Security testing is an important part of the software testing process. It’s also a big challenge for many organisations. Security testing involves checking for vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit to breach your system or steal sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card numbers. Security testing is often hard to implement because traditional vulnerability scanning tools don’t always work with modern software and security standards like the OWASP risk assessment standard and ISO 27001 don’t directly address how to test for security threats in software code. But we can help! In this blog post, we’ll explain what security tests are, provide examples of different types of security testing, and even give you some tips on how to implement a security testing strategy in your organisation.

What’s the Difference Between Security and Software Testing? #

Security testing and software testing aren’t the same thing, but they are related. Security testing is a specific type of software testing that’s focused on finding vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit to breach your system or steal sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card numbers. Organisations often use security testing tools to scan for vulnerabilities. They might also hire specialised security testers to manually test for security flaws. Security testing can also be called penetration testing, or pen testing. Pen testers focus on exploiting vulnerabilities to find weak spots in your systems so that hackers can’t find them. They manually run through different types of tests, including scanning for OWASP vulnerabilities, trying to brute force user passwords, and even simulating different denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Types of Security Tests #

Security testing often focuses on the same types of risks that the OWASP risk assessment standard identifies. These include identifying risks related to user authentication, data confidentiality, data integrity, and availability. Here are some common types of security tests that organisations use to mitigate these risks: –

Data confidentiality testing: Ensures that sensitive data is encrypted.

Data integrity testing: Makes sure data isn’t tampered with or manipulated.

Authentication testing: Tests user authentication and authorisation processes and verifies that they’re secure.

Authorisation testing: Checks to see whether your systems allow administrators to run certain processes with administrative rights.

Availability testing: Simulates DDoS attacks to see if your servers can handle a large number of requests at once.

Process running as Administrator testing: Identifies processes that run with Administrator rights. This can be a risk if hackers find a way to exploit these processes.

Check for OWASP Vulnerability Risk Levels #

One way to identify security risks is to run a vulnerability scan to see which OWASP vulnerabilities your system is vulnerable to. Vulnerability scanners help you identify these vulnerabilities by scanning your software source code, looking for things like flaws in encryption algorithms or improper user authentication and authorisation processes. Vulnerability scanners also often give you a risk level based on the severity of each vulnerability. The risk level indicates how easy it would be for a hacker to exploit the vulnerability and how much damage the exploit could cause if they find it. The risk level is usually between 1 and 10, where 1 indicates low risk and 10 indicates high risk. Once you’ve identified the OWASP vulnerabilities in your software, you can decide whether the risk level is high enough to warrant fixing the vulnerability. If it is, you can then decide whether you want to patch the vulnerability or spend time writing a custom fix (depending on its severity).

Audit User Authentication and Authorization Processes #

You can also use security testing to audit your user authentication and authorisation processes to make sure they’re secure. This is often a good idea because user authentication and authorisation processes represent a significant risk to data confidentiality. If a hacker can exploit these processes, they could steal sensitive data. Auditing user authentication and authorisation processes involves testing your systems to see whether they enforce strong passwords and are properly restricting accounts based on their job function. Here are some things to look for when auditing your user authentication and authorisation processes: –

Password strength: Passwords should be at least 8 characters long and contain a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters.

Account restriction based on job function: Make sure each employee has access to only the information and systems that they need to perform their jobs.

User authentication methods: Make sure you’re only using secure authentication methods. Examples include two-factor authentication and biometrics.

Identify Any Processes That Run With Administrator Rights #

Another risk that you should look for during security testing is any processes that are running with Administrator rights. This is a significant risk because it’s easy for malicious software to exploit these processes. Fortunately, you can use security testing to identify processes that are running with Administrator rights. You can then either remove these processes from running with Administrator rights or change their access rights so they don’t have full control over the system. Processes that run with Administrator rights are sometimes necessary, so you’ll have to decide which ones you’re comfortable removing from this setting.

Check to See Whether You’re Using HTTPS #

Another thing you can do during security testing is check to see whether you’re using HTTPS. Using HTTPS provides an extra layer of security to your systems by encrypting data travelling between end users and your servers. This stops hackers from seeing sensitive data as it travels over the internet and makes it difficult for them to access it. By default, many web browsers already warn users when they try to access websites without HTTPS. You should make sure that you have HTTPS activated for your website and all other systems that handle sensitive data. If you’re hosting your website on an external server, such as with Amazon Web Services, check to see if it supports HTTPS by default. If not, you can use an add-on or configuration change to enable it.

Bottom line #

Security testing is an important part of the software testing process. It’s also a big challenge for many organisations because traditional vulnerability scanning tools don’t always work with modern software and security standards like the OWASP risk assessment standard and ISO 27001 don’t directly address how to test for security threats in software code. But we can help! In this blog post, we’ll explain what security tests are, provide examples of different types of security testing, and even give you some tips on how to implement a security testing strategy in your organisation.