Guide to Web Application Penetration Testing in 2022

Web Applications are now an integral part of the digital infrastructure for most businesses. They help them to maintain a great online presence and are responsible for the smooth execution of various operations. However, you need to take care of these applications due to the rising number of hacking activities online. Web application penetration testing is among the most prominent ways to improve the resilience of your web applications against cyber threats. It helps to uncover the security gaps before hackers do and exploit them. The information featured further in this blog will help devise an ideal pen testing process to obtain the best results for your web application security.  

Importance of Web Application Pen Testing 

Web application pentesting is important in many ways. The first will in the list will always be the security reason. But it also tells you where you lack in your infrastructure design and compliance requirements. These applications control critical operations like banking transactions, digital shopping, storing/transitioning of confidential information, etc., for business organizations. Pentesting will help in the following ways: 

1. Identification of hidden vulnerabilities in the application  

2. Impact and strength of current security policies against potential threats 

3. Check the cyber resilience of the components that are publicly exposed such as firewalls, routers, and DNS 

4. Determine which attack vector is the most likely to strike 

5. Detect security loopholes that might lead to data theft  

Types of Web App Penetration Testing  

Web Application Pentesting is classified into two different categories: 

1. Internal Penetration Testing: Internal pentesting is conducted within the organization over the local area network. This process involves the security assessment of applications hosted on the intranet. Its purpose is to look for any existing vulnerabilities inside the corporate firewall. The process is designed to eliminate the risks of Malicious Employee Attacks. 

2. External Penetration Testing: These are simulated outside attacks on a target system or network to find vulnerabilities that might lead to security failures and breaches. Security experts execute the testing with a hacker mindset, and without having much knowledge about the internal systems. It includes the testing of servers, firewalls, and IDS. 

Phases of Web Application Penetration Testing  

The following are the three phases of web application pentesting: 

1.Planning: This is where all the pre-testing preparations are done. Processes involved in this phase are Scope Definition, checking the Availability of Documentation to Testers, and Determining the Success Criteria. Testers review the results from the previous testing if there were any. This helps them understand the testing environment and draw an outline to execute the process. 

2. Execution: This is the moving phase of the penetration testing procedure. Here the testing tools and techniques are deployed to do their job. Finding vulnerabilities in the web application’s security layers and generating detailed, accurate, and precise reports is the primary goal of testers in this phase.  

3. Remediation: It is the post-execution phase. The testers’ job does not end with identifying vulnerabilities. They suggest the appropriate remediations in order to cover the security gaps identified. Also, testers make a lot of changes in the proxy settings during the test procedure. So, they need to set it all back to default after pentesting is over.  

Penetration testing is the best way to improve the security posture of your web applications. Now, there are a lot of automatic tools that help you enhance the speed and efficiency of pentesing processes.  

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