Reviewed by Dr. Dmytro Nasyrov, Founder and CTO
Pharos Production delivers security engineering services - threat modeling, SAST, DAST, penetration testing and incident response - aligned to NIST CSF, OWASP ASVS and MITRE ATT&CK. The team embeds security across the development lifecycle, from architecture review and code scanning to remediation and monitoring.
Automated SAST/DAST scanning is fast, cheap and catches the mechanical issues - injection patterns, outdated dependencies, missing headers - at every commit. Gray-box manual testing is slower and costs more but is the only approach that reliably finds business-logic flaws, authentication bypass and multi-step exploit chains a scanner has no concept of. Per NIST SP 800-115, a mature testing program layers both: continuous automated scanning in CI plus periodic manual gray-box engagements at major releases.
| Factor | Gray-box manual test | Automated SAST/DAST scan |
|---|---|---|
| Business-logic flaws | Found - a human tester chains steps a scanner has no concept of | Missed - scanners test patterns, not business workflows |
| Authentication/IDOR | Found - testers use real role credentials to probe access boundaries | Usually missed without valid session tokens configured |
| Known CVEs and patterns | Covered but not the focus - manual time is spent on what scanners cannot find | Comprehensive - this is exactly what scanners are built for |
| Cadence | Periodic: kickoff, major releases, pre-launch, compliance milestones | Continuous: every commit or pull request in CI |
| Cost | $10,000-$35,000 per gray-box engagement | $6,000-$20,000 one-time CI setup, low marginal cost after |
| Output | CVSS-scored report with proof-of-concept and reproduction steps | Findings list flagged at commit time, routed to the owning engineer |
| When to use which | Pre-launch, post-major-release, compliance evidence, after an incident | Every day, every commit, as the first line of defense |
Our team of 90+ engineers covers the full development stack, from Solidity smart contracts and React front-ends to Kubernetes infrastructure and automated QA pipelines. Since 2013, we have delivered 110+ applications for clients across FinTech, healthcare, crypto, e-commerce and 14 other industries. Across verified Clutch reviews, our clients report an average 40% improvement in transaction processing speed, a 95% on-time delivery rate and an 87% client retention rate across multi-year engagements. Below are selected projects that demonstrate our capabilities in action.
Pharos Production collaborated with a taxi aggregator platform to develop a high-load ride-hailing application that connects passengers and drivers in real time. This platform consolidates various fleets and independent drivers into a single system, ensuring quick ride matching, live tracking and transparent pricing. Built on a cloud-native infrastructure, the solution offers low-latency interactions, reliable trip processing and scalability for operations at the city and regional levels.
Pharos Production has partnered with Sagas to create a location-aware social platform that enables users to capture, publish and explore geo-located timelapses over time. This system combines real-time data ingestion, large-scale media processing and map-centric discovery to transform physical locations into dynamic digital stories. Leveraging cloud-native infrastructure and event-driven architecture, Sagas allows users to document urban changes, natural evolution and personal moments tied to specific places. The result is a scalable social network where time and location are central to content discovery.
Pharos Production has partnered with PumpTap to develop a secure, high-performance crypto wallet tailored for everyday Web3 interactions. PumpTap lets users store, send and manage digital assets across multiple blockchains through a simple, intuitive interface. Built on a scalable, event-driven architecture, the wallet delivers real-time transaction updates, robust security and seamless integration with decentralized applications.
Pharos Production has partnered with Pulse to create a community-driven social network that connects users with local stores through challenges, engagement activities and real-world prizes. This platform transforms everyday local interactions into interactive experiences, enabling users to earn rewards from participating merchants. Built on a scalable, event-driven architecture, Pulse facilitates real-time interactions between users and businesses and supports rapid growth across cities and regions.
Pharos Production partnered with Pro Gambling to build a high-load sports forecasting platform focused on data-driven predictions, real-time analytics and scalable delivery of betting insights. The platform aggregates large volumes of sports data, odds movements and historical statistics to generate forecasts that help users make informed betting decisions. Built on a cloud-native, event-driven architecture, Pro Gambling delivers fast updates, transparent analytics and consistent performance during peak sports events.
Pharos Production has partnered with Pleenk to build a secure, scalable payments platform for fast transactions, fraud prevention and seamless integration with digital products. The platform processes payment flows in real time while maintaining high levels of security, transparency and reliability for both businesses and end users. Built on cloud-native infrastructure and an event-driven architecture, Pleenk provides a strong foundation for modern digital payments.
Pharos Production partnered with NoMoreBets to develop a worldwide one-tap live betting platform focused on speed and scalability. The system handles real-time odds and instant bets effortlessly. The result is a smooth, engaging betting experience that increased player retention, reduced drop-offs during live matches and positioned NoMoreBets for global growth since 2022.
