these contributors are motivated to defend against bad actors and maintain a transparent, efficient vulnerability management process.
Third-Party Penetration Testing
Even the most rigorous internal testing and oversight can benefit from an independent check. That’s where third-party penetration testing comes in.
Internal cybersecurity assessments are designed to identify and address vulnerabilities before products reach customers. On the other end, third-party testing provides complementary validation, helping to ensure internal processes align with industry best practices while identifying additional opportunities for improvement.
While this resource can partially supplement manpower, it’s mostly about validation and transparency. Independent testing helps demonstrate that products have been thoroughly examined by outside experts, and the results could even reveal blind spots that internal teams might have missed.
These engagements are typically well-defined in scope, targeting specific systems or product components vs. open-ended audits. Depending on the objective, that may include testing elements of software or hardware. As internal and continuous testing programs mature, third-party penetration testing can increasingly focus on hardware-based evaluations and other areas where external expertise provides the most value.
At Axis, this balanced approach ensures our cybersecurity efforts remain transparent, repeatable, and verifiable, offering customers confidence that Axis products are designed and maintained with cybersecurity at the forefront.
Bug Bounty Programs
In addition to internal assessments and planned third-party testing, companies may consider engaging a global community of unaffiliated cybersecurity researchers through a bug bounty program. These ethical hackers focus specifically on identifying software vulnerabilities within a business’s products, bringing fresh perspectives and testing approaches that go beyond what can be achieved in controlled environments.
Bug bounty programs also introduce a uniquely flexible model: researchers can explore areas of the product that automated tools or scoped engagements might not. To guide discovery where it’s most valuable, companies can periodically adjust reward structures to encourage deeper investigation into newly introduced features or other prioritized components. At Axis, this program serves as a continuous source of external validation and responsible disclosure. This means researchers can be incentivized through periodic “specials” that encourage focus on timely product areas, features, or critical components.
By proactively incentivizing this independent research, organizations benefit from ongoing scrutiny across a diverse range of skills and specialties, helping ensure that even hard-to-spot vulnerabilities are uncovered and responsibly reported. This continuous external validation complements the work of internal cybersecurity teams while strengthening product resilience and transparency.
External Researchers
The final resource is external researchers who are not contracted via a third-party company or a bug bounty. These individuals are not bound by scope, but they still play an essential role in identifying vulnerabilities. They may uncover unrealized issues that weren’t part of a company’s thorough monitoring, or they may be able to chain together exploits in ways that internal testing could not. These individuals provide valuable additional perspectives while helping enterprises maintain a robust, comprehensive cybersecurity process.
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Sustainable cybersecurity depends on collaboration and transparency. Openness not only strengthens defenses but also promotes accountability and trust across the industry.
Axis serves as a Certified Naming Authority (CNA) within the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, a distinction granted to organizations that demonstrate a mature, well-documented vulnerability management process. As a CNA, Axis has the authority to issue official CVE identifiers, publish disclosures, and share hardening guidelines. This responsibility requires proven processes for identifying, validating, and communicating vulnerabilities, both internally and to customers.
Being a CNA also positions Axis as a proactive contributor to the broader cybersecurity community. When flaws are found in widely used third-party software, Axis plays a visible role in alerting affected vendors and even competitors to help safeguard the larger ecosystem.
The result is a diverse network of internal security teams, external testers, and independent researchers who continuously monitor, test, and strengthen products. The goals remain constant: acknowledge quickly, validate rigorously, and resolve responsibly.
While not every organization has the resources to maintain such a comprehensive framework, extending vulnerability management beyond internal testing—through independent validation and responsible disclosure—can strengthen both security and trust.
