Top Penetration Testing Companies in Costa Rica (2026)

The top penetration testing companies in Costa Rica reflect a market that learned the cost of weak security the hard way. In 2022, Costa Rica became the first country in the world to declare a national state of emergency over a ransomware attack, and cybersecurity has been a national priority ever since. The specialist market here is smaller than in larger tech hubs, so the strongest options are a mix of homegrown firms, regional Latin American providers, and international teams that actively serve the country. This guide profiles them, explains what each does best, and shows how to choose.

Comparing providers beyond Costa Rica? Our global list of top penetration testing companies covers firms that deliver testing across regions.

Disclosure: DeepStrike, the publisher of this guide, is a penetration testing provider and is included in this list. Weigh our entry the way you would any vendor's description of its own service, and compare scope, sample reports and references for every provider before you buy. DeepStrike publishes this list and lists itself first; the order of the list is not a quality ranking, and the numbers are for navigation only.

Related Latin American guides: Uruguay and Brazil.

Updated: November 2026. Company details are drawn from each vendor's official website; several providers listed serve Costa Rica from elsewhere in the region, which we note explicitly. Verify current scope and certifications before you sign.

Why cybersecurity is a national priority in Costa Rica

Cybersecurity is a national priority in Costa Rica because the 2022 Conti and Hive ransomware attacks disrupted tax collection, customs and public hospitals and led to the first national emergency declared over a cyberattack. Since then, the government has adopted a 2023–2027 national cybersecurity strategy and financial regulators have tightened their IT security rules.

Costa Rica is one of Latin America's most attractive nearshore technology hubs, home to multinational shared-service centers, a growing fintech scene, and an English-proficient engineering workforce. That same profile makes it a target, and 2022 proved it.

Beginning on 17 April 2022, the Conti ransomware group breached the Finance Ministry and spread across roughly 27 government institutions, crippling tax collection and customs. Conti demanded 10 million dollars, then doubled it to 20 million; the government refused to pay. On 8 May 2022, President Rodrigo Chaves declared a national state of emergency, the first ever declared by a country in response to a cyberattack. Weeks later, a separate Hive ransomware attack hit the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), forcing hospitals back to paper records. The incident is now a reference case in international cyber-law analysis.

The lasting effect for buyers is demand. Costa Rican organizations, especially in government, banking, healthcare, and the multinationals based there, now treat penetration testing and continuous security validation as essential rather than optional. For the many nearshore firms serving United States and European customers, a clean third-party penetration test has also become a commercial requirement: enterprise clients often ask for one during vendor due diligence, so testing doubles as a sales enabler, not just a defensive measure. Two practical notes shape the list below. First, the country has relatively few pure-play, locally headquartered pentest boutiques, so the market is served heavily by regional and international firms. Second, wherever a provider is based, what matters is manual, human-led penetration testing services delivered by certified testers, not a rebranded automated scan.

Costa Rica regulatory and procurement context

Financial sector testing rule. CONASSIF's Acuerdo 5-24, the Reglamento General de Gobierno y Gestión de la Tecnología de Información, was published in La Gaceta on 22 July 2024 and covers entities supervised by SUGEF, SUGEVAL, SUPEN and SUGESE. Article 33 requires them to establish annual programs of vulnerability analysis and testing that cover information security and cybersecurity controls, scoped to their risks, and allows the work to be done by internal staff, external providers or both. Credit cooperatives under SUGEF's proportional regime and insurance brokerages may treat Article 33 as good practice rather than a requirement.

Public sector and national CERT. MICITT, the science and telecommunications ministry, leads national cybersecurity policy. Its CSIRT-CR was created by Executive Decree 37052-MICIT in 2012, and the National Cybersecurity Strategy 2023–2027, launched on 13 November 2023, sets the government's priorities after the 2022 attacks. A general cybersecurity bill (legislative file 23.292) was still in committee in late 2024, so check its status before assuming new obligations.

Personal data. Law 8968 protects individuals' personal data and is enforced by PRODHAB, the Agencia de Protección de Datos de los Habitantes. Its regulation, Executive Decree 37554-JP, requires data controllers to keep administrative, physical and logical security measures and to make sure processors comply with them, so a test that touches production data should define how testers access, store and delete it.

