Major Challenges Faced While Performing Penetration Testing

By Author: ZenQ
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However, as the technology is advancing, applications are becoming more complex which leads to the development of certain challenges related to penetration testing.
1. Session State Management: One of the most ardent problem of penetration testing is the fact that it becomes difficult for the testers to keep logged into a particular system while testing it. Various developers use various kinds of session tracking systems to keep a track of the traffic inflow into various software. Hence penetration testing will require the testers to manually set the various limitation depending upon the setting of the particular software related to the testing procedure. Often sending an attack to check the vulnerability leads to invalidating the current session.

2. Script Parsing: As JavaScript, XML, and Flash are being more and more advanced, their behavior is becoming more difficult to track. This leads to a problem when penetration testing is concerned. The scripting languages can now behave in a different manner which is unpredictable depending on how they are being coded. Often they may be directed to download certain links ...
... from the net automatically which alters their behavior depending on the input or the situation. They may also be directed to download and implement additional codes to produce varied functions.

3. Logical Flow: When testing a website, penetration testing may become a bit problematic as certain websites act in different manner than certain others leading to changes in the process of penetration testing of the these software. Some websites provide direct access to the visitors to the main page of the site whereas others have to undergo some steps before they can access the main page or perform their actions related to the website.

4. Custom URLs: Yet another problem which is faced during the penetration testing of a particular web application is the presence of various URLs that act in varied ways when they are implemented. Some of them are pretty simple and can be tested with simple methods and yet others make it difficult to fathom which portions or which kinds of attacks are to be implemented.

5. Privilege Escalation: These days applications are customized more and more so as to fit the people who are using them completely. This leads to a problem as a single penetration testing method fails to test the vulnerabilities of all the individual custom settings that may be linked to the particular application. It also becomes quite difficult to conjure all the various custom settings that are possible and it kind of becomes a very difficult and time consuming job to detect the various short comings that may be linked with the various custom settings.

6. False Negatives/Positives: It often becomes difficult to pin point he vulnerability that is associated with a particular software. Moreover it may so happen that you have created an attack which provides a certain result to the test process which is a false signal of either positivity or negativity. Working on further development of the software based on these results becomes difficult as they do not actually exist in reality or it may also lead to overlooking a problem which is actually present.
These are some of the most raging challenges which are faced by the testers while performing penetration testing on a particular software or web application and with the advancement of technology these challenges will become more persistent.
ZenQ is a one of the top software security testing company in India. We have years of experience in web application penetration testing.
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