Penetration Testing: Should You Go For Automatic Or Manual Penetration Testing?

Australia has seen some of the worst examples of cybercrime to hit web and mobile applications; not just the average user in the country, but big businesses (and even government agencies)! August 9, 2016 was one such an event, when a series of malicious attacks targeted the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The deliberate attempt was carried out to sabotage the national survey.

With cyber attacks becoming the norm more than ever, it’s important to review the cyber health of your web and mobile application.

How can this be done? Regular penetration testing will help identify vulnerabilities within the system that can be exploited by cyber criminals and hackers. 

Penetration Testing – What Is It?

This kind of testing will dig deep into your system, find vulnerabilities and try to exploit them. The intent of penetration testing isn’t to hack into a system, but try to determine whether it can be done, and more importantly, and how. The testing is often stopped once the objective is received.

Lean Security offers two types of penetration testing—automated and manual. Which one is better? Let’s find out.

What Is Automated Testing?

Automatic penetration testing provides broad testing during the security assessment of a computer system. This significantly reduces the time and effort otherwise required to find and report issues.

What Happens During Testing?

In addition to highly able and qualified penetration testers, Lean Security also offers a plethora of automatic security testing tools. They help find vulnerabilities (in the shortest time possible and a variety of target systems) in an internal network when performing onsite security assessment.

How Does Manual Testing Differ?

Sadly, all software vulnerabilities can’t be assessed for vulnerabilities using the help of a simple scanning tool. Automated penetration tests are great when it comes to testing of common, well-known vulnerabilities. However, they lack in one important detail: the inability to scan for domain specific vulnerabilities! This is where manual penetration testing comes in the picture.

This type of penetration testing is led by experiences (of the penetration tester) and intelligence. Skilled testers will find the exact same vulnerabilities in disparate systems, shown by automatic testing.

However, manual penetration testing is also able to pick up vulnerabilities that aren’t identified by automatic web application scanning. This uncanny ability to pick up false positives is what makes manual pen testing an invaluable service. 

Automatic vs. Manual Pen Testing – Which Do You Need?

Realistically speaking, you will need a little bit of both in order to keep your web application security sound and healthy.

In fact, businesses cannot afford to just employ one type of penetration service! The solution that makes the most sense is: use automatic web security scanning for major vulnerability testing, then complete the penetration test by running a manual check (for logical vulnerabilities). This will ensure:

o   Increased accuracy of security audits

o   Detection of more vulnerabilities

o   Decreased costs

o   Save time

Penetration testing for your web application is important. Identify and safeguard your web application against malicious activity by signing up for one of the best advanced web application security penetration testing services by Lean Security.

Steps To Web Application Vulnerability Assessment

More and more businesses are turning their business operations online due to the many advantages of online businesses. Just as sharks are attracted to the smell of blood, the same is with hackers and cyber criminals who have increased their significantly increased their attacks.

The digital world has now become a hacker’s paradise. 

Businesses usually hire chief information security officers and penetration testing companies to combat this threat. However, there’s a lot more to information and web application security.

Web Application Vulnerability Assessment – A New Type of Security

Offered by Lean Security, the web application penetration testing and vulnerability assessment is a testing tool that enables businesses with:

Vulnerabilities Identification

With the help of this tool, you can identify vulnerabilities within your web application and computer system’s framework. Additionally, the tool will help uncover potential (negative) impact to the application, infrastructure and operational levels.

Security Posture

The tool will also let you know how your website security posture is presented to potential attackers. Knowing just how hackers view security of your web application will give you an idea of what step should be taken to ensure high security.

Following are some steps that you can take in order to review and fix your web application’s security.

Assess the Web Application Security Your Company

Majority of cyber attacks take place because of basic security vulnerabilities that often go unnoticed. Take care of this when assessing your web application for vulnerabilities. What to look out for?

o   Poor patch management procedures

o   Web-based personal email services

o   Weak passwords

o   A lack of end-user education

o   Sound security polices

Remember: unknown vulnerabilities can wreak havoc to even the most secure network!