Public procurement. Since 1 December 2022, the Ley General de Contratación Pública (Law 9986) has required public purchasing to run through the unified digital system, SICOP, so a provider that wants government testing work has to quote there.

How we selected these providers

We built the candidate pool from three groups: providers that publish a Costa Rican office or a Costa Rica service page, regional Central American and Latin American firms that market testing to Costa Rican organizations, and international pentest providers with published Costa Rica coverage. A firm stayed on the list only if its own website describes a penetration testing service (not only scanning or monitoring), names the testing types it performs, and states its Costa Rica presence or service area. Between 2 and 3 November 2026 we checked each entry's legal entity, office or contact details, certification claims (using CREST's public marketplace where a provider claims CREST status) and retest terms on the provider's own pages. We did not run test engagements with these firms, so the profiles describe published offerings, not measured quality. The criteria we applied:

• Insist on human-led, manual testing. Automated scanners find known issues; skilled testers find business-logic flaws, chained exploits, and privilege escalation that scanners miss.
• Check certifications at the individual level. OSCP, OSEP, and CREST signal offensive skill; ISO 27001 and SOC 2 signal the provider handles your data responsibly.
• Confirm the deliverable. A strong penetration testing report ranks findings by real business risk, includes reproduction steps and evidence, and comes with a retest to verify fixes.
• Match specialty to your stack. Web and API, mobile, cloud, network, and social engineering are distinct disciplines. Buy the one you need.
• Verify local context. For Costa Rica, confirm Spanish and English reporting, data-handling terms that meet Law 8968 and its regulation, and, if you are a supervised financial entity, how the test fits your annual CONASSIF 5-24 testing program.

The comparison table orients your shortlist; the profiles add the detail, and each says plainly whether the firm is local, regional, or international.

Top penetration testing companies in Costa Rica at a glance

The top penetration testing companies in Costa Rica

1. DeepStrike: Application testing and remediation collaboration

Public offering: DeepStrike's penetration testing services describe human-led testing across applications, cloud environments, and infrastructure, supported by a findings and collaboration platform. Its public process covers planning, reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, controlled exploitation, reporting, and technical support. Published reports include reproduction steps, remediation guidance, and root-cause information; the proposal should define exact coverage and commercial terms.

Costa Rica relevance: Founded in 2016, DeepStrike LLC is headquartered in Newark, Delaware, has 11–50 employees, and also publishes a business address in Dubai, UAE (IFZA Business Park). It delivers testing remotely for Costa Rican clients; define tester locations, permitted subcontracting, and data-handling restrictions in the engagement agreement.

Team certifications: OSCP, OSWE, OSEP, OSWP, GXPN, GWAPT, eCPPT, eMAPT, eWPT, CREST CPSA, CRTP, CRTE, and Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate, as shown on DeepStrike's services page.

Official sources: Pricing , Contact Us

Buyer fit: Engineering teams that need application, cloud, or infrastructure testing with direct remediation collaboration.

2. BorneoCR: Costa Rican SOC and pentesting provider

Public offering: BorneoCR offers penetration testing and analysis that simulates attacks on applications, APIs, networks, and cloud environments, referencing the OWASP Top 10, PTES, and red team approaches, and delivers a technical report with CVSS scores plus an executive summary. Its main service is an AI-assisted 24/7 managed detection and response (SOC) offering, alongside social engineering simulation, CISO as a service, audits against ISO 27001, NIST, and SUGEF requirements, incident response, and digital forensics.

Costa Rica relevance: BorneoCR (Borneo JBFCR Limitada) presents itself as a Costa Rican provider operating in Central America and Latin America and publishes a Costa Rican phone number, but its site does not show a street address. Confirm the contracting entity, who performs the testing, and how test data is handled in the agreement.

Certifications: BorneoCR's site displays logos of individual team certifications, including CEH, CEH Practical, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 22301, and Kali Linux Certified; it does not claim a company-level accreditation.

Official sources: https://borneocr.com/analisis-pentesting/; https://borneocr.com/

Buyer fit: Costa Rican SMEs that want penetration testing from the same local provider that monitors their environment.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: it contracts through a Costa Rican entity, Borneo JBFCR Limitada, and combines pentesting with SOC monitoring and audit support that names SUGEF requirements, a mix aimed at local firms that want one provider for testing and operations.

