Pencheff is built around the principle that evidence-backed, adversarial testing should be as rigorous as a formal audit — readable by engineers, executives, and compliance teams on the same page.
Risk, reporting, and compliance
Our auditors
Guidance for readers validating scope, evidence, and compliance output.
Findings, reports, dashboards, exports, integrations, and retests all read from the same normalized record.
Pencheff favors repeatable checks, then uses AI for triage, enrichment, orchestration, and remediation where it adds signal.
From the Pencheff docs
Compliance overview
/compliance/overviewEvery finding Pencheff produces is automatically mapped to up to ten compliance frameworks so that a single scan becomes a single piece of audit evidence across your entire security programme.
Web / cloud / data frameworks
| Framework | Scope | Controls covered |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP Top 10 (2021) | Web / API | A01–A10 |
| PCI-DSS 4.0 | Card data environments | 2.2, 4.1, 6.2, 6.5.x, 7.x, 8.x |
| NIST 800-53 Rev 5 | US federal / FedRAMP | AC, AU, CM, IA, SC, SI |
| SOC 2 | Service orgs | CC6.x, CC7.x, A1.x |
| ISO 27001:2022 | International ISMS | Annex A.5.x, A.8.x |
| HIPAA | Healthcare (US) | 164.308, 164.312 |
| OWASP Mobile Top 10 (2024) | Mobile apps | M1–M10 |
AI / LLM frameworks
LLM red-team findings automatically attach
mappings for the AI-specific governance frameworks. Each finding's
compliance.MITRE ATLAS / NIST AI RMF / EU AI Act keys map the
underlying OWASP LLM category onto the relevant controls.
| Framework | Scope | Mapping |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP LLM Top 10 (2025) | LLM applications | LLM01–LLM10 |
| MITRE ATLAS | Adversarial ML threat model | AML.T0010–AML.T0058 |
| NIST AI Risk Management Framework | US guidance | MAP / MEASURE / MANAGE functions |
| EU AI Act | EU regulation | Articles 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 50, 55 |
Example LLM01 finding (prompt injection) maps to:
{
"owasp": "LLM01: Prompt Injection",
"compliance": {
"OWASP": ["LLM01: Prompt Injection"],
"MITRE ATLAS": ["AML.T0051", "AML.T0054"],
"NIST AI RMF": ["MAP 1.5", "MEASURE 2.7", "MANAGE 2.3"],
"EU AI Act": ["Article 15", "Article 55"]
}
}
How the mapping works
Each finding carries a category (e.g. injection, auth, crypto,
components) and an owasp_category. The reporting layer in
reporting/compliance.py
maps those onto control identifiers for every framework.
Example (a SQL injection finding):
{
"owasp": "A03: Injection",
"compliance": {
"OWASP": ["A03: Injection"],
"PCI-DSS": ["6.5.1"],
"NIST-800-53": ["SI-10", "SI-16"],
"SOC2": ["CC6.1", "CC6.6"],
"ISO27001": ["A.8.24", "A.8.28"],
"HIPAA": ["164.312(a)(2)(iv)", "164.312(c)(1)"]
}
}
Focused profiles
Use targeted profiles when an audit asks for a specific framework:
compliance— 5-framework breadth, OWASP-firstcompliance-full— every module + SCA + IaC, all six frameworkspci-dss/soc2— single-framework policy YAML
Report exports
Compliance mappings appear in:
- DOCX reports — per-finding table + framework summary appendices
- JSON exports —
compliance: { FRAMEWORK: [controls] }on every finding - CSV exports — one column per framework, comma-separated controls
- SBOMs — declared license + PURL for A06 (Vulnerable Components) support
Custom mappings
Add additional frameworks (e.g. CIS Controls, NERC-CIP) by extending
the maps in plugins/pencheff/pencheff/config.py — PRs welcome.
