Secure Code Review Services
A secure code review is a security-focused read of the software your business runs on: automated scanning across everything, a human reading the parts that matter, the way an attacker would. You get a plain-English report, a prioritized fix list, and a recheck once the fixes land.
Manual and automated review. Fixed quote after scoping. Fix verification included.
Get a fair, fixed quote
A secure code review is a security-focused read of your application's source code: automated tools scan the whole codebase and its dependencies, and a human reviewer reads the paths an attacker would head for first. If nobody writes or customizes software for your business, you do not need this service, and we will tell you so on the first call; a penetration test of the environment you actually run is the right tool. But if you ship a product, run a customer portal, or depend on custom integrations, the code is part of your attack surface, and reading it is the only way to check it properly. We wrote the full plain-English explainer in what is a secure code review, and if you are weighing this against a pentest, penetration testing vs secure code review puts them side by side.
What we review
Where code actually goes wrong
A security code review is not a style check. It asks one question of every high-risk path: how could someone abuse this? Most findings fall into a few plain-English buckets.
Logins and sessions
How people prove who they are: sign-in, password reset, session handling. The login page working is not the question. The question is whether it can be talked into letting the wrong person through, and that answer lives in the code.
Who can see what
The classic miss: a logged-in customer changes a number in the URL and reads someone else's invoice. The code checked that they were signed in, but not that the data was theirs. Permission logic gets real manual time, because scanners are mostly blind to it.
Input that becomes commands
When an application passes along what a user typed without care, a form field can turn into a way to read the whole database. These injection flaws are decades old and still show up constantly, usually in ordinary code written under deadline pressure.
Secrets sitting in the code
Passwords, API keys, and connection strings pasted in to get something working and never removed. Anyone who can see the code now holds real keys. We check the repository history too, because deleting a secret from today's code does not remove it from yesterday's.
The code you did not write
Modern applications are mostly assembled from open-source libraries. One stale library with a known flaw can undermine an otherwise careful codebase, so the review covers your dependencies, not just the code your team committed.
Configuration around the code
Debug modes left on, error messages that spill internal details, encryption that is configured but never enforced. Quiet problems that do not break anything, which is exactly why nobody notices them until someone hostile does.
Worth saying plainly: most of what we find is not exotic. It is ordinary code written by capable people under deadline pressure. A review is not a judgment of your developers, it is a second set of eyes with a hostile mindset, and good teams are usually the ones asking for it.
How it works
Scanners for breadth, a person for depth
Nearly every serious source code review is a hybrid, and ours follows the approach in OWASP's Code Review Guide: automated scanning across the entire codebase, human review on the code that matters most. A focused review runs days, not months, and you know the timeline before we start.
- 01
Scope
A short call to map what you have built: which applications, which repositories, and which parts matter most, authentication, payments, anything touching customer data. We agree the scope in writing and arrange read-only access to the code.
- 02
Automated pass
Scanning tools read the entire codebase for known-dangerous patterns, check every dependency against published vulnerabilities, and sweep for committed secrets. Fast, consistent, thorough, and only half the job.
- 03
Manual pass
A reviewer reads the high-risk paths by hand and triages everything the tools flagged, keeping what is real and cutting the noise. A scanner does not know that a discount should never go negative or that one customer's records should be invisible to another. A person does.
- 04
Report and fix list
Every finding in plain English: what it is, what it would let someone do, and how to fix it, in priority order. An executive summary you can read and a technical section your developers can act on without a translator.
- 05
Verify the fixes
Once your team has remediated, we recheck the important findings and update the record. Included, not billed back. You end with a dated, verifiable answer to the question the review asked.
What you walk away with
A straight answer for the security questionnaire
If you sell software to other businesses, sooner or later a customer's security questionnaire asks how your code is reviewed and tested, and “our developers are careful” does not close that deal. A completed review gives you the dated, specific answer procurement wants: an independent secure code review, findings remediated, fixes verified. The full report stays inside your company, it is a map of your weaknesses, and what the customer gets is the executive summary. Same discipline as a penetration test report: the map stays home, the proof travels.
The same evidence answers auditors when SOC 2 or PCI DSS raises secure development practices, and it answers you when you have just inherited a codebase and want to know what you actually bought.
Pricing
What a secure code review costs
Reviews are priced by the size and complexity of the codebase: how much code, in how many languages, with how much high-risk surface like authentication and payments. A focused review of one application's critical paths is days of work. A sprawling legacy codebase is weeks. Anyone quoting a number before looking at the repository is guessing, so we do not. We scope it in a short call, put the scope in writing, and give you a fair, fixed quote against it. No hourly meter.
We publish our penetration testing prices openly, which most firms will not do, and code review quotes get the same treatment: honest, fixed, and explained. If you ship software, reviewing the code and testing the running application often makes sense together, and we will tell you plainly if it does not.
A review is a snapshot. Your code keeps moving.
A secure code review tells you where the code stands today. Then your team ships next sprint, and new vulnerabilities in the libraries you depend on are published every day after the review wraps. Blindsight, our continuous code monitoring service, watches your code, dependencies, and configuration in between reviews, from $500 a month.
Continuous code monitoringFAQ
Secure code review: common questions
- What is a secure code review?
- A security-focused examination of your application's source code that combines automated scanning with a human reviewer reading the high-risk paths. It finds the flaws that live in code, injection, broken permission logic, committed secrets, vulnerable dependencies, and quiet configuration problems, before an attacker does.
- Do we need one if we do not build software?
- No. If nobody writes or customizes code for your business, there is nothing to review, and we will tell you that on the first call. Your risk lives in your networks, accounts, and configurations, and a penetration test is the tool that measures it.
- Is a secure code review the same as a penetration test?
- No. A review reads your source code from the inside; a penetration test attacks your running systems from the outside. They find different problems and complement each other. If you ship software, you eventually want both, on a sensible cadence rather than all at once.
- Is a source code review the same as a secure code review?
- Yes. Source code review, security code review, and secure code review all describe the same engagement: reading the code your business depends on with a hostile mindset, with tools for breadth and a person for depth. Our source code review services cover your own code and the open-source libraries it is built on.
- How much does a secure code review cost?
- It is priced by the size and complexity of the codebase, so the quote comes after a short scoping look, not before. A focused review of one application's critical paths is days of work; a large legacy codebase is weeks. The quote is fixed once we agree the scope.
- Do you need access to our source code?
- Yes, read-only access to the repositories in scope, agreed in writing before anything starts. You know exactly who sees the code and for how long, and access is removed when the engagement ends. If your code is your crown jewels, that caution is a sign we will get along.
- Can you review code an outside firm built for us?
- Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons businesses call. If an agency built your platform or you inherited a codebase through an acquisition, a review tells you what you actually own. We are an independent second opinion, not here to trash your developers.
Know what is in your code before someone hostile reads it for you
Tell us a little about what you have built, the stack, roughly how big, and what is prompting the question: a customer questionnaire, a launch, an inherited codebase, or just wanting to know. We will come back with a scope, a timeline, and a fair, fixed quote. No pressure, no scare tactics.