3. Delta Protect: Ethical hacking with compliance and SOC services

Public offering: Delta Protect's dATTACK service covers penetration testing and ethical hacking of infrastructure, applications, and networks, with dedicated pages for web, API, mobile, server, firewall, SaaS, and desktop application testing, plus red team and bug bounty services. Its other service lines cover compliance support for ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and HIPAA, a 24/7 SOC, managed security tools, managed cloud, and CISO as a service, tied together by its Apolo platform. Its pentesting page lists free retesting.

Costa Rica relevance: Delta Protect publishes a Costa Rica page aimed at local SMEs and startups, but no Costa Rican office; its site is operated by Delta Exponential Technologies, S.A. de C.V., a Mexican entity. Confirm the contracting entity, tester locations, and data handling in the agreement.

Official sources: https://www.deltaprotect.com/servicios/pentesting; https://www.deltaprotect.com/pais/empresa-ciberseguridad-costa-rica; https://www.deltaprotect.com/contactanos

Buyer fit: Compliance-driven SMBs that want penetration testing packaged with certification support and ongoing security operations.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: a Mexican provider with a dedicated Costa Rica page for SMEs and startups, whose pentesting page says its assessments include free retesting rounds until findings are fixed, followed by a validation report.

4. Fluid Attacks: PTaaS within an application security platform

Public offering: Fluid Attacks runs a continuous application security programme that combines AI, automated scanners, and expert pentesters across the software development lifecycle. Its products include penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) and secure code review alongside SAST, SCA, DAST, mobile testing, CSPM, and reverse engineering, delivered through its own platform.

Costa Rica relevance: Fluid Attacks says it has worked in security testing since 2001; its site does not publish a Costa Rican office, so delivery is remote. Define tester locations, reporting language, and data handling in the agreement.

Certifications: Fluid Attacks' certifications page lists individual tester certifications from OffSec, PortSwigger (Burp Suite Certified Practitioner), Hack The Box, and others, and the company states it is a CVE Numbering Authority. CREST's public marketplace lists Fluid Attacks as accredited for penetration testing; confirm the current status on the CREST Marketplace.

Official sources: https://fluidattacks.com/products/ptaas; https://fluidattacks.com/contact-us

Buyer fit: Software teams that ship code frequently and want pentesting integrated with continuous application security testing.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: its company-level CREST accreditation for penetration testing appears on CREST's public marketplace (checked 3 November 2026), a credential that nearshore firms can show US or European customers during vendor due diligence.

5. GBM: Pentesting within a regional IT and security integrator

Public offering: GBM's cybersecurity advisory services list penetration testing in black, grey, and white box form, network infrastructure and wireless testing, web and mobile security testing, social engineering and spear phishing, application security testing, emergency incident response, and cyber forensics. It also runs the GBM Cybersecurity Center, a 24/7 SOC-as-a-service offering, within a wider IT services and IBM distribution business.

Costa Rica relevance: GBM states that it has a presence in Costa Rica among other Central American and Caribbean countries, and its MDR brochure says its SOC in Guatemala has availability in Costa Rica and Panama. Confirm which country team performs the test and where test data is stored in the agreement.

Certifications: GBM's MDR brochure states an ISO/IEC 27001-certified data centre and membership of FIRST.

Official sources: https://www.gbm.net/ciberseguridad/; https://www.gbm.net/soc-as-a-service/

Buyer fit: Large organisations and public bodies that want testing delivered inside an existing IT or managed security relationship.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: GBM's Costa Rica cybersecurity page (checked 3 November 2026) sells penetration testing as one advisory line next to vulnerability management, endpoint protection, and SOC as a service, so testing can be added to an existing infrastructure or managed-services contract; confirm which country team runs the test.

6. Soluciones Seguras: Regional network security specialist

Public offering: Soluciones Seguras offers vulnerability studies that examine and attempt to exploit infrastructure from internal and external perspectives, with and without privileges, using manual and automated tests, and recommends repeating them quarterly. Its wider portfolio covers perimeter and internal network security, monitoring, data and cloud security, support plans, and technical training.

Costa Rica relevance: Soluciones Seguras lists a Costa Rica office at Centro 27 Escazú, Piso 6, oficina 601, San José, alongside offices in Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Define which country team performs the test and how test data is handled in the agreement.

