Types of Security Testing | Industry's Standard Approaches

Introduction:

To find security flaws and vulnerabilities in the software or application, security testing is done. Security professionals and testers employ a variety of security testing techniques to find potential threats, estimate the likelihood that vulnerabilities will be exploited, and assess the overall risks associated with the software or app. To close the holes and reduce security threats, these tests provide actionable findings that are put to use.

Types of security Testing:

Security testing is crucial in the software industry for guaranteeing the reliability and safety of software systems. Here are some frequently used techniques as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, albeit the most typical sorts of security testing may vary depending on certain technology and industry practices. It's always a good idea to stay current with the most recent trends and practices in security testing because the landscape may have changed since then.

Vulnerability Testing:

This entails looking for security flaws, configuration errors, and known vulnerabilities in software systems. Automated vulnerability scanners find potential security holes including out-of-date software, inadequate encryption, or unpatched systems.

Penetration testing:

Also referred to as ethical hacking, is the controlled identification and exploitation of vulnerabilities by simulating actual attacks. To assess the security posture of a software system and offer recommendations for improvement, skilled security professionals use a variety of approaches, tools, and methodologies.

Sexcurity Tests of Mobile Apps: 

Mobile applications are subject to a variety of security concerns, according to security testing. Mobile apps' authentication procedures, data storage policies, network communication, and any flaws resulting from interactions with the hardware or operating system of the device are all evaluated during security testing.

Security Testing in DevOps: 

Security testing is being incorporated into the software development lifecycle as DevOps practices continue to gain popularity. Automating security checks, including security tools into CI/CD pipelines, and doing security evaluations at various phases of the software delivery process are all examples of how to do this.

Testing of Security codes: 

This sort of testing examines the source code manually or automatically to find security flaws and coding mistakes that could result in security breaches. Static code analysis tools that check the source code for security issues can be used to accomplish this.

Testing of Security configuration:

 Software systems frequently have intricate setups involving firewalls, servers, networks, databases, and other components. Reviewing the security configuration makes ensuring that these components are set up appropriately to reduce potential risks and follow security best practices.

Application Security Testing:

Application security testing discusses techniques that businesses can employ to identify and fix vulnerabilities in software. These techniques involve monitoring the security posture of a software program throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC), testing, analyzing, and reporting on it. 

Testing for Web Application Security

Finding out whether a web application is attackable is the aim of web application security testing. Many automatic and manual procedures are covered. Online application penetration testing seeks to gather data about an online application, identify system faults or vulnerabilities, check whether these flaws or vulnerabilities may be successfully exploited, and assess the risk of web application vulnerabilities. 

Input Validation Testing:

A type of security testing called input validation testing is concerned with examining the efficacy of input validation methods included in software systems. Input validation's goal is to guarantee that user input is accurately verified and cleaned up before it is handled by the program. This aids in guarding against several security flaws, including injection attacks (such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting) and other ways of unauthorized access or data manipulation.

It's important to note that this list is not all-inclusive and that new tools and methodologies for security testing may have been developed after 2021. There are also many other methodologies and techniques for testing odes that are included by firms in different stages of software development. 

Conclusion:

This article focused on different types of security testing

Trust, reputation, and financial resources are known to be eroded by successful cyberattacks and breaches. Gaining the trust of stakeholders requires conducting security checks.

Given that security tests must be carefully tailored, it is possible to use the services of security professionals like WeTest to efficiently conduct security testing and receive immediate protection as part of their Risk-based Managed Security offering to maintain a strong security posture. Also, WeTest offers well-crafted tools like Perfdog and PerfSight to get deep insights into your project.