Even if a team of developers adheres to the strictest standards for secure coding and keeps dependencies up to current, they could still create software that is insecure. In reality, attacks don’t adhere to the guidelines of a checklist. An attacker could combine an insecure authentication rule and a vulnerable API endpoint, or abuse a password-reset workflow or find out that a user’s account has access to another tenant’s data.
Professional penetration testing Brisbane businesses use for security assurance looks at systems from that adversarial perspective. Professionally tested testers don’t question whether security controls are in place, but determine if they can be manipulated.
This is crucial in Australian organizations who deal with sensitive information like customer information or financial records, medical records or other assets.
Scanning by automated means only tells a part of the truth
Vulnerability scanners can be very helpful. They can quickly spot outdated code, insecure headers (CVEs) that are known to be CVEs, and clear configuration mistakes. However, they are not able to understand the behavior of an application.
Think about a portal for customers where users can change their account number when they request, and also retrieve another invoices from a company. A scanner might not find something unusual when the server gives perfectly legitimate results. Human testers can detect the failure of authorization immediately.
Quality web penetration testing combines the automated process with manual analysis. Testing examines authentication, sessions and access controls and injection risk, API behaviors, configuration weaknesses and business procedures.
SaaS environments come with their own security concerns
Testing multi-tenant cloud apps is particularly important because an error can have a negative impact on multiple clients at one time.
Saas penetration tests should cover tenant isolation and privilege functions. It should also include API authorization, changing roles and recovery of accounts, data leakage, as well as integrations with external services. The tester should not only test if the feature works but also determine if it could be used in a way that was never intended by the developer.
For example, a user who is assigned a simple role may not be able to see an administrative role in the interface. However, this doesn’t mean that the API will stop them from calling directly. It is vital to try the API out instead of just looking at what appears.
Modern web apps have an enhanced attack surface
Today’s applications combine JavaScript front-ends with APIs, cloud services and APIs. They also incorporate microservices as well as integrations from third party vendors. A weakness can exist within any individual component or in the trust relationship between them.
A rigorous penetration test for web-based apps is conducted following these connections. The testers may look at the way tokens and authorization are handled, whether secure servers use the same rules and how data is transferred between different services by users and even if a vulnerability that seems to be of low risk may be linked to another vulnerability to cause a major breach.
Siege Cyber is an expert in this type of testing for applications. They work with modern frameworks such APIs as well as cloud-hosted platforms. They also test complicated application architectures.
The report will aid developers in resolving the issue
Finding vulnerabilities is only just a portion of the job. Security testing provides the most value when engineers can reproduce the issue, understand the threat, and address it confidently.
Siege Cyber reports include evidence reproducibility steps and risk ratings, as well as impact analysis and remediation guidance. Business stakeholders receive an executive-level explanation of the vulnerability, while technical teams get the detail needed to resolve it. There is the option to increase the importance of conclusions during the engagement rather than waiting for the final reports.
Retesting after remediation adds another layer of assurance, by proving that the problem was fixed without the need to create an entirely new issue.
Penetration testing can be a useful instrument for companies looking to test their systems, demonstrate compliance, or build assurance prior to the release of a major version. Policies and automated tools aren’t able to provide this. It provides them with a way to determine how a skilled hacker might take on the software. The value of the exercise is to find the right answer prior an actual adversary.