Steps to Conduct Security Testing for Web Applications

We all knows that web applications for several services have gained potential customers’ confidence over the years. Terabytes of data are loaded and shared across platforms as individual assume that the transactions are securely monitored.

But as cyber attacks continue to create panic, the threat to the security of our web applications and data in the digital market grows stronger. More and more incidents of virus attacks are magnify the demand for robust security testing services.

Organization that are engaged in the adjoining world require to realize the primal reasons security testing is necessary for their web apps. These businesses must design modern, all-inclusive security testing program right at the origin of their projects to guarantee a secure customer experience.

Look for Potential Security Errors

The very first step is to review the code for any probable vulnerabilities. There are various common areas for security gaps: 

Hidden field manipulations: This vulnerability is mostly used for e-commerce web applications. Applications embed hidden fields within web service pages, and due to poor coding standards, these hidden fields often contain private information, such as product prices etc.

Cross-site scripting: This is most common vulnerabilities that we have seen. It allow hackers steal sessions, deface pages, insert content, or redirect users to spiteful websites.

Cross-site request forgery: Several developers neglect the value of random tokens and re authentication on a data-critical web page. Without them, hackers can commit actions by the users on their place, such as adding or deleting an account benefactive role or changing a user profile.

Implement Security Testing Process Step by Step

Let’s think a assumption where a organization requires security testing to be performed on its web applications built in ASP.NET. What is predicted from the software testing team? Here’s a step-by-step plan that could capture the solution for the requirement. 

1. Plan and strategic

Always prefer to take first step in security testing is developing and planning of actions.  Sofwtare Testers must know the business reason, various users approaching the application, and the application’s work-flow in order to recognize the particular tests for each assumption.

Before execution of any project, it is foremost to hold a session with the developers to know and determine the behavioral flow of the web application. This assist the testers determine logical weakness, such as authorization bypass, that automated tools cannot determine.

The business should have a ballpark figure of how many users would be approaching the web application. Understanding the max number of users helps testers generate virtual users to identify any possible denial-of-service attacks. Nowadays, these attacks are easy to exploit.

2. Perform threat modeling

We all knows that modeling high-level threats to the application allows software testers gage probable risks and scenarios link with it. Threat modeling recognizes the weak sections of the application, which helps in tailoring the tests.

After an apps blueprint is accomplished, the technical part begin, where the constituent are recognized for software development. It could be coding languages, platforms, technology stacks, etc. Each constituent comes with its personal set of weaknesses and strengths, so it is essential to determine the vulnerabilities before the starting of the coding part. This assist in recognizing other choices that are more assured and drastically decrease the cost price to fix them.

As an example, if the web app is to be created in .NET, it is necessary to know the weaknesses present in several constituent supporting the application, such as the .NET version, IIS version, etc. This helps recognize business and architectural threats.

3. Select testing tools 

For assessing a web app, it is suggested that appropriate tools are used for the specific tasks. Every open source and copyrighted tool has its strengths and weaknesses, so tools must be selected on the basis of project requirements.

4. Develop creativity with Testing

Although you must implement some of your security testing with automated tools, as attackers get smarter, it’s necessary for humans to think outside the box with their QA testing. Recognizing logical vulnerabilities is what distinguish a experienced tester from a regular tester..

5. Think of security at every Step

While a manual web apps security test might restrict testing up to a select number of obvious parameters, an automated web vulnerability scanner can make sure that every parameter is scanned for gaps. Nevertheless, integrating security as a procedure throughout the software development lifecycle will make sure that the application rolls out more securely, as most of the defects would have been mitigated at a very early stage.

Security testing can be automated once the development is complete and code is built for the application under test by leveraging Jenkins or any automation framework, and the IP and URL can be dynamically fed to open source tools such as Zed Attack Proxy or w3af, or many other commercial tools.