Choosing the right application security tools can be a daunting task, as there are countless options available in the market. To help you make the right decision, we have put together a 2023 Guide to Application Security Tools.
Whether you’re starting your Application Security (AppSec) program from scratch or looking to improve an existing one, it’s important to consider various factors such as program maturity, organizational structure, and effective strategies. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, as each organization has unique needs and requirements. Luckily, four industry experts came together for a live discussion
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is an Application Security Testing methodology in which the application is tested in operating mode, from the outside-in. As DAST tools don’t have access to the application and API’s source code, they detect vulnerabilities by performing actual attacks, similar to a real hacker. In a sense, DAST tools perform automated penetration testing of your web applications.
DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) is a method of testing the security of a web application. IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing) combines elements of SAST and DAST.
The term “application security” (AppSec) describes the processes, practices, and tools used to identify, repair, and protect against application vulnerabilities throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). AppSec activities include, but are not limited to, performing a formal secure code review, hiring a pentester, or simply updating an existing framework with the final goal of
OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is a free security tool actively maintained by international volunteers. It automatically identifies web application security vulnerabilities during development and testing. Experienced penetration testers can use OWASP ZAP to perform manual security testing.
Cypress provides an integrated development environment (IDE) that you can load in your browser. The framework employs an event-based architecture that connects with Google Chrome’s lifecycle events. It enables Chrome to wait for Ajax requests to complete without using a timeout or polling mechanism, leading to faster and more reliable tests.
To do unit testing in Node.js, you will typically use a JavaScript unit testing framework. Common frameworks include Mocha, Jest, Jasmine, and Cypress. We’ll show how to do Node.js unit testing in Jest.
What Is the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)? The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a non-profit foundation by a global community dedicated to providing free application security resources. OWASP offers guidance on developing and maintaining secure software applications. The goal is to educate software architects, developers, and business owners about security risks.
The Second Way of DevOps is fast feedback. In security, when we see this we should all be thinking the same thing: Pushing Left. We want to start security at the beginning of the system development life cycle (SDLC) and ensure we are there (providing feedback, support and solutions) the whole way through!
The first “Way” of DevOps is emphasizing the efficiency of the entire system. Many of us tend to focus only on our part of a giant system, and get bogged down improving only our own contributions to the larger process. It’s rare that we stand back, look at the entire thing, and realize that if we helped another team or changed something small within our part, that it could improve other areas for the better. The first way of DevOps is about looking at the entire system, and making sure the entire thing is as efficient as possible.
DevSecOps is the security activities that application security professionals perform, in order to ensure the systems created by DevOps practices are secure. It’s the same thing we (AppSec professionals) have always done, with a new twist.
What IS DevOps? There are many definitions of DevOps, too many, some might say. Some people say it’s “People, Processes, and Products”, and that sounds great, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. When I did waterfall I also had people, processes, and products, and that was not great. I thought
Application Security is every action you take towards ensuring the software that you (or someone else) create is secure. Tanya Janca This can mean a formal secure code review, hiring someone to come in and perform a penetration test, or updating your framework because you heard it has a serious security flaw. It doesn’t need
This is the first in a many-part blog series on the topic of DevSecOps. Throughout the series we will discuss weaving security through DevOps in effective and efficient ways.
I met with my colleague Bryan Hughes the other day to discuss the security of a serverless app he’s creating for JSConf EU. We had discussed the idea of threat modelling while on a business trip together and he wanted to give it a go. Since I am particularly curious about serverless apps lately thanks to Tal Melamed having dragged me into the OWASP Serverless Top 10 Project, I was excited to have a chance to dive down this rabbit hole.
When building a Vue.js application, unit testing is important to ensure the quality of your code and prevent regressions. Vue unit testing involves breaking your application into functions, modules, classes, and components, each of which can be tested independently. By writing unit tests for your components and running them with each build, you can catch issues early and fix them early in the development lifecycle.
Popular JavaScript unit testing frameworks include Jest, Mocha, and Jasmine. We’ll show how to run a simple unit test without a full framework, and how to test your code using Jest.
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a non-profit organization that strives to improve web application security by offering research and free resources. The organization provides easily accessible materials on its website to make it possible for anyone to improve the security of their web applications.
Angular is an application design framework and development platform for creating complex, high performance single page applications.
Unit testing is a common skill among software developers—chances are you have at least some experience writing unit tests. As you scale up your unit testing, unit testing frameworks come in useful. These frameworks, most of which are open source, can help you create large test suites and execute them automatically every time you build a new version of your software.
A unit test validates and verifies individual software units (or components) to ensure each unit works as intended. A unit may be a function, procedure, method, object, or module. Unit testing occurs during the coding phase of the software development lifecycle, and can help identify coding errors, code quality issues, and security issues.
