How Pen Testing Helps to Know Application Vulnerabilities?
According to a recent report of Gartner , “75% of attacks occur at the application level”. Besides, a Forrester survey also states that "people are now attacking through apps, as now it is easier than through the network layer." Inspite of using intrusion prevention or detection systems and firewalls, cyber criminals are still capable to intrude through security systems, and access your vital information and go undetected.
One of the most important mediums of getting rid of such online intrusions is through "Web Application Penetration Testing". It is the one of the excellent ways of assessing the chances of hackers accessing your site and your web application's capacity to withstand the cyber attack.
The penetration testing process employs a vibrant and in-depth analysis of all the applications for any technical flaws, weaknesses, and security vulnerabilities. During the pentraiton testing companies if any security issues are found, they are escalated to upper department along with a comprehensive report on its impact and technical solution. In order to avoid an unproductive approach, the advanced technique of pen test is to conduct a sequence of repeatable and meticulous tests, and to work through all of the application vulnerabilities. Secure your web application by implementing the following techniques:
1) Carefully sanitize all the data coming from the web browser: The data, sent by web browser, can never be trusted. This data generally includes submitted form uploaded files, XML, cookie data, etc. If you don't sanitize this incoming information, it may lead to several vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, cross site scripting, and a numeral other security breach attacks to thrive against your web apps.
2) Try to validate all important data before manage sessions and form submission: Most of the vendors consider CSRF (cross site request forgery) as one of the most serious security vulnerabilities in any web apps. CSRF happens when a web app accepts data of form submission without verifying if it came from user web form that web application had just served and produced.
3) Get your server configured in the best possible way: This is the best possible and easiest way to protect your vital information. Most of administrators are well-aware about the security strength that it offerrs to the users but not all admins focuses on this. There are many guides available over the net in order to help you configure your server in right direction in order to achieve maximum security. Some of the key steps for hardening most web servers are as follows:
- Update and maintain proper security patches
- Shutdown unnecessary ports and kill all the redundant services
- Confine access rights to folders and files
- Employ SSH rather than using telnet & FTP
- Install efficient anti-malware software
