How Application Security Testing Can Help Enterprises Overcome Security-Related Challenges

Is your business facing security challenges that are leading to client dissatisfaction? If not addressed soon, these can impact your brand equity negatively and allow clients to look for your competitors. One of the reasons for such challenges to flare up is the lack of integration of cyber security testing in the SDLC. Remember that approximately 84 percent of software breaches occur as a result of application layer vulnerabilities. This is due to the fact that today’s enterprise applications are vast in their sweep, with numerous components and multiple integrations with third-party software.

Also, given the presence of a multitude of APIs, hackers have a goldmine of opportunities to cause security breaches. So, what needs to be done to overcome the challenges of safety, brand recall, and client retention? The answer lies in engaging professional and experienced application security testing services and preventing malicious cyber-attacks. The primary objective of any application security testing company is to identify the vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the digital infrastructure, especially in the applications, and how various threat actors can exploit those vulnerabilities.

Various types of application security testing

For any website or application, it is important to execute a comprehensive application security testing exercise to find different security hacks. The various types of application security testing methodology are:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST): It is a white-box testing approach where testers check the workings of an application by inspecting the static source code, byte code, and binaries and reporting any security vulnerabilities present. SAST can fix codes to nullify the vulnerabilities it scanned. It enables developers to verify the code’s compliance with established secure coding standards and guidelines such as CERT before releasing it into the production environment.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): It is a black box testing approach where testers detect security vulnerabilities in an application while it is running. By applying it to an operating code, DAST can detect issues with responses, interfaces, scripting, requests, sessions, data injection, DOM injection, execution of third-party elements, query strings, authentication, and many others. The DAST tools can scan several simulated malicious test cases and report on the application’s response thereto.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): It is a hybrid application security testing approach combining both SAST and DAST methods to identify a wide range of security-related vulnerabilities. Like DAST, IAST tests the applications dynamically while they are in operation, but from within the applications’ server. This allows the IAST tools to test the compiled source codes. The IAST approach provides information about the root cause of vulnerabilities and the specific sections of code that represent them, thereby ensuring quick and effective remediation. IAST tools can analyze data flow, source code, third-party libraries, and configuration in the quest to identify vulnerabilities.

Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST): This testing approach allows application security testing services to combine both static and dynamic analysis and detect a wide range of vulnerabilities and mobile-specific issues, namely, data leakage, jailbreaking, and malicious Wi-Fi networks.

Best practices to follow in application security testing

To detect and mitigate various security-related vulnerabilities in applications and ensure a superior user experience, software security testing services need to employ the best practices as mentioned below:

Shift-left security testing: According to the new development and security paradigms such as DevSecOps, security testing needs to be integrated and implemented across the SDLC. The idea is to detect any security-related vulnerability in its nascent state and fix it before it morphs into something bigger and more complex.

Test internal interfaces: As standard practice, cybersecurity testing services tend to focus on external threats, such as those emanating from web forms and API requests submitted by users. However, threat actors are more likely to exploit vulnerabilities or weak authentication residing in internal interfaces once they make their way in. Hence, testers need to validate the quality of connections, inputs, and integrations between internal systems.

Test often: Enterprise applications have several components and third-party integrations that may develop new vulnerabilities during runtime. Also, many of the components can face end-of-life situations or need security updates, which can present themselves after the initial round of testing is over. Hence, it is important to test enterprise-scale applications as often as possible while focusing on high-impact threats and business-critical systems and components.

Conclusion

The users of today are no longer satisfied with average-quality products or services. They want quality and secure systems to perform various tasks on the go. This is where the role of application security testing services becomes critical for identifying security-related vulnerabilities in the application under development. Prompt mitigation of threats is the recipe for success that enterprises across verticals should envisage and implement.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.