Scaling AppSec Accuracy with a Two-Person Team
Executive Summary
Whistic, a leader in third-party risk and trust management, runs a lean two-person security team protecting a rapidly growing SaaS platform. Pre-Kodem, traditional SCA and code-scanning tools produced high volumes of findings without distinguishing what was exploitable. The result was wasted cycles, duplicate triage, and slowed engineering velocity.
After deploying Kodem, Whistic reduced false positives, cut triage time by 8 hours per week, and gained clear visibility into which vulnerabilities truly mattered. Kodem’s exploitability-first approach—augmented with Slack workflows, EPSS policies, and auto-dismiss logic—freed senior AppSec engineers to focus on high-signal security work rather than repetitive noise.
About Whistic
Whistic’s mission is to make trust a business accelerator rather than a bottleneck. Its platform allows companies to assess, publish, and share security posture with customers and partners, streamlining third-party risk management. To deliver on that mission, Whistic requires security that scales with its product velocity: efficient, contextual, and precise.
Client Context
- Company: Whistic
- Headcount: ~200
- AppSec Stack (Pre-Kodem): Snyk (SCA and SAST), custom PR checks
- Security Team Size: 2 dedicated AppSec engineers
- Operating Model: Lean, with AppSec reporting and engineering teams owning fixes
The Challenge
With a small team, every hour mattered. Legacy tools such as Snyk flagged vulnerabilities but failed to show which ones could actually be exploited. Packages marked as “vulnerable” were often installed but never executed. Ephemeral server rebuilds created duplicate findings. Security staff were spending more than a full day every week manually validating issues.
The Kodem Solution
Why Kodem Over Other Options
Whistic had already invested in Snyk for SCA and SAST and evaluated agent-based real-time scanners. These tools provided coverage but not clarity.
- Snyk and other SCA tools surfaced vulnerabilities by CVSS score, many of which were not exploitable in Whistic’s runtime environment. Kodem narrowed the field to only what attackers could use.
- Agent-based scanners offered continuous monitoring but still left engineers mapping findings back to code and suppressing repeats. Kodem integrated runtime evidence with code-level reachability, removing that manual burden.Workflow integration was missing elsewhere. Kodem’s Slack-native notifications and EPSS scoring created actionable processes in real time.For Whistic, the difference was that Kodem provided attacker-aligned decisions.
Outcomes and Measured Value
Efficiency gains
8 hours per week saved on triage and validation
Faster PR cycles with fewer false blocks
Signal over noise
Differentiated “installed but unused” vs. “actively executed” packages
Suppressed duplicate findings from rebuilt servers
Smarter prioritization
EPSS-based scoring focused attention on likely exploits
Runtime context provided stability compared to shifting CVSS scores
Team leverage
Kodem shared the burden of AppSec expertise, enabling senior engineers to focus on high-impact security strategy
Before vs. With Kodem
Before Kodem
Legacy SCA and SAST flagged vulnerabilities without runtime context
8+ hours per week spent validating false positives
CVSS-based prioritization that shifted over time
Duplicate findings after ephemeral rebuilds
Senior engineers bogged down in triage
With Kodem
Exploitability analysis shows which CVEs can actually be hit
8 hours per week saved with contextual enforcement and auto-dismiss
EPSS + runtime context provide stable, attacker-aligned prioritization
Automatic suppression of recurring, non-relevant findings
Senior engineers focus on high-signal, strategic risk work
Looking Ahead
Whistic is working with Kodem to extend exploitability-first coverage into serverless workloads, beginning with Lambda scanning. The objective is consistent: automate away noise, surface the vulnerabilities that matter, and free expert staff to focus on securing what drives the business.
Platform Overview Video
Watch our short platform overview video to see how Kodem discovers real security risks in your code at runtime.
A Primer on Runtime Intelligence
See how Kodem's cutting-edge sensor technology revolutionizes application monitoring at the kernel level.
The State of the Application Security Workflow
This report aims to equip readers with actionable insights that can help future-proof their security programs. Kodem, the publisher of this report, purpose built a platform that bridges these gaps by unifying shift-left strategies with runtime monitoring and protection.
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