Security testing is the process of assessment to determine the vulnerabilities, Security breaches in an application. Security testing is a type of non-functional testing which aims at evaluating various elements of basic security principles such as Authentication, Authorization, Confidentiality, Availability, Integrity, Non-repudiation and Resilience.
Security Testing Types
The various security testing types are listed below:
- Vulnerability scanning
- Security scanning
- Penetration testing
- Risk assessment
- Security review
- Ethical hacking
- Posture assessment
Vulnerability Scanning – Vulnerability Scanning scans the known vulnerabilities using an automated software tool.
Security Scanning – Vulnerability scanning is an automated assessment whereas security scanning is a manual assessment. In this process, the complete application has to be scanned to find out the network weaknesses
Penetration testing – Penetration testing also referred to as Pen Testing or white hat attacks, is an authorized mimic attack on a system and performed to assess the security of the system. Pen tests can be automated or performed manually. The primary objective of penetration testing is to determine security vulnerabilities of a system or organization.
Risk assessment – Risk assessment is done for reviewing and analyzing potential risks. These risks are then classified into high, medium and low categories based on their severity level.
Security review – This is the review process for security standards. Whether all the standards are followed and implemented properly are checked through gap analysis and code or design reviews. Verification of implementation of standards are followed through gap analysis and code or design reviews.
Ethical hacking – Ethical hacking is different from penetration testing since here the system under test is intended to expose security flaws in the system.
Posture assessment – The combination of Security scanning, Ethical Hacking, and Risk Assessments in order to get the complete view of the system security.
Benefits of Security Testing
- Helps in preventing information loss
- Helps to increase the customer trust
- Helps in preventing financial loss
There are a plenty of security testing tools available in the market. Here we have listed a few of them:
- Netsparker
- Acunetix
- OWASP
- WireShark
- W3af
Security should be a key testing component and tested throughout the software development life cycle, especially when the application is dealing with confidential information and data.
Not all the web applications are completely secured. Web application security testing helps you to mitigate risks and fix vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
Reference:
https://www.3pillarglobal.com/insights/approaches-tools-techniques-for-security-testing