Pharos Production partnered with Nextcheck to replace outdated, manual onboarding with a secure, automated KYC/AML platform. Built on AWS, Kubernetes, Istio, Elixir, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL and NextJS, the platform provides real-time biometric and document verification, risk assessment and compliance reporting. Since 2019, Nextcheck has reduced onboarding time by 60%, cut manual labor by 70% and expanded to support thousands of checks at once. Today, it powers global banks, FinTechs and crypto firms with a cloud-native, regulation-ready, growth-oriented compliance platform.
Founder and CTO Pharos Production
I design and build reliable software solutions - from lightweight apps to high-load distributed systems and blockchain platforms.
PhD in Artificial Intelligence, MSc in Computer Science (with honors), MSc in Electronics & Precision Mechanics.
13 years in architecture of great software solutions tailored to customer needs for startups and enterprises
23 years of practical enterprise customized software production experience
Lecturer at the National Kyiv Polytechnic University
Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence
Master’s degree in Computer Science, completed with excellence
Master’s degree in Electronics and precision mechanics engineering
The Pharos Gray-Box Testing Protocol is our four-step engagement cycle: Scope and Threat Model, Static and Dynamic Analysis, Manual Exploitation, and Remediation and Retest.
maps assets, trust boundaries and attacker goals against the OWASP threat modeling process before a single test case is written, so effort concentrates on what actually matters to the business
runs SAST against the shared source (Semgrep, CodeQL) and DAST against a running instance (Burp Suite Pro, OWASP ZAP), plus Slither, Mythril and Foundry fuzzing for smart contracts, to clear the mechanical findings before human time is spent
is where a human tester chains logic flaws, business-logic abuse, authentication bypass and access-control gaps that no scanner catches, validated against the CVSS standard for severity
hands engineers a fix-ready report with reproduction steps and compensating controls, then re-runs the exact test cases that failed
The protocol is named because gray-box access is what separates a report that finds real risk from a scan that finds what is already public.
“A test that never sees the source code is a test that misses the bug hiding behind an access-control check three functions deep. Gray-box is not a compromise, it is what an actual insider threat looks like.”
Pharos Verified Delivery applied to 110+ production applications since 2013
Anonymized before/after snapshots from production projects. Metrics measured against client-reported pre-engagement baselines.
Pre-audit staking contract allowed a user to re-enter the withdraw function before internal balances updated. Static analysis with Slither flagged the pattern; manual review confirmed a working exploit path.
Reentrancy fixed with a checks-effects-interactions rewrite and a permanent regression test. Contract re-audited clean and deployed with $6.4 million TVL across 10 months without incident.
Slither flagged the reentrant call pattern in under 4 minutes of automated analysis; the manual review pass then built a working proof-of-concept exploit to confirm severity before writing the finding, so the client engineering team could reproduce and verify the fix themselves.
Patient-scheduling API had passed an internal code review with no findings. No external testing had been performed before a planned public launch.
Gray-box test found an IDOR chain exposing patient records across 3 endpoints plus 2 high-severity authorization gaps. All fixed inside the 30-day remediation window; retest confirmed closure.
The IDOR chain only surfaced because we had a test account with real role permissions - a black-box scan without credentials would have stopped at the login wall. Fixes shipped with a shared authorization middleware pattern the team now applies to every new endpoint.
No automated security testing in CI. Each release relied on a developer manually remembering to check for common issues. Two prior incidents traced to dependencies with known CVEs.
Semgrep and CodeQL wired into every pull request, OWASP ZAP baseline scan on every staging deploy. Findings now caught before merge, zero dependency-CVE incidents in the 9 months since rollout.
Rules were scoped to the client codebase to cut noise from generic default rulesets, and findings route to the owning engineer through the existing pull-request review flow instead of a separate security dashboard nobody checks.
Client names anonymized under NDA. Full case studies at /cases/.
We decline roughly 30% of RFPs we receive. Forcing a bad fit costs both sides 3-6 months and damages outcomes. Here is how we think about scope:
A $35,000 penetration test on a pre-revenue MVP is usually the wrong spend; a threat-model session for a few thousand dollars often catches the same architectural risk before code is written. We scope based on what is actually at stake - user data volume, transaction value, regulatory exposure - and recommend the depth that matches it, not the most expensive package we sell.
30+ Pharos smart contract audits benchmarked: cost by project type, finding severity distribution and time-to-remediation data.
Independent reviews from Clutch, GoodFirms and Google - verified client feedback on our software projects
Based on 9 verified client reviews
Trusted by Coinbase, Consensys, Core Scientific, MicroStrategy, Gate.io and 10+ more Web3 and enterprise platforms
16+ partnersOur 16 technology partners include:
Reviewed by Dmytro Nasyrov
Founder and CTO
23+ years in custom software development. Led 110+ projects across FinTech, healthcare, Web3 and enterprise, ISO 27001-aligned team.