DevOps involves collaboration between application development and operations teams, which work closely throughout the software development process. DevOps teams share the same goals, tools, and key performance indicators. DevOps aims to facilitate shorter development cycles, allowing for frequent releases while maintaining the software’s quality, resilience, and predictability.
Unit testing helps evaluate and fix small units during the development phase. You can run unit tests automatically or manually. Ideally, you should run these tests frequently to verify your code-in-progress is working as intended.
Vulnerability assessments provide organizations with detailed information about security vulnerabilities in their environment. They also offer guidelines for assessing the risks associated with these vulnerabilities. This process allows organizations to understand their assets, security vulnerabilities, and overall risk, making it less likely for attackers to compromise their systems and steal their information.
A web application vulnerability is any system flaw that an attacker can exploit to compromise a web application. Web vulnerabilities differ from other common vulnerabilities like asset flaws or network vulnerabilities because web applications require the ability to communicate and interact with multiple users from different networks. The accessible nature of a web application makes it an easy target for a hacker. Continuous security testing is critical to identify security vulnerabilities and protect your organization.
The term penetration testing (pentesting) refers to processes, tools, and services designed and implemented for the purpose of simulating attacks and data breaches, and finding security vulnerabilities. You can run a pentest for a computer system, an entire network, or a web application.
DNS is a fundamental form of communication. It takes user-inputted domains and matches them with an IP address. DNS attacks use this mechanism in order to perform malicious activities.
Security testing checks whether software is vulnerable to cyber attacks, and tests the impact of malicious or unexpected inputs on its operations. Security testing provides evidence that systems and information are safe and reliable, and that they do not accept unauthorized inputs.
Unit tests are automated tests created by developers to verify that individual components of an application, known as units, are error-free and behave as expected.
A unit test is a type of software test that focuses on components of a software product. The purpose is to ensure that each unit of software code works as expected. A unit can be a function, method, module, object, or other entity in an application’s source code.
Fuzzing is the art of automatic bug detection. The goal of fuzzing is to stress the application and cause unexpected behavior, resource leaks, or crashes.
Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools provide automated security testing for various real-world threat scenarios. You can use DAST tools to identify security vulnerabilities in running applications, and remediate them so external threat actors cannot exploit them.
DAST tools go into action when an application is deployed, either in a test or staging environment or in a real production environment. They can continuously scan applications to discover new vulnerabilities or misconfigurations that are introduced over time.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is a technique that enables attackers to impersonate a legitimate, trusted user. CSRF attacks can be used to change firewall settings, post malicious data to forums, or conduct fraudulent transactions. In many cases, affected users and website owners are unaware that an attack occurred, and become aware of it only after the damage is done and recovery is not possible.
SQL injection (SQLi) involves adding malicious code to a database query to gain unauthorized access to a web application’s database. Threat actors employ SQL injection techniques to manipulate SQL code, intending to execute malicious code that can help them gain access to sensitive data or compromise the database server.
Interactive application security testing (IAST) solutions help detect and remediate vulnerabilities in web applications, as part of an organization’s security testing toolset.
An Application Programming Interface (API) allows software applications to interact with each other. It is a fundamental part of modern software patterns, such as microservices architectures.
In today’s fast paced agile world, keeping data safe should be everyone’s job, with collaborative and robust security processes in place. To ensure success, especially with multiple iterations of software being pushed into production daily, we need to have a framework in place that will bring the required people, processes and tools together. One such framework is DevSecOps.
Penetration testing (pentesting), is a cybersecurity technique used by organizations to identify and remediate security vulnerabilities. Organizations hire ethical hackers to imitate the tactics and behaviors of external attacks. This makes it possible to evaluate their potential to compromise computer systems, networks, or web applications.
Network penetration testing is an attempt by an ethical hacker to breach an organization’s network without doing harm. The objective is to identify security weaknesses in the network and its security controls, report on them, and allow the organization to remediate them.
Web application security is the practice of detecting and preventing cyber attacks on websites, and more importantly—building websites that are secure to begin with. This includes a set of security controls built into web applications to protect them from a growing variety of cyber threats.
Security should be a crucial part of any application you are working on. In this article we are going to cover the web application security best practices you should consider when working on your next project, but before we do that, let us quickly cover why security is so important.
Penetration testing typically involves an ethical hacker looking for network vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker could exploit. These tests provide insights into a network’s points of weakness, informing security teams on how to repair them.
SQL injections represent one of the most prominent and dangerous attacks, a staple inclusion in the OWASP Top 10. It is a code injection technique used to exploit vulnerabilities in the application layer to retrieve or corrupt the data they hold.
A CSRF attack can force a user to perform unwanted actions on a web application. CSRF assumes that the user is already authenticated. Attackers typically use social engineering to trick users into clicking a link that performs actions that can benefit the attacker.
Did you miss our webinar on ‘Avoiding Security Incidents with a Dev-First AppSec Program’? Don’t worry; it’s available on-demand!