Pinpoint Applications and Data Important To Business Processes

Identify and rank each business process according to its importance and sensitivity. Once this step is completed, identify data and web applications over which the above processes depend.

This step is made easier with the collaborated help of your IT department and other business players. In time, you will find out there are far more critical process than previously identified.

Find Hidden Data Sources

Take mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) and desktop PCs into account as well when searching out data sources and application. Why? These devices contain collective, most recent and sensitive data processed by your organisation.

Try and understand how data flows between these devices and the data centre applications (as well as storage). Find out how your employees are sending important business emails that might contain sensitive information.

Determine What Hardware Runs Applications and Data

You will find all layers of your system’s infrastructure as you continue to follow the above step. This identification process of servers (both virtual and physical) is important. There will be three or more sets to look out for when it comes to web/database based applications – web, application, and database.

Interlink the Network Infrastructure with Connecting Hardware

In this step, web application developers must know all there is about routers and other network devices which enable your applications and hardware to operate fast and provide a secure performance.

Identify Controls That Are Already In Place

Let’s take a look at the security continuity measures you already have in place. These measures will include application firewalls, IDP systems, virtual private networks, polices and firewalls, data loss prevention systems and encryption.

You will have to understand important qualities and capabilities that each protection provide to all addressed vulnerabilities.   

You should run vulnerability scans only after every step is addressed. Small businesses (with a less structured IT department) can have trouble with this procedure.

Having trouble securing your web operations? There are a very few web application vulnerability scanners in the market that can help identify all false positives within an application. Save the hassle and contact Lean Security for that job.

Three Main Considerations For Cloud Network Testing

Cloud computing – it’s everywhere these days. Based on the hype of this computing system, it would make sense to assume you should move to the cloud as well, no? Not before you understand the pros and cons of cloud computing first!

There are many benefits of cloud computing for businesses. Moving servers and storage to the cloud proves us with simplified management and administration, ever-present access, and even enables more efficient business operations while cutting costs!

Yes, it certainly sounds idealistic. However, moving to the cloud has one pitfall that should be considered fully when moving servers or storage.

Why Should You Think Before You Leap with Cloud Computing?

Storing data on the internet (which is done in cloud computing) increases risk of exposure. Cloud computing also requires businesses to trust third party managed service vendors when it comes to providing security and privacy of data over the cloud. Yes, you can hire a dedicated penetration testing service provider to carry out all vulnerability assessment and testing as well.

If you think switching to the cloud is one-step forward to success of your business and increased productivity, take care of these considerations:

1.     Performance

You might not have any control over the applications running on the cloud, as they in turn run on hardware. Ensuring performance and required scalability is therefore extremely important!

This can be done by testing performance of applications that you will be using in production, in a cloud environment first. Running load tests on applications that share the same resources (under your control) is another way to see if applications affect each other or not.

Doing the above can prove costly, hence identify under load breakpoint and monitor to see how close you are. This will help make up the budget for your infrastructure needs. 

2.     Security

You will have to address access control issues and data privacy when allocating resources and infrastructure to your cloud network. Ask these questions:

o   Is sensitive data being encrypted at the time of storage?

o   Are access control mechanisms embedded for all possible situations (at at all levels)?

The same questions need to be considered when moving your applications to a private cloud network.

3.      Third-Party Dependencies

Cloud applications provide most of their functionality by consuming external APIs and services. Proper cloud networking testing and monitoring should be conducted before any kind of implementation.

Want to know why your cloud network and applications aren’t working as they should? Contact Lean Security for cloud infrastructure and web application penetration testing today.

Eliminate The Blind Spot On Your Web Application

There is no need to develop a web or mobile application if it’s going to be offline most of the time. In addition to inconveniencing your customers, the web application won’t generate anything of value for your business!

Yes, you can select a web application support vendor who will oversee security objectives of your business, but what should you look for in such a professional?

Features, brand, and price are some common selection criteria. However, you must also explore several specific capabilities that will bring positive impact on the end-solution.

