What is Web Application Penetration Testing Methodology

The web application penetration test service from Detox includes both unauthenticated and authenticated testing, with a concentration on detecting vulnerabilities linked with the OWASP Top 10 Most Critical Application Vulnerabilities.

A penetration test is more than just an automated vulnerability scan, and a substantial percentage of web application penetration testing is a manual process with a professional engineer seeking to detect, exploit, and assess the associated risk of security flaws.

The whole web application penetration testing method is divided into three stages, each with multiple sub-stages.

PLANNING

Gather information for scoping

The client’s scoping/target information will be obtained after the project is launched. This information generally includes all the assets of the organisation/Target i.e domains, credentials for different roles and also list of restricted portions of the application that should not be scanned or exploited in the case of web application penetration testing.

2. Review the Engagement Rules

A brief discussion with the client will take place to review and acknowledge the penetration testing rules of engagement, confirm the project scope and testing time frame, specify specific testing objectives, document any testing constraints or restrictions, and answer any project-related questions.

Execution

Gathering Intelligence is the first step in the execution process.

A start notification will be delivered to the client after the test has officially begun, informing them of the activity’s start. Open-source intelligence gathering will be the initial phase, which will comprise an examination of publicly available information and resources.

The purpose of this step is to find any sensitive information that could be useful during the subsequent testing phases, such as email addresses, usernames, programme information, user manuals, forum postings, and so on.

Tools which can be used: Recon-ng, Maltego, Google Hacking, and the Wayback Machine are examples of possible tools.

2. Modeling of Threats

The threat modelling portion of this assessment is used to assess the types of threats that may influence the targets that are in scope. Throughout the evaluation, risk rankings/priorities will be assigned to vulnerabilities based on the sorts of assaults and the likelihood of these threats materialising. To confirm the veracity of vulnerabilities detected, the testing perspective (external, internal, authenticated, unauthenticated, etc.) will be identified.

Manual discovery and crawling of the application should also be included in this phase of the evaluation, as well as determining business functionality from both an authenticated and unauthenticated standpoint. To assess packet-level traffic and response headers, an application proxy will be employed.

Tools which can be used: Burp Suite Pro, Cookies Manager+, and NoRedirect are examples of tools.

3. Analysis of Vulnerabilities

At both the network and application layers, the vulnerability analysis phase will include the detection and enumeration of all in-scope targets/applications. Detox Technologies will use port scans, banner analysis, and vulnerability scans at the network layer to assess the attack surface of all in-scope assets.

Detox will execute automatic vulnerability scans at the application layer, starting with the unauthenticated perspective and progressing to each of the in-scope, authenticated roles.

Detox Technologies would then manually identify vulnerabilities involving form submission and application input points, looking for issues like SQL injection, command injection, XPath, LDAP, XXE, XSS, error analysis, file uploads, and so on. Finally, based on given software versions, Detox Technologies will attempt directory brute-forcing and vulnerability detection.

Tools Which can be Used: Burp Suite Pro, Nessus, Dirbuster/Dirb, Nikto, Searchsploit

4. Exploitation

This phase will entail attempting to exploit all potential vulnerabilities discovered in the previous rounds of the assessment in the same way that an attacker would.

This assists in determining the true risk level associated with successful exploitation of the vulnerability, analysing the likelihood of exploit/attack chains, and accounting for any mitigating