Top Areas You Shouldn’t Miss While Testing Your Web Applications

The internet has created unlimited opportunities for organizations and companies when it comes to conducting important business transactions and sharing information on a global scale. New levels of security concerns have been brought in the forefront. This is because of the evolving nature of data and information. The sensitive nature of information, critical business applications and client’s private information (financial and otherwise) has come to be in even more risk than before.

Web application security testing ( for mobile apps as well) is therefore an essential requisite for businesses in order to give their clients and customers the peace of mind that only a secure and risk free software can provide. The experts at Lean Security provide the following areas that shouldn’t be over-looked when testing web and mobile applications for vulnerabilities.

Authentication

This is the first entry point that comes when accessing any application - web or mobile based. For effective operation of the application, the authentication should be spot-on. The application should be able to verify incorrect or changed passwords, have the ability to ‘lock up’ if user enters the wrong password a number of times, verify the password rules which are to be implemented on all authentication pages (registration, forgot password, changed password), etc.

Encryption

The security experts at Lean Security state the importance of information (password, account number, credit card numbers) to be displayed in an encrypted format. The cookie information on the other hand needs to be stored in encrypted format. HTTPS should be used and any data transmission over the network needs to be secured.

Session Management

The user shouldn’t be able to access or navigate the application when/if logged out from the system or upon expiration of the user session. The session values should also be displayed in an encrypted format in the address bar. Protocols need to be in place that prohibits the access of secure and unsecure web pages.

Error Handling

In the case of any non-functionality, the system shouldn’t display any exceptions/errors from any server, application or database information. Why? Because application errors often contain information not intended for the user/hacker to view. In its stead, the custom error page should be shown. For this proper exception and error handling is very important. Not conducting a proper job can lead to attacks and disclosure of system level details.

Proper execution of applications testing is absolutely crucial, which can only be carried out by a professional security expert such as Lean Security, the professional security and WAF managed service provider in Australia.

There’s a Security Gap within Your Organization: How Can You Fix That?

It’s no secret that the landscape of cyber-security is becoming more complex with every passing moment. In addition to complex security systems and protocols in the market, companies and online retailers also have to contend with the rising threat of cyber-crime.

Enterprises and organizations today have the ability and funds to invest in more secure systems in their web and mobile applications. However, the sophisticated, complex and armed to the teeth, digital bad guys shouldn’t be underestimated.

But what can enterprises do in a shadow economy trading that produces malware software by the billion, and where the lonely hacker has been replaced with an organized crime syndicate? Designing better security systems from the start (especially in mobile and web applications) is the answer, along with the following;

Internal Market of Security

Compliance and security roles are becoming popular amongst people, while the functions are getting the visibility and recognition they deserve. As the owner of a business or manager running the operation, you should highlight to the rest of the company how security teams within (and outside) keep the business safe, compliant and right on track. Your employees should know of the action to take in case of a data breach which is why openly discussing response planning is a good recommendation.

Turn Your Security into All New Code

This step will become all the more important as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow within your organization. Since the Internet has taken responsibility of a huge chunk of everyday office operations, secure connectivity to the internet must be worked upon. This will only happen once enterprises and organizations consider security from the very start of their operation. Consider this: Is it easier to conduct operations on a secure foundation from the start, or build and work on a weak infrastructure?

Automate All Your Information Systems

This can be done once security is added into the business and infrastructure from the beginning of operations. When that is done, you’ll find automating many of the processes has not only been made easy but is the obvious course of action. This will in turn free up your security and compliance team to focus on issues that are really important such as finding anomalies and security vulnerabilities.

Of course, organizations and enterprises can outsource their security needs to third party managed security services such as Lean Security. Click here to learn about other services that we can help with.

What Is A Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

In simple terms: a web application firewall (WAF for short) is an aspect of technology that monitors, filters or blocks HTTP traffic to and from the web application of your company.  Now on to the detailed definition brought to you by the experts at Lean Security.

WAFs; the Recent Most Popular Security Measure

While it’s true that Web application firewalls found today have grown in popularity; however, we cannot overlook that the web-based threat factors have also been enhanced since then. The nature of these factors can vary; it can be anyone from a seemingly harmless teenager testing out his/her newly learned SQL injection skills on your website. It can also be a nation-state sponsored attacker on the lookout of proprietary information to steal.

This has made web security even more of a challenge. To make matters worse for enterprises, their WAF design needs to be both secured and ‘open’ in order to maintain wide availability all the while complying with proper user authorization and data security.

WAF Protects a Web Application By

Input, output, the access to and from an application etc is controlled with the help of a web application firewall. The technology runs like an appliance (either server plug-in or cloud based service) by which every HTML, HTTPS, SOAP and XML-RPC data packet is inspected thoroughly.

Attacks such as XSS, SQL injection, session hijacking, and buffer overflows are inspected through customizable security protocols, and then prevented. Such attacks are beyond the working of network firewalls and intrusion detection systems. This is why online retailers and businesses employ far more stringent protective measures, tools and softwares to make security process more effective.