Following are 5 critical factors that should be kept in mind when choosing a managed service provider for you web application.  

False Positive Removal

Most managed services use automated vulnerability scanners to test applications (for vulnerabilities). While automated scanners do work, it’s the same as casting a large net into the ocean. These automated scanners help identify relevant, ‘real’ vulnerabilities; however, some false positives will show up as well.

It’s up to your IT and security department to sift through all vulnerabilities and find the real ones! The chosen managed service vendor therefore should be equipped to removal false positives as well.

Continuous Assessment

New zero day vulnerabilities pop up every week. If not tested regularly, the vulnerabilities can take root in your web applications and possibly wreak havoc. Continuous assessment and testing therefore is absolutely necessary, especially if you are thinking of integrating security into the software development lifecycle.

Remediation Guidance

What feature separates an excellent application security testing provider from the rest? It’s the remediation guidance.

A good remediation guidance feature will let you know the best ways to clean up your application to ensure a seamless operation. Choose your vendor based on how much remediation guidance they provide and their responsiveness towards your queries.

Risk Management Capabilities

You won’t have the important resources at your disposal to fix all vulnerabilities that crop up, especially if you operate a small scale organisation. This is one reason why choosing a professional managed service provider based on their risk monitoring and management capability is a good idea. You’ll also be able to address critical vulnerabilities in a timely fashion, before they can do much damage.

Vulnerability Risk Ratings

An important role is played by vulnerability risk ratings especially when it comes to the prioritisation and remediation process. It doesn’t matter how your organisation manages risks as your chosen vendor will be keeping a close eye on how vulnerabilities evolve in the first place. This will;

Ø  Accurately reflect potential impact

Ø  Associated damage risk

Ø  Likelihood of exploitation

Why are you wasting time and money if your current managed security service vendor doesn’t offer all of the above? Take a look at how Lean Security can help!

Avoid A Costly Security Breach With These Essential Tips

Human error is the single reason why 52% of security breaches occur in the world.

This is why Lean Security is the biggest advocate of employee training when it comes to web applications and implementation of proper security protocols.

We’ve established the importance of educating employees on security breaches.

Here, we discuss how costly security breaches can be avoided altogether!  

Emphasize the Importance of Security to Employees

Employees, both new and old, should realize risks associated with poor security practices, i.e. what will happen if they were applied in the website’s framework. Cyber criminals head straight to identity or financial theft, which holds dire consequences for everyone involved.  

Always Protect Sensitive Information

Cyber criminals and hackers are constantly on the lookout for confidential user data, in the form of email addresses, payment card numbers, and social security numbers.

They can easily gain access to this financial information, without much effort on their part. Why? The data and information is right there for access!

Most of the time it’s the user who shares such information via email. To make sure this doesn’t happen, install a secure file transfer system which encrypts data and information first before sending.

Enforce Strong Passwords on All Web Applications

This is the obvious way to protect information from getting into the wrong hands. Web applications and platforms ask users to utilize strong passwords when signing up for a site or service. We really don’t pay attention and create passwords that are easy and simple to crack.

Characteristics of a strong password are;

Ø  At least 8 characters long

Ø  Containing numbers, symbols, and capital letters

Ø  Password not created with help of a dictionary

Help Identify Phishing and Other Scams

Do your employees understand that clicking on phishing emails can cause the system to become infected with vulnerabilities? Did you know the only way to make sure vulnerabilities and viruses don’t affect web applications and an internet system is by spotting them?

Cybercriminals make use of well crafted emails by which users can be tricked. The emails contain links and attachments which can either collect data or introduce malware to the system, when clicked.

Update All Systems to the Newest System Software

Thousands of websites are scanned by hackers by the hour, in search of vulnerabilities. Upon discovery of security holes and bugs, hackers are quick to attack that software. This is why users must make sure their plugin themes and platform installations are updated and only the latest versions are installed.

Professional help can also be found in the form of Lean Security’s advanced web security testing and assessment services. Get in touch with us today and know more about the service that’s going to help make your web application more secure.