With the cyber world becoming more and more vulnerable to attacks, security is something that cannot be compromised. In order to develop secure applications, one really needs to use a security development lifecycle. Security must be considered and tested throughout the project lifecycle of any application.
The security testing process involves evaluating the quantum of risks within the application under test and pointing out the security vulnerabilities using various techniques and tools. By this it is possible to ensure that there is no data theft, there is no unauthorized access or there is no security compromise that has been made through assistance. Security testing involves Vulnerability scanning, Security scanning, Penetration Testing, Security Auditing, and Security Review.
Vulnerability scanning is usually performed using an automated software tool that scans for the basic known vulnerability. It is an automated process performed using a vulnerability scanning tool like SARA. Next in line is Security scanning, where an assessment is done manually along with the software scanning. Although tools help in building a robust application, every tool has its own bottlenecks. That is the reason, in addition to automated scanning one is required to perform manual testing, that is going through system responses, examining the log files, error messages, error codes, and the like.
The other aspect is Pen Testing or Penetration testing. A real-time simulation environment is used to perform penetration testing. It is totally a Black Box, a hacker’s approach, the way in which Hackers use it but is done in a controlled environment. It is performed internally within the organization without breaching any security terms. Security Auditing is for specific control or compliance issue. Usually, the compliance team or the risk evaluating team performs this security assessment. So, very frequent audits make the application more error-prone and less vulnerable.
Finally, Security Review, which is static testing, wherein security review is performed as per the industry standards by reviewing documents, and architecture diagrams, and performing gap analysis. It is basically done for code reviews considering the architecture diagrams and documents which are very important. All these processes in security testing ensure that the applications developed are prone to any kind of security risk.
Have questions? Contact the software testing experts at InApp to learn more.
