Major Tests Under The Gamut Of Web Application Penetration Testing

By Author: kedar naik
Total Articles: 8
Comment this article

Web application penetration testing is one of the universal terms researched by developers and testers. However, there are a lot of us who aren’t aware of such terminologies and hear them for the first time in life. The following article explores some initial web application testing leveraged at a very high level.

What is web application penetration testing?

Web application penetration testing is the process of testing a website to identify security vulnerabilities. It demands patience, time, and expertise. Businesses should not ignore penetration testing because there are thousands of hackers continually looking for vulnerable targets. Before they find and exploit it, you must fix it to save yourself from taking any loss.

Generally, web application penetration testing comprises of the following ten tests:
Information Gathering
Configuration and Deployment Management Testing
Identity Management Testing
Authentication Testing
Authorization Testing
Session Management Testing
Input Validation Testing
Error Handling
Business Logic ...
... Testing
Client-Side Testing

Brief introduction to describe web penetration tests

Information/Data Gathering
One of the essential strides of any application security testing is information testing:
Reverse engineering of application code
Testing for standard libraries and fingerprinting
Gathering general information
Rundown of component authorizations and application components

Configuration and Deployment Management Testing
If there occurs even a tiny error in the configuration of the deployed server, the web application can turn out to be weak and unstable. Therefore, a thorough check of activities is must, this includes testing the configuration of the application platform, old files with sensitive data, the infrastructure, HTTP security and so on.



Identity Management Testing
If you’re up for establishing a brand of an application, then you must test for identity management as well. It includes testing of processes such as account management and user registration.

Authentication Testing
It’s used to verify the genuineness of products or people along with their digital identities. It comprises of the following:
Authentication Inconsistency.
Cross Application Authentication.
Session handling errors.
Client-Side Based Authentication Flaws.
The absence of account lockout policy.

Authorization Testing
It’s followed after successful authentication testing. It’s utilized to check the login permissions for a system along with the pre-set rules for bypassing the checks.

Session Management Testing
This testing controls all the interactions done between web applications and users. It includes an examination of schemas, cookies, session timeouts, session variables, and so on.

Input Validation Testing
A band of severe vulnerabilities can create if there’s incomplete or improper input validation. To realize input validation testing, many penetration testing companies perform several forms of Injection testing.

Error Handling
Following a robust error handling strategy helps in reducing the chances of uncaught mistakes, and also helps in critical hiding data from malicious attacks and hackers. Highly recommended for safeguarding business-critical data.

Business Logic Testing
For any Penetration testing company, testing business logic happens to be the toughest and also the most harmful (if not appropriately tested). To identify vulnerabilities with components centered around design, following testing steps are taken:
Check for server-side validation.
Admin/user account compromise.
Check for root detection method/bypass it.
Bruteforce authentication.

Client-Side Testing
It’s usually done within a browser plugin or web browser. This involves testing processes for few injection types, web messaging, WebSockets, scripting, and so on.

Conclusion
So these were the primary application penetration testing techniques that are followed by almost all penetration testing companies across the IT industry. We hope this blog was helpful in some way to add up to your knowledge.