Black Box vs White Box Pentesting: When to Connect Your GitHub Repo

One of the first decisions you make when setting up a pentest with TurboPentest is whether to connect your GitHub repository. This choice determines whether you run a black box pentest (external only) or a white box pentest (external plus source code analysis). Both are valuable, but they serve different purposes and deliver different types of findings.

Here is a practical guide to understanding each approach and choosing the right one for your situation.

What is Black Box Pentesting?

Black box pentesting simulates an external attacker with no inside knowledge of your application. The pentester - or in TurboPentest's case, the AI agent - has only what is publicly accessible: your domain name and whatever is exposed on the internet.

This approach answers the question: "What can an attacker find and exploit from the outside?"

TurboPentest's Black Box Pipeline: 11 Tools

When you run a black box pentest, TurboPentest deploys 11 specialized security tools plus Shannon AI:

1. Subfinder - discovers subdomains associated with your domain
2. HTTPX - probes discovered hosts for live HTTP services and collects response metadata
3. Wafw00f - detects Web Application Firewalls and identifies their type and version
4. Nmap - performs port discovery and service fingerprinting across your attack surface
5. ZAP - runs dynamic application security testing against your web application
6. Nuclei - executes thousands of vulnerability detection templates
7. Nikto - checks for web server misconfigurations, default files, and outdated software
8. FFUF - fuzzes for hidden directories, files, and endpoints
9. OpenVAS - performs comprehensive vulnerability assessment of network services
10. TestSSL - analyzes TLS/SSL configuration, cipher suites, and certificate integrity
11. PentestTools - runs additional specialized security checks

Plus Shannon AI as the 12th step, correlating and validating findings across all tools.

When Black Box is the Right Choice

Black box pentesting is ideal when:

• You want a quick external assessment - no setup beyond verifying domain ownership
• You do not have GitHub access - perhaps you are testing a third-party application or a legacy system without source control
• You need a baseline - you want to understand your external attack surface before diving deeper
• Compliance requires external testing - many frameworks specifically require external penetration testing
• You are evaluating a new acquisition - assessing the security posture of an application you do not yet have source access to

What is White Box Pentesting?

White box pentesting gives the tester full visibility into the application, including source code, architecture documentation, and configuration files. This approach combines external testing with deep code-level analysis.

This approach answers a broader question: "What vulnerabilities exist in our application, including those that are not visible from the outside?"

TurboPentest's White Box Pipeline: All 15 Tools

When you connect your GitHub repository, TurboPentest runs all 11 black box tools plus 4 additional source code analysis tools:

12. Semgrep - performs static application security testing (SAST) against your codebase, detecting injection flaws, authentication issues, insecure patterns, and framework-specific vulnerabilities using thousands of rules
13. Trivy - analyzes your repository for vulnerable dependencies, container image issues, infrastructure-as-code misconfigurations, and license compliance
14. Gitleaks - searches your entire git history for accidentally committed secrets, API keys, passwords, tokens, and other sensitive data
15. Shannon AI (enhanced) - with source code context, Shannon AI can perform deeper correlation between dynamic findings and their code-level root causes

What Additional Findings Does White Box Provide?

Connecting your GitHub repo unlocks entire categories of vulnerabilities that are invisible from the outside.

Hardcoded Secrets

Gitleaks searches your complete git history - not just the current commit. This means it can find API keys, database credentials, or tokens that were committed months ago and later removed. Even if the secret is no longer in your current codebase, it may still be valid and it is permanently in your git history.

Common discoveries include:

• AWS access keys and secret keys
• Database connection strings with embedded passwords
• API tokens for third-party services (Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid)
• Private SSH keys
• JWT signing secrets

Source Code Vulnerabilities

Semgrep analyzes your actual code for patterns that lead to vulnerabilities. These findings are often impossible to detect from the outside because they require understanding how data flows through your application.

Examples of what Semgrep catches:

• SQL queries constructed with string concatenation instead of parameterized queries
• User input passed directly to system commands
• Missing authentication middleware on sensitive routes
• Insecure cryptographic implementations
• Race conditions in concurrent operations

Dependency Vulnerabilities

Trivy analyzes your dependency tree - every library, framework, and package your application uses - and checks each one against known vulnerability databases. A single vulnerable dependency deep in your dependency tree can expose your entire application.

Trivy covers:

• npm/yarn packages (package-lock.json, yarn.lock)
• Python packages (requirements.txt, Pipfile)
• Go modules (go.sum)
• Container base images (Dockerfile)
• Infrastructure-as-code templates (Terraform, CloudFormation)

Deeper Shannon AI Correlation

With source code access, Shannon AI can do something uniquely powerful: connect dynamic findings to their code-level root causes. When ZAP detects a potential SQL injection endpoint, Shannon AI can check Semgrep's results to see if that endpoint's handler uses unsafe query construction. This correlation dramatically reduces false positives and provides developers with the exact line of code that needs fixing.

Making the Decision

Here is a practical decision framework:

Our Recommendation

If you have access to the GitHub repository, connect it. The additional findings from Semgrep, Trivy, and Gitleaks consistently reveal vulnerabilities that would be invisible in a black box test. The setup takes minutes - you authorize TurboPentest's GitHub app, select your repository, and the white box tools run alongside the standard pipeline.

There is no cost difference between black box and white box pentesting on TurboPentest. Both are included at the same $99 per domain price. You are leaving valuable security insights on the table if you skip the source code analysis.

Start with Black Box, Upgrade to White Box

If you are not ready to connect GitHub yet, start with a black box pentest to see how TurboPentest works. You can always re-run as a white box pentest later when you are ready to connect your repository. Many users start with black box to get familiar with the platform and then switch to white box for ongoing testing.

Connect your GitHub repository and run a white box agentic AI pentest to get the complete picture of your application's security posture.