A team of developers can adhere to the security guidelines for coding, keep dependencies updated, and still deliver a vulnerability that no one notices. The truth is that real attacks are rarely based on an outline. An attacker might combine a weak authorization with an unprotected API, misuse a workflow for password reset, or find out that information from one tenant could be used by a different.

Professional penetration testing Brisbane companies employ for security assurance evaluates the systems from an adversarial view. Instead of asking if security controls are in place, expert testers look at whether these controls can actually be bypassed.

This difference is important to Australian organizations which handle sensitive information, like customer information or financial records, medical records, or any other assets.

Scanning through automated means only tells a small portion of the truth

Vulnerability scanners are useful. They can quickly identify outdated software, insecure headers known CVEs, as well as obvious configuration problems. They do not comprehend how an application should behave.

Imagine a customer portal that lets customers change their account number in a request, and obtain invoices from a different business. A scanner isn’t likely to detect something unusual when the server returns perfectly valid results. A human tester recognizes the issue immediately.

Quality web penetration testing combines automation with manual investigation. Testers analyze authentication sessions, session, access controls as well as injection risks API behavior, vulnerabilities in configuration and business processes seeking out combinations of weaknesses that could create meaningful impact.

SaaS-based platforms raise questions about security

Multi-tenant cloud applications require extra care in testing, since a single mistake can cause a huge impact on many users at once.

Saas penetration tests should cover tenant isolation and privileged features. It should also cover API authorization, role changes accounts recovery, role change leakage, and integrations to external services. The tester shouldn’t just examine if the feature actually works but also whether it can be used in a way that was not intended by the creator.

If a user has been assigned the role of a user that doesn’t include administrative features, they may not be able to see them in the interface. This doesn’t mean that the underlying API isn’t able to be called by it directly. Discovering that distinction requires active testing, not just a review of what appears on screen.

Modern web applications have an enhanced attack surface

Applications of today often incorporate JavaScript front ends APIs, cloud services, APIs identity providers, microservices, and third-party integrations. There may be weaknesses in any component as well as the trust relationship that exists between the two.

Comprehensive penetration testing of websites analyzes these connections. Testers can examine the way tokens are distributed as well as whether the endpoints are able to have a consistent authorization process and how data that is controlled by the user moves between different services, and if it is possible for a flaw with a low risk to be linked with a vulnerability to create a major security risk.

Siege Cyber specializes in this kind of application testing and works with modern frameworks and APIs, cloud-hosted systems as well as complex architectures for applications instead of treating every website as a collection of URLs to be scanned.

This report is a valuable tool that can help developers to find the answer.

Finding vulnerabilities is just half of the process. The most effective security testing occurs when engineers can reproduce and understand the issue as well as remediate the risk.

Siege Cyber’s annual reports provide details on the evidence used of reproducible steps, risk assessments, analysis of impact and remediation. The executive overview of the risk is provided to business stakeholders and the technical team receives the details needed to address it. Rather than waiting until the report’s final version, critical results can be communicated to business stakeholders at the time of the engagement.

The test after remediation adds a second layer of assurance by confirming that the initial flaw was addressed and not causing an entirely new issue.

Organizations looking for independent validation, evidence of compliance, or increased confidence before a release can benefit by conducting penetration tests. It creates a safe environment in which to test how an attacker of skill could attack the system. Discovering the answer before a real adversary does is what makes the test valuable.