Certifications: Soluciones Seguras describes itself as a Check Point Elite Partner and runs a training centre that offers Check Point courses, with staff certified by major security vendors.

Official sources: https://www.sseguras.com/servicios/servicios-profesionales/estudios-de-vulnerabilidad; https://www.sseguras.com/empresa/contactenos

Buyer fit: Infrastructure-heavy organisations that want network-focused testing from a regional provider with a local office.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: it publishes a street address in Escazú, San José, and offices in five other Central American countries, which suits groups with operations across the region.

7. Cyber Threat Defense: Pentest-focused consultancy

Public offering: Cyber Threat Defense (CTD) describes itself as a security consultancy founded by senior penetration testers, offering web application, mobile, API, IoT, cloud, internal and external network, red team, and social engineering testing, plus SOC, forensics, and compliance services. Its published approach covers scoping, intelligence gathering, manual and automated testing, risk-rated reporting, and retesting, which its one-time and subscription models list as free.

Costa Rica relevance: CTD publishes a Costa Rica services page covering network, web, mobile, and Wi-Fi testing, but no Costa Rican office; Cyber Threat Defense is a brand of CT Defense SRL operating from Romania and the UAE, and its site says it serves clients in the UK, US, EMEA, and the Middle East. Confirm tester locations and data handling in the agreement.

Certifications: CTD states that it is a CREST Accredited Pentest Member and lists team certifications including OSCP, CEH, CISM, GWAPT, and GXPN. CREST's public marketplace lists CyberGlobal, which names CT Defense as a subsidiary, as accredited for penetration testing (checked 3 November 2026).

Official sources: https://ctdefense.com/cyber-security-services-in-costa-rica/; https://ctdefense.com/contact-us/

Buyer fit: Companies that want a testing-first provider for application and mobile assessments delivered remotely.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: a testing-first consultancy whose Costa Rica page describes a dedicated Android and iOS testing environment, which suits mobile-app teams; its CREST accreditation is listed at group level under CyberGlobal on CREST's marketplace, so confirm the accredited entity is the one that signs your contract.

8. Trojan Horse Security: Network, physical, and social engineering testing

Public offering: Trojan Horse Security lists internal and external penetration testing, web application assessments, vulnerability and risk assessments, social engineering testing, physical security assessments, and "Black Ops" engagements, along with compliance support for PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, and GDPR and digital forensics.

Costa Rica relevance: Trojan Horse Security is based in Washington, D.C., and publishes a Costa Rica service page rather than a local office. Define who performs onsite physical or social engineering work, tester locations, and data handling in the agreement.

Certifications: Trojan Horse Security states that its consultants hold the CISSP certification.

Official sources: https://www.trojanhorsesecurity.com/costa-rica-cyber-security; https://www.trojanhorsesecurity.com/contact-us

Buyer fit: Organisations that want physical intrusion and social engineering tested alongside networks and web applications.

Distinctive in Costa Rica: one of the few providers here that advertises physical security assessments and "Black Ops" engagements, which fits buyers who need onsite intrusion or social engineering tests at Costa Rican facilities.

How to choose the right penetration testing partner

To choose a partner in Costa Rica, define the asset you need tested, ask each shortlisted provider for a sample report and the certifications of the testers who will be assigned, confirm that a retest and Spanish or English reporting are included, and check that data-handling terms meet Law 8968 and, for supervised financial entities, your CONASSIF 5-24 testing program. Then compare shortlisted firms with these steps:

1. Define the scope and the asset first. A web app, a mobile app, a cloud environment, an internal network, and a social-engineering test each need different expertise. Pick providers who specialize in your specific asset.
2. Ask for a sample report. The report is the product. Confirm it ranks findings by real-world risk, includes reproduction steps and evidence, and gives remediation guidance a developer can act on.
3. Verify certifications, then verify the individuals. A firm-level ISO 27001 is good; ask how many testers on your engagement hold OSCP or OSEP, because names on the badge should also be names on the report.
4. Confirm a retest is included. Fixing a finding you cannot verify is not fixing it. A retest that validates remediation should be part of the engagement, not an upsell.
5. Clarify language, data handling, and jurisdiction. Confirm you get reporting in the language your team and auditors need, that data-handling terms fit your obligations, and where your findings are stored. If you answer to SOC 2, our SOC 2 penetration testing guide explains what auditors expect.
6. Decide point-in-time versus continuous. A single annual test is a snapshot; if you ship code frequently, a continuous or PTaaS model catches issues between releases. The numbers on how often organizations test are worth reviewing in our penetration testing statistics roundup.

