Why is Web Application Penetration Testing Crucial for Business?

Web Application Penetration Testing: Strategies, Tools, and Best Practices

In recent years, web applications have become essential for businesses worldwide. These applications, which range from e-commerce websites to online banking portals, allow businesses to interact with consumers, handle transactions, and collect valuable data. However, as the number of web apps grows, so does the possibility of security threats. A single weakness in a web app can expose a company’s private data, resulting in financial losses, a tainted reputation, and even potential legal consequences. This is where Web Application Penetration Testing comes in. This article will provide an overview of pen testing and how Ethical Hackers use it to improve cyber security. Let’s dive in.

Let’s see what exactly penetration testing means.

Penetration testing, also known as pen testing, involves simulating a cyber-attack to identify system weaknesses. When it comes to web apps, pen testing involves examining the application’s functionality, trying to breach the app’s security measures, and revealing any vulnerabilities that attackers could leverage. Web app pen testing aims to find vulnerabilities before real-world attackers abuse them and make suggestions and recommendations for fixing them.

Cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers use pen testing to conduct planned attacks on a company’s security infrastructure, enabling them to identify vulnerabilities and security holes that need to be fixed.

What Is Web Application Penetration Testing?

Web app penetration testing plays an essential role because it determines the overall security state of the web application, including the back-end network, database, and so on. It also recommends methods to improve it. The following are some specific goals for conducting web app pen testing:

• Uncover online app vulnerabilities using the blend of automated and manual analysis.
• Ensuring conformance with PCI DSS, OSSTM, HIPAA, and other regulations
• Examine the efficiency of current security policies and measures.
• Assess the configuration and effectiveness of components that are open to the public, such as firewalls.

Why Do You Require Penetration Testing for Your Web Application?

Neglecting website security services is not an option. Protecting your networks from attack is essential in the internet era. An expert web application pentesting will teach you everything you need to know to reduce business risk:

• Penetration testing will allow you to ensure that your application is safe from possible dangers or harm.
• Determine the possibility of various attack ways or vectors.
• Identify a sequence of exploited vulnerabilities that includes a mix of high and low-risk vulnerabilities.
• Uncover vulnerabilities that automated vulnerability scanning tools can’t quickly identify.
• Enabling you to ensure the confinement of your credentials and login policies and to test your application’s ability to withstand attacks from today’s hackers.
• Assess the possible impact of real-world attacks on the business’s activities.
• Examine the capacity of automated network tools to identify and react to system attacks.
• Enabling you to confine your credentials and login policies and test your application’s ability to withstand attacks from today’s hackers.
• Provides the reports that support your initiatives to renew organizational information and spend on more expertise/security staff.

Why are Web Applications Prone to Security Breaches?

Web applications are prone to security attacks for several reasons:

Input Validation: Applications that incorrectly verify user inputs are vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting attacks, and buffer overflow attacks.

Inadequate Authentication and Authorization: Web-based applications with weak authentication and authorization methods are susceptible to attacks involving unauthorized access to private data and accounts.

Inadequate Encryption: Data transferred over the internet can be intercepted and eavesdropped on. Applications that use insufficient encryption to safeguard private data during transfer are vulnerable.

Insecure storage: Online applications that keep private data such as passwords, credit card information, and other personal information insecurity are susceptible to data leaks.

Outdated software: Internet-based applications that use out-of-date or unsupported software are susceptible to attacks that target known flaws.

Common Web Application Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities in web apps will still be a major worry for businesses in 2023, as hackers constantly find new methods for exploiting them. Cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, broken access restrictions, and session management are among the top web app threats in the first quarter of 2023.

You must understand the potential hazards and take appropriate precautions to defend your web application from these and other security threats.

• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
• Credential Stuffing
• Password Cracking
• Broken Authentication
• Injection Attacks
• Vulnerabilities in Known Components
• Insufficient Logging and Monitoring

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

XSS Attacks take place when attackers insert malicious code into websites. Such that, malicious users can then view confidential data or run malicious scripts.

Credential Stuffing

Credential stuffing is a cybersecurity vulnerability in which cybercriminals target online networks and use stolen passwords to take over user accounts. The danger increases when hackers use organizational passwords to access and hijack user accounts.

Password Cracking

Hackers use a predefined collection of commonly used passwords as a dictionary when breaching. The attacker attempts to decrypt an account by mixing various identities with each username and password and frequently uses an automated system to try different combinations quickly.

Broken Authentication

Authentication is the method of verifying a user’s identity. When the controls for that procedure become compromised or incorrect, hackers can gain access to systems and protected data by exploiting broken authentication methods or tools.

Injection Attacks

SQL injections and XSS (cross-site scripting) are two prevalent injection techniques. Attackers can insert malware into input fields, causing unintended SQL queries or programs to be executed.

Vulnerabilities in Known Components

Thousands of underlying libraries on both the server and client ends are required for many websites and online apps to operate. Suppose a known vulnerability exists in one of these tools. In that case, an attacker can abuse it to obtain unauthorized access to private data, alter user data, or cause the entire service to malfunction and become inaccessible.

Insufficient Logging and Monitoring

Inadequate logging and monitoring can make detecting and responding to security events difficult. Organizations should implement a logging and monitoring system capable of recording and analyzing security occurrences to protect the web service from these weaknesses.