Snyk is a popular security testing platform for developers. The Snyk Command Line Interface (CLI) lets you introduce Snyk functionality into your software development workflow, to scan for security problems as part of ongoing development. You can run Snyk CLI on a local machine or as part of a continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD) pipeline.
Snyk is an application security testing tool that lets you identify and remediate vulnerabilities in open source components, proprietary source code, containers, and infrastructure as code (IaC) templates. It is cloud-based and offered on a monthly subscription basis, with a limited free plan.
The goal of pentesting (penetration testing) is to detect security vulnerabilities by utilizing specific processes, tools and services. You can either opt-in for a manual pentest, conducted by a team of white-hat hackers, or you can use an automated approach, having a software solution perform the test. Either way, the target of a pentest can be a computer system, a network or a web application.
Serialization in Java represents a process in which an object in the Java programming language is converted into a format that can either be transferred over a network or saved to a database. Deserialization in Java represents a process opposite to that. In the process of deserialization, a serialized Java object is read from a file or network and is being converted into an object.
Penetration testing (pentesting) involves assessing the security of a system, network, or application. Although pentesters use the same techniques as malicious attackers, the process is legal, because it is performed with the consent of the tested organization.
DevOps is a methodology promoting close communication and cooperation between development and operations teams. Implementing DevOps requires adopting certain tools and processes, including the deployment and maintenance of programmable infrastructure, iterative development practices, and automation.
Organizations are under constant threat from a wide variety of vulnerabilities. Security professionals can be slow to identify and remediate vulnerabilities in software and IT systems, creating a large window of exposure.
Application security testing (AST) is an umbrella term for methodologies that assist in finding and eliminating software vulnerabilities. The security testing process includes tests, analysis, and reports that provide insight into the security level of a software program.
The term black-box penetration testing (pentesting) refers to external tests aimed at identifying vulnerabilities in systems, applications, or networks. Unlike other forms of security testing, penetration testing can verify that vulnerabilities are exploitable by attackers, and show exactly how. Black-box penetration testing is also known as external penetration testing or trial and error testing.
DevSecOps is a strategic approach that unites development, security, operations, and infrastructure as code (IaaS) in a continuous and automated delivery cycle.
DevSecOps is a holistic approach to security, informed by a community-driven mindset. Developers, IT operations, and security professionals use DevSecOps tools to build secure software, by embedding security standards in all parts of the DevOps pipeline. Security is now a part of all stages of development, from writing code to deployment of applications in production.
GraphQL is a query language, as well as a server-side runtime, designed for APIs. GraphQL prioritizes providing clients with only the requested data. The goal of GraphQL is to make APIs flexible, developer-friendly and fast.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) enable communication between applications and services. API misconfigurations and vulnerabilities can expose data. Threat actors exploit APIs as access points into systems and networks.
Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architectural style that defines certain rules (constraints). For example, a REST constraint states that a web application must be able to deliver data whenever a command is given.
Web Services Security, also known as WS Security, is an extension to the SOAP specification, which specifies how to secure SOAP web services from external attacks. WS Security offers a set of API security measures that can help ensure security for SOAP-based messages, through the implementation of several principles that help achieve confidentiality, authentication and integrity.
API security is the use of any security practice relating to application programming interfaces (APIs), which are common in modern applications. API security involves managing API privacy and access control and the identification and remediation of attacks on APIs. These attacks exploit API vulnerabilities or reverse engineer APIs.
GraphQL is a query language specifically designed for processing data. It’s most often used to communicate between the client and server. The biggest GraphQL advantage is that it’s very efficient in saving bandwidth as it serves the data with a single query using schemas.
While a security culture for a successful DevOps and AppSec programme is important, to succeed, security needs to be top of mind for everyone across your pipeline.
WebSockets are becoming increasingly popular, because they greatly simplify the communication between a client and a server.
The SolarWinds attack was one of the largest nation-state supply chain attacks we have seen to date. The attack originated from SolarWinds’ Orion network management software and was likely carried out by nation-state adversaries.
When an attacker exploits a PHP application via an SQL Injection, they can gain access to the application’s database and make the application execute unauthorized injected SQL commands to control the behavior of the application.
With DevSecOps and CI/CD, security testing now sits at multiple stages of the development pipeline, especially with developer first application security tools, with conversations about security being held regularly.
CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) tokens can be a great mechanism in preventing CSRF attacks, but what are they? How do they protect against CSRF attacks? How should they be generated? We are going to cover the answers to these and more questions in this blog post.
Engineers and architects are challenged by security issues that arise with microservices. If these concerns are not addressed in the SDLC, vulnerabilities will appear in production.
DevOps looks to combine the culture, methodologies and tooling of both the software development and operations teams, so companies can deliver new application features at a much greater velocity.
