Pentesters are now a CISOs best friend as critical vulnerabilities skyrocket

"That's according to an analysis by Bugcrowd, which found the last year has seen a massive 88% increase in hardware vulnerabilities and a doubling in network flaws. In a new report, Inside the Mind of a CISO 2025: Resilience in an AI-Accelerated World, the firm said that 81% of security researchers had encountered new hardware vulnerabilities in the past 12 months."

""We are in a high-stakes innovation race, but with every AI advance, the security landscape becomes exponentially more complex," said Nick McKenzie, Bugcrowd CISO. "Attackers are exploiting this complexity, but still targeting foundational layers like hardware and APIs." The good news is that the number of critical vulnerabilities has gone down slightly year-over-year. The number of critical flaws in API targets fell by about 25%, for example, while vulnerabilities in website targets decreased by 30%."

Hardware and network vulnerabilities are increasing as IoT devices proliferate and AI expands attack surfaces. Bugcrowd reported an 88% rise in hardware vulnerabilities and a doubling of network flaws over the past year. Eighty-one percent of security researchers encountered new hardware issues in the last 12 months. Broken access control vulnerabilities rose 40% and now represent the top category at 36%. Sensitive data exposure increased 42%, tied to personal data like names, addresses, and account details. Critical API and website vulnerabilities fell (about 25% and 30%), while Android, iOS, hardware, and network critical flaws rose slightly.

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