Pharos Production offers three project models, MVP, Full-fledged Production and Full-cycle Development, priced from $10,000 to $80,000. An MVP prototype takes about 3 months.
Core software architecture, initial UI/UX, working prototype in 3 months
Software architecture, UI/UX, customized software development, manual and automated testing, cloud deployment
Comprehensive software architecture and documentation, UI/UX design layouts, UI kit, clickable prototypes, cloud deployment, continuous integration, as well as automated monitoring and notifications.
Prices vary based on project scope, complexity, timeline and requirements. Hourly rates range from $35 to $75 depending on role and seniority. Contact us for a personalized estimate.
Need extra hands on your software project? Our developers can jump in at any stage - from architecture to auditing - and integrate seamlessly with your team to fill any technical gaps.
Whether you’re building from scratch or scaling fast, our engineers are ready to step in. You stay in control, and we handle the code.
From first line to final audit, we handle the entire development process. We will deliver secure, production-ready software, while you can focus on your business.
| Model | Best for | Team setup | Budget range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff Augmentation | Existing teams needing extra engineers at any project stage | 1-2 weeks | From $5,000/month |
| Dedicated Team Popular | Long-term projects requiring full ownership and control | 2-4 weeks | From $15,000/month |
| Project Outsourcing | Full-cycle development from idea to production launch | 1-2 weeks | $10,000-$80,000+ |
Our engineers work with 187+ technologies across blockchain, backend, frontend, mobile and DevOps - chosen for production reliability and performance.
Our engineers work with 187+ technologies across 10 categories: Frameworks, AI, Blockchains, DevOps, Clouds, Databases, Brokers, Tests, Programming, UI/UX.
Our company starts and assembles an entire project specialists with the perfect blend of skills and experience to start the work.
We’ll design, build and launch your MVP, ensuring it meets the core requirements of your software solution.
We’ll create a complete software solution that is custom-made to meet your exact specifications.
Our company will be right there with you, keeping your software solution running smoothly, fixing issues and rolling out updates.
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Gray-box testing gives the tester partial knowledge - architecture diagrams, a low-privilege test account, sometimes source access - instead of starting from zero (black-box) or full source and credentials (white-box). It mirrors what a real attacker with some reconnaissance, or a malicious insider, would actually have, so findings reflect realistic risk rather than what a blind scan happens to stumble on. We default to it because in our experience it finds materially more high-severity issues per dollar than pure black-box testing.
SAST (static analysis) scans source code without running it, catching issues like injection patterns, hardcoded secrets and insecure dependencies early, directly in the pull request. DAST (dynamic analysis) tests a running application from the outside, the way an attacker would, catching runtime issues like misconfigurations and authentication flaws that static analysis cannot see. We run both: Semgrep and CodeQL for SAST, Burp Suite Pro and OWASP ZAP for DAST.
From the day we deliver the findings report, the client team has 30 days to fix what they choose to fix, then one retest pass is included at no extra cost to confirm closure. We do not charge separately for verifying the fixes we found in the first place.
Findings the client accepts as risk (rather than fixing) are documented as such in the closure summary, not silently dropped.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) is an industry-standard 0-10 severity scale maintained by FIRST.org that scores exploitability and impact so engineering and leadership are reading the same risk language instead of a subjective “bad/really bad” label. Every finding in a Pharos report carries a CVSS score plus our own note on business context, since a technically medium-severity bug on a system holding regulated data can matter more than a high-severity bug on an internal tool.
Smart contract audits start with automated static analysis (Slither, Mythril) to catch known vulnerability classes fast, then move to Foundry invariant fuzzing that runs millions of randomized transaction sequences to surface unexpected state transitions, then a manual review pass reading every function against the intended economic design. Reentrancy, access-control gaps and oracle manipulation are the classes we see most often, consistent with Immunefi crypto-loss data.
When there is no live attack surface to test (pre-MVP, no users yet), when the budget only covers the test and not the engineer time to fix what it finds, or when the ask is really for a clean-looking report rather than an honest one. In those cases we recommend a cheaper threat-model session, or we say wait until there is something real to test.
Testing methodologies, severity-scoring standards and exploit-data sources referenced throughout this guide.
Published record
Technical articles, comparison guides and methodology deep-dives we write from our own delivery experience.
Estimate cost, Year-1 ops, time-to-deliverable and required expert headcount for pentest, red-team, SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, IR retainer and MDR engagements. Directional only.
Last reviewed . Engagement ranges reflect pricing posts from Trail of Bits, NCC Group, Cure53, Bishop Fox, AICPA SOC 2 cost surveys and ENISA Threat Landscape. See disclaimer below.
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