WAF Can Be Network-based or Host-based

In addition, the technology (software or program) is usually deployed through proxy and is positioned in front of the web application. A WAF has the ability to monitor web traffic in real or near real time, before it even reaches the application. This is how it’s able to filter out potential harmful traffic patterns quite effectively.

Enterprises have used such security controls since a long time to protect their web applications against the growing threat of zero-day exploits, impersonation, known and unknown vulnerabilities and cyber attackers. It can be safely said that WAFs are the best tool of defence that your small business can employ - of course only when done right.

Never compromise with the security of your web application and systems as an enterprise. It’s better to hire experts in WAF software design. Get in touch with Lean Security, the best WAF managed service provider in Australia, to learn more about our iron-clad web-based security platforms.   

What makes Penetration Testing Different than Vulnerability Assessment?

If you are a security professional, you are most definitely familiar with what vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are. These two are types of vulnerability testing in order to complete a vulnerability analysis. Both are valuable tools for information security and are integral components of the process of managing threat and vulnerability of network systems.

These tests have their own strengths different from each other and so they commonly combined in order to achieve a far better vulnerability analysis. In that sense, it can be deduced that these two are quite different from each other as they perform two different jobs which normally ends in different results although they are is the same focus.

Most of the time, these two are used interchangeably for some reasons which confuses consumers and thus wastes their resources because they use the wrong tool for their needs. That being that case, it is best to look into these two’s differences and clarify the distinctions between these two so that confusion can be eliminated.

Vulnerability Assessment vs. Penetration Testing

Tools for vulnerability assessment are those that are used to discover the existing vulnerabilities. What makes it different is that it does not have the ability to differentiate between flaws which when exploited can cause damage and the flaws that cannot do so. Primarily, vulnerability tool only alert companies of the flaws that already exist within their code as well as where exactly they are located. In an in-depth vulnerability assessment, it indicates the application or system’s weakness and then provide mitigation procedures as well so that those weaknesses can be eliminated or at the very least eliminated to such a level of risk that is acceptable.

On the other hand, what penetration testing does is attempting to exploit the existing vulnerabilities in the system. This is so determine if there are malicious activities or perhaps unauthorized access can happen.  Penetration tests also works on identifying any flaws of the system that can pose threat to it. What happens during penetration testing is that the action of an external or internal hacker that aims to breach the application’s information security is simulated.

The penetration tester also known as ethical hacking uses various techniques and tools in attempting to exploit and gain access to sensitive data in the system. Due to this action, the system’s information security can be improved in such a way that the simulated actions cannot possible penetrate the system’s security.

Which approach would be best for your organization?

The answer to this question lies with your existing security posture. If you are confident with security posture, then just conducting a vulnerability assessment is enough. Essentially, vulnerability assessments give you the weaknesses of the application and tell you how to fix them. Penetration testing, on the other hand, tells you whether someone can break in your security posture and exactly what that can attain if they can break in. If you want to be completely assure of your organization’s security posture, then combining these two would be your best option.

Your Business’s Website Just Got Hacked! Here Is What You Should Do Now

Security experts at Lean Security categorize companies in Australia into two types: those that have been hacked and know about it and those who’ve been hacked but don’t know about it. So, how will you know if your company’s website has been hacked?

Following are the ways Lean Security, the number one WAF managed service shares;

Ø  Your website gets defaced

Ø  The website redirects to a site that’s ‘unsavoury’ such as a porn site

Ø  You get a notification that the site is compromised from either Bing or Google

Ø  Your web browser (Firefox or Chrome) will indicate the compromised state of your site

Ø  You notice unexplained big spikes in traffic (from other countries) and other signs of strange traffic in the web logs of your site

What Do You Do?

The first thing to do after finding out that your company’s website has been hacked is to remain calm. You won’t be able to do damage control in a frazzled and worried state. The next thing to do is: 

Call In Your Support Team

If you’re a small business, chances are that you won’t have the right technical expertise on board. The best option in this case is to hire the expertise of a support team, one that’s ideally an expert in the technical aspects of internet security, as well as familiar with the configuration of your site such as your managed security service provider.

Pull Together Important Information

You’ll have to gather the information that’s helpful to support team, so be prepared to provide the following:

Ø  Hosting Login Information

Ø  CMS Login Information

Ø  Your Site’s Web Logs

Ø  FTP/ SFTP Access Credentials

Ø  Backups

Take Your Website Offline

The site will have to be temporarily shut down while the support team is running a web application testing and assessment. This is normally done through the hosting control panel. You can also protect the main directory (where the website resides) with a password in order to block users from having access to the site while it’s being fixed.

Scan Local Computers for Viruses and Malware

This is a very important step which can also be carried out by your managed hosting provider. Have the support team scan all your local computers with the help of anti-virus software to make sure there isn’t any malware, spyware, or Trojans in the network. Also make sure the anti-virus software that you use is up to date before scanning the computers.

Just because there’re million others to prey on, doesn’t make your business website secure. It’s always a good idea to be prepared for the possibility of such an event.. After all, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Conduct a free assessment of your website’s security by Lean Security today.