If you are still mapping the basics, our primer on vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT) explains how scanning and manual testing fit together, and our guide to the penetration testing methodology breaks down each engagement type.
Our roundup of the top penetration testing companies in Mexico shows how the same evaluation logic applies elsewhere in Latin America.

Red flags to watch for

The failure modes are the same whether a provider sits in San José or serves you from abroad, and spotting them early saves you from paying for a report that changes nothing. Watch for these:

• A "penetration test" that is really just a scan. If the proposal has no manual testing, no named testers, and a turnaround measured in hours, you are buying an automated vulnerability scan with a nicer cover page. Ask how much of the work is done by hand.
• No sample report or references. A firm confident in its work will show you a redacted report and connect you with past clients. Reluctance here is a signal.
• Certifications on the website but not on the engagement. A logo wall means little if none of the testers assigned to you hold the credentials. Ask who, specifically, will do the work.
• A retest treated as a paid extra. If validating your fixes costs more, the engagement ends before you know whether anything is actually resolved.
• Vague scope and a flat price. Good providers scope carefully, because scope drives both cost and coverage. A single number with no breakdown usually hides assumptions you discover later.
• No clear answer on data handling or language. Your test data and findings are sensitive, and your auditors may need Spanish or English reporting. A provider that cannot explain where data lives and in what language it reports has not thought about your context.

None of these are unique to Costa Rican providers; they are the universal tells of a weak engagement. Use them as a checklist against every shortlisted vendor, local or international.

The bottom line

Costa Rica's cybersecurity market matured under pressure, and the 2022 emergency turned penetration testing from a nice-to-have into a boardroom priority. Because the pool of locally headquartered specialists is still small, the right choice often blends local knowledge with regional or international depth: a Costa Rican provider like BorneoCR, regional providers like Delta Protect, GBM, or Soluciones Seguras, or a provider delivering remotely such as Fluid Attacks, Cyber Threat Defense, Trojan Horse Security, or DeepStrike. Shortlist two or three from the profiles above, ask each for a sample report and a scoped proposal, and choose on the evidence rather than the marketing.

Frequently asked questions

Which is the best penetration testing company in Costa Rica?

There is no single best; the right firm depends on what you are testing and where you are based. For a local SME wanting SOC plus testing, BorneoCR is a fit to evaluate. For compliance-driven SMBs, Delta Protect packages testing with certification support. For continuous application security, Fluid Attacks specializes. For enterprise and government, GBM offers testing within a larger managed-services relationship. For human-led application, cloud, and infrastructure testing delivered remotely, DeepStrike, the publisher of this guide, is another option.

Are there many locally based penetration testing firms in Costa Rica?

Fewer than in larger tech hubs. Costa Rica has a handful of genuinely local providers, such as BorneoCR, and the market is served heavily by regional firms with Costa Rican offices, such as Soluciones Seguras and GBM, and by international providers that deliver remotely. What matters more than a San José address is manual testing by certified people and a report you can act on.

What certifications should a Costa Rican pentest provider have?

Look for hands-on offensive certifications on the individual testers, such as OSCP and OSEP, and firm-level standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. For regulated work, confirm familiarity with the frameworks you report against. Pair certifications with a sample report and references.

How much does penetration testing cost in Costa Rica?

Cost depends on scope, asset complexity, and the depth of manual testing, not the country. Some local providers publish SOC subscription prices, but a scoped application or network penetration test is usually quoted per engagement. Get fixed quotes from two or three providers and compare what is included, especially the retest.

Should I hire a local Costa Rican firm or an international provider?

Both are valid. A local firm offers close collaboration, Spanish-language reporting, and regional context; an international PTaaS provider offers independent, remotely delivered testing with a modern reporting workflow and continuous options. Decide based on your asset, your compliance needs, and how you prefer to work, then compare shortlisted providers on the same criteria.