From the Pencheff docs
SOC 2
/compliance/soc2Pencheff maps findings to SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria (primarily Security / Common Criteria CC6–CC7 and Availability A1).
| TSC | Example controls | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| CC6.1 — Logical access controls | CC6.1, CC6.2, CC6.3 | scan_auth, scan_authz, scan_oauth, scan_mfa_bypass |
| CC6.6 — Boundary protection | CC6.6 | CORS, SSRF, clickjacking, WebSocket security |
| CC6.7 — Encryption | CC6.7 | scan_infrastructure (TLS) |
| CC7.1 — Detection / monitoring | CC7.1 | Passive scanner, change detection via ASM |
| CC7.2 / CC7.3 — Anomaly handling | CC7.2, CC7.3 | Continuous profile + retest automation |
| CC8.1 — Change management | CC8.1 | SBOM + dep scan in CI/CD gate |
| A1.1 — Availability / capacity | A1.1 | scan_business_logic (rate limiting, race), cloud misconfig |
Policy example
apiVersion: pencheff/v1
kind: ScanPolicy
metadata: { name: soc2 }
spec:
targets: [{ url: "${TARGET_URL}" }]
modules:
- { name: scan_infrastructure, depth: standard }
- { name: scan_auth, depth: standard }
- { name: scan_authz, depth: standard }
- { name: scan_cloud, depth: standard }
- { name: scan_dependencies, params: { path: "./" } }
- { name: generate_sbom, params: { path: "./", format: spdx } }
thresholds: { fail_on: high }
reports:
- { format: docx, path: "./reports/soc2/" }
Evidence packet
The DOCX report has a SOC 2 Control Mapping appendix with one row per CC control, showing findings and remediation status — suitable for submission to your auditor as Type II evidence.
From the Pencheff docs
PCI-DSS 4.0
/compliance/pci-dssPencheff covers the PCI-DSS v4.0 technical requirements most commonly
exercised by external auditors. Use the pci-dss or compliance-full
profile.
Requirements covered
| Requirement | Meaning | Pencheff module |
|---|---|---|
| 2.2 | Secure configuration | scan_infrastructure, scan_dockerfile, scan_kubernetes |
| 4.1 | Strong cryptography | scan_infrastructure (SSL/TLS) |
| 6.2 | Bespoke / custom software secure development | SCA + IaC + DAST |
| 6.5.1 | Injection flaws | scan_injection |
| 6.5.7 | Cross-site scripting | scan_client_side, scan_dom_xss |
| 6.5.8 | Broken access control | scan_authz |
| 6.5.10 | Broken authentication / session mgmt | scan_auth, scan_oauth, scan_advanced |
| 6.6 | Web application firewall or code review | scan_waf |
| 7.1 / 7.2 | Access control | scan_authz |
| 8.1 / 8.2 / 8.3 | Strong authentication + MFA | scan_auth, scan_mfa_bypass |
| 11.3 | Internal + external vuln scans | scan_host_vulns, scan_network_misconfig |
Report
pencheff run-policy policies/examples/pci_dss.yaml
The resulting DOCX includes a PCI-DSS 4.0 mapping table listing every requirement touched by the scan, and the findings that hit each.
FAQ
Common questions
- Who are the security practitioners behind Pencheff?
- Pencheff is built by practitioners with hands-on experience in application penetration testing, red team engagements, and compliance assessment. The platform encodes the same techniques, evidence standards, and reporting rigour used in institutional-grade manual assessments.
- Can Pencheff reports serve as a substitute for manual penetration testing?
- Pencheff produces audit-grade reports that satisfy the evidence requirements for SOC 2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, and HIPAA assessments. For programmes requiring a named human penetration tester or a CREST/OSCP-certified assessor signature, Pencheff can be combined with a human review engagement.
- How does Pencheff maintain assessment quality at scale?
- Every finding promotion requires re-verification with a confirmatory payload. Findings that cannot be reproduced are automatically discarded. The methodology is versioned (currently v4.2) and the compliance mapping is updated with each framework revision — so report quality is consistent regardless of scan volume.
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