What Tools are Used for Web Application Penetration Testing?

Many testing tools are available to help you discover and fix system vulnerabilities, but getting the correct one for your web app can be quite challenging. So, let’s look at some of the finest penetration testing tools and their benefits. The choices below will help you choose the most appropriate one for your application.

• Netsparker
• Metasploit
• John The Ripper Password Cracker
• Wireshark
• Burp Suite
• Nikto
• Aircrack-ng

Netsparker Security Scanner

Netsparker Security Scanner is a famous web tool for automated vulnerability testing. Ranging from cross-site scripting to SQL attacks can be detected by the software. This tool can be used by developers on web pages, online services, and web apps. This tool is powerful enough to analyze between 500 and 1000 web apps simultaneously. You can customize your security check with attack choices, authorization, and URL rewrite rules. Documentation of malicious activity is generated. The consequences of vulnerabilities are visible right away.

Benefits:

• In less than a day, scan 1000+ online apps!
• Automatic screening guarantees that only a minimal amount of setup is required.
• Examines SQL and XSS vulnerabilities in online apps that can be exploited.
• The use of proof-based scanning technology ensures precise identification.

Metasploit

Metasploit is the world’s most widely used pen testing automation tool. It assists expert teams in verifying and managing security assessments, building awareness, and equipping and enabling defenses to remain ahead of the game. It helps evaluate security and identify weaknesses to build a defense. This open-source software will allow a network administrator to sneak in and spot disastrous vulnerabilities. New hackers use this tool to improve their skills.

Benefits:

• Collects testing information for over 1,500 vulnerabilities.
• It is used to investigate earlier vulnerabilities in your system.
• MetaModules for testing network division.
• Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux are all supported.
• It is suitable for use on computers, networks, and apps.

John The Ripper Password Cracker

This tool is used to evaluate the security of passwords. It works by trying different password combinations until the right one is found. It is an important tool for checking password security and identifying weak passwords.

Benefits:

• The pro version is accessible for Linux, Hash Suite, Mac OS X, and Hash Suite Droid.
• Supports a wide variety of encryption formats.
• Automatically finds various password hashes.
• It uses sessions to store previous outcomes and can easily identify numerous hash types and salts.

Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that captures network data and enables users to examine it in depth. Its applications include network troubleshooting, research, and security monitoring. Wireshark can identify network abnormalities, malicious activity, and possible security risks. The tool is open-source and accessible for different systems, which include Solaris, Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD.

Benefits:

• It provides the ability to examine the smallest information for network actions.
• Provides both offline and online traffic analysis.
• Capturing data packets enables you to investigate various characteristics, such as the target and the source protocol.
• Can capture passwords, email addresses, usernames, pictures, personal information, videos, etc.,
• Coloring guidelines can be added to the pack as an optional extra for easy analysis.

Burp Suite

It is a tool for checking online applications’ security and examining website traffic to identify vulnerabilities and possible security problems. It has functions such as a detecting proxy and a vulnerability analyzer. The Burp Suite is available in two editions for coders. The free edition includes all the tools required for scanning tasks. If you want advanced penetration testing, you can choose the second option.

Benefits:

• Capable of scanning web-based apps autonomously.
• Comes with Web vulnerability detection & a completely customized scan.
• Windows, Linux, OS X, and Windows are all compatible.

Nikto

It is an open-source web server analyzer that checks for flaws, misconfigurations, and out-of-date software. It is used to detect security vulnerabilities in online apps and servers. This Perl-based program can operate on various OS systems if the Perl interpreter is available.

Benefits:

• Identifies outdated versions of 1250 servers and helps in solving server issues.
• It can scan many host ports.
• It wholly embraces HTTP.
• Free to use and simple to set up

Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is a wireless network security pen-testing tool. It can attack wireless networks, crack WEP and WPA/WPA2-PSK passwords, and has packet playback, packet injection, and other cellular network security monitoring capabilities, it has a faster monitoring speed than most other penetration tools and supports many devices and drivers.

Benefits:

• Compatible with Linux, OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris. It is intended for testing wireless devices as well as driver expertise.
• It mainly concentrates on various security areas, such as cracking, attacking, testing, and monitoring.
• It can break wireless network encryption.

Penetration testing tools help detect and mitigate potential security risks and weaknesses in computer networks and applications, making them important for any organization prioritizing privacy and security.

Utilize Our Skilled Web Application Security Testing Team

To ensure the security of your web application, you can depend on the staff at Cetera. We have years of proficiency in various security assessments, including web app pentesting, Mobile application testing, network testing, etc. Our team of professionals consists of certified security experts with industry-recognized certifications such as CEH, OSCP, etc. Let us know what we can do for you and how our testing services can assist you. We will use the most up-to-date tools and methods to inspect your app and counsel you on the best action for addressing vulnerabilities and increasing security.

At Cetera, our pen testers employ web application security testing with a mix of manual and automated methods to find vulnerabilities in your systems and networks. We adhere to industry guidelines such as OWASP and NIST to ensure our testing pertains to best practices. We can provide you with the finest penetration testing solutions and guarantee the security of your network and all the other tools you use.

Contact us immediately if you require experienced security testers for your organization’s application pen testing. We can offer customized testing services to suit your unique needs and assist you in improving your level of security.