In this episode, Tom Eston and Kevin Johnson discuss the groundbreaking advancements in autonomous penetration testing by cybersecurity startup XBOW and its implications for the future of offensive security.

Autonomous Hacking? This Startup May Have Just Changed Penetration Testing Forever

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In this episode, we explore the revolutionary concept of autonomous penetration testing with a discussion into Cybersecurity startup XBOW’s recent breakthrough. XBOW claims to have topped HackerOne’s leaderboard using a fully autonomous AI agent, raising significant questions about the future of offensive security. Hosts discuss the potential of AI in pen testing, the implications for pen testers, bug bounty hunters, and security teams, and whether this represents a genuine advancement or just more AI hype.

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** Links mentioned on the show **

The road to Top 1: How XBOW did it
https://xbow.com/blog/top-1-how-xbow-did-it/

CVE-2025-49493: XML External Entity (XXE) Injection in Akamai CloudTest
https://xbow.com/blog/xbow-akamai-cloudtest-xxe/

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