This article takes an honest look at the features of HUMAN Security.
Since you’re on the cside website, we acknowledge our bias. That said, we’ve built our case honestly and based our analysis on publicly available information, industry information, and our own or our customers' experiences.
If you want to verify their claims yourself, please navigate to their product pages.
| Criteria | c/side | Human Security | Why It Matters | What the Consequences Are |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approaches used | Proxy | JS-Based Detection | ||
| Real-time Protection | Attacks can occur between scans or in the excluded data when sampled | Delayed detection = active data breaches | ||
| Full Payload Analysis | Ensures deep visibility into malicious behaviors within script code itself | Threats go unnoticed unless the source is known on a threat feed | ||
| Dynamic Threat Detection | Identifies attacks that change based on user, time, or location | Missed detection of targeted attacks | ||
| DOM-Level Threat Detection | Tracks changes to the DOM and observes how scripts behave during runtime | Unable to identify sophisticated DOM-based attacks | ||
| 100% Historical Tracking & Forensics | Needed for incident response, auditing, and compliance | Needed for incident response, auditing, and compliance | ||
| Bypass Protection | Stops attackers from circumventing controls via DOM obfuscation or evasion | Stealthy threats continue undetected | ||
| Certainty the Script Seen by User is Monitored | Aligns analysis with what actually executes in the browser | Gaps between what's reviewed and what's actually executed | ||
| AI-driven Script Analysis | Detects novel or evolving threats through behavior modeling | Reliance on manual updates, threat feeds or rules = slow and error-prone detection | ||
| QSA validated PCI dash | The most reliable way to ensure a solution is PCI compliant is to conduct a thorough audit by an independent QSA | Without QSA validation, you rely entirely on marketing claims, which could result in failing an audit | ||
| SOC 2 Type II | Shows consistent operational security controls over time | Lacks verified security control validation, making it a risky vendor | ||
| PCI specific UI | An easy interface for quick script review and justification via one click or AI automation | Mundane tasks and manual research on what all the scripts do, which takes hours or days |
What is HUMAN Security Client-side Defense?
HUMAN Security started in the bots detection space, and are well known for creating very sophisticated and lauded tools to tackle those issues. They’ve since expanded and offer products in client-side and other spaces.
HUMAN Security announced a merger with PerimeterX in July of 2022. They were then backed by a $100 million debt facility from Blackstone Credit, a Private Equity firm.
Client-side Defense is part of Application Protection, a suite of solutions purpose-built to secure web and mobile applications from a range of cyberthreats. Pricing is not publicly available, and you need to be an existing Human Security customer in order to use Client-side Defense
How HUMAN Security Client-side Defense works
HUMAN’s Client-Side Defense works by embedding a JavaScript sensor directly into the website. This sensor runs in real user browsers and collects telemetry about all scripts executing on the page. It observes what scripts are loaded, what DOM elements they interact with, whether they access localStorage or cookies, and what outbound network connections they attempt to make.
While the script itself doesn’t need to change frequently, your site updates makes managing this sensor and ensuring it stays current across environments a tad cumbersome.
Because it relies on JavaScript embedded in the page, it can only act after the browser has begun rendering content. There is a window of exposure before malicious scripts are caught or blocked.
This approach can prevent known patterns of attacks, but new attacks will be hardly impossible to prevent unless previously set up.
How cside goes further
cside primarily offers a hybrid proxy approach which sits in between the user session and the 3rd party service. It analyzes the served dependencies code in real-time before serving it to the user.
This allows us to not only spot advanced highly targeted attacks and alert on them, cside also makes it possible to block attacks before they touch the user's browser. It also checks the box for multiple compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS 4.0.1. We even provide deep forensics, including if an attacker bypasses our detections. Allowing you to more tightly scope the size of the incident us to make our detection capabilities better every day. No other vendor has this capability.
We believe this is the most secure way to monitor and protect your dependencies across your entire website. We've spent years in the client-side security space before we started cside, we've seen it all, this is the only way you can actually spot an attack.
Sign up or book a demo to get started.
FAQ
Q: How does cside's hybrid proxy differ from Human Security's browser-based monitoring?
A: The fundamental difference is protection location. Human Security (formerly PerimeterX) injects JavaScript monitoring code into browsers that watches for suspicious behavior after scripts have already loaded. cside's hybrid proxy intercepts and analyzes scripts before they reach browsers, blocking malicious content at the network level. We provide proactive prevention, while Human Security offers reactive detection after scripts have already been delivered.
Q: Can attackers bypass cside's protection like they can with Human Security's JavaScript traps?
A: No, because cside's core analysis happens on our proxy, completely invisible to attackers. Human Security's monitoring code runs in browsers where sophisticated attackers can see it, reverse engineer it, and craft attacks specifically designed to avoid detection. Since cside's proxy analysis happens server-side before content reaches browsers, attackers have no visibility into our security mechanisms and cannot study or circumvent our protection methods.
Q: What forensic evidence does cside provide compared to Human Security's behavioral alerts?
A: Human Security provides behavioral monitoring data and alerts when suspicious activity is detected, but cside captures and archives the complete malicious payloads that were blocked. This gives you forensic-grade evidence showing exactly what the attack code looked like and how it operated. Incident response teams get the actual attack code for analysis rather than just behavioral observations.
Q: How do compliance and audit capabilities compare between the two approaches?
A: cside provides superior compliance documentation with immutable records of every script version and comprehensive audit trails. Human Security's behavioral monitoring provides detection logs but lacks the detailed forensic evidence that regulators require for thorough incident documentation. Our approach covers both PCI DSS requirements 6.4.3 and 11.6.1 with complete payload archives and security header tracking.
Q: Why is cside's blocking approach better than Human Security's monitoring approach?
A: Blocking prevents attacks before any user data can be compromised, while monitoring only detects attacks after they've already executed and potentially stolen information. Human Security's approach means sensitive data can be exfiltrated before their monitoring system even triggers an alert. cside ensures malicious scripts never reach browsers, providing guaranteed protection rather than post-incident detection.