The shift to rapid, frequent deployments over the past decade left application security behind. However, in recent years security is starting to catch up. Leading companies are now integrating security testing into CI & CD, running automated tests with every commit, and fixing bugs long before they hit production.
As security testing is increasingly shifting left, developer focused application security testing tools are bridging the gap between engineering and security.
In this article we introduce three key features you have to look for when shopping for your AppSec & API testing automation tool:
Security is no longer a siloed team with sole ownership of security testing – security testing is increasingly shifting left. Instead of developers being brought into the fold later in the process, developer focused security testing tools are bridging the gap between engineering and security.
Penetration testing (pentesting) is a simulated attack launched for the purpose of uncovering security vulnerabilities. A pentest helps organizations discover security gaps, using a realistic simulation of a cyber attack, which does not cause damage or expose sensitive data.
Penetration testing (also called pentesting) is a controlled attempt to breach IT systems. Penetration testing is performed on behalf of the organization, in order to discover and remediate security weaknesses. There are two types of penetration testing services: manual and automated.
In today’s fast-paced software development world, with DevOps and CI/CD, the need for security testing automation has never been greater.
Whether you are just starting your DevOps journey, or are fine tuning your processes as you mature, with CI/CD and easy deployment of new microservices, changes to applications and APIs are carried out at breakneck speed, with multiple iterations in a day.
With applications driving the global economy, developers are under pressure to deliver software and more features at an unprecedented scale and speed.
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the Pittsburgh Cybersecurity day in partnership with ISACA. It was exciting to see more than 250 cybersecurity and application security professionals interested in discussing and learning how security can be enabled in a world rapidly adopting DevOps practices.
DevOps teams have become successful in releasing code at speed, whether for webapps or APIs, but with the lack of testing automation, are releasing vulnerabilities at speed too.
Bright’s ability to work with modern technology stacks and API security testing now includes full support for GraphQL APIs, enabling our customers to simplify, automate and scale their security testing even further with our solutions, as they embrace new architectures.
Regardless of the maturity of your development and security processes / methodologies, integrating security testing automation into your API development pipelines is a struggle.
In our last post we talked about SAST solutions and why they are not always the best solution for AST. In this blog post, we are going to compare SAST to DAST solutions.
WordPress has many advantages and is not without reason the most popular way to build a website, with 60% of pages on the web based on it. Unfortunately, it is this popularity that makes WordPress a juicy target for malicious users. Every year hundreds of thousands of WordPress and ecommerce sites get hacked.
The use of microservices results in many new, open and vulnerable connections. Microservices expose endpoints which are usually referred to as APIs to the public. As such, you may ask yourself, with so many potential vulnerabilities, how can we test the security of our microservice architecture?
Do you know what “skimming” is? It’s a method that hackers use to gather sensitive information in online payment forums.
There is a never-ending discussion about the terminology around Threat Modeling. In order to have control over data security issues that could potentially impact your business, it is crucial to understand the relationship between four key components: vulnerabilities, cyber threats, threat actors and risks.
There are many methodologies you can use to detect application vulnerabilities. One of the most common methodologies is Static Application (or Analysis) Security Testing. Before we dive into the shortcomings of SAST solutions, let’s first outline what Static Application Security Testing is.
Time to market is everything. In today’s industry, many companies bring products to market at a break-neck pace. What does this mean for software developers? They constantly need to release new builds.
As we wrap up our posts for 2019 we thought we would recap the “joy” of some significant breaches that happened in the past through years. May 2020 see us all secure and have no vulnerabilities exposed.
Recent studies show that developers do not actively pay attention to the security of their code unless directed otherwise. Still, application security is fundamental from the early stages of app development.
Dynamic application security testing – DAST is one of the oldest automated application security testing techniques, it has been around since the mid-1990s. DAST solutions interact with live web applications and web services, acting like a hacker-in-a-box. It has always been popular with penetration testers and security auditors looking to save valuable time.
In the era referred to as ‘Industry 4.0’ or ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ two of the pillars of the technology field; automation and data transfer are closely coupled with concerns regarding cybersecurity.
For the 14th year, IBM and the Ponemon Institute have released their annual “Cost of a Data Breach” report, aggregating the costs reported by 507 organizations, from 17 industries, and 16 regions. IBM and Ponemon interviewed 3,211 individuals and collected data points regarding the number of client records stolen or lost in breaches, how the organization responded to the breach, and how their business did after the breach.
As the cost of insecure applications grows more and more evident by the day, are we doing everything we can and should, to mitigate the risk?
This article takes a look at the top 10 things a CTO needs to know about application security in order to motivate and grow the maturity of the development environment towards a strong application security posture.
Writing secure code is becoming a greater challenge every day. Even the largest multinational companies that attract the best developers from all around the world, face the same problem. They are suffering vulnerabilities in their code, from SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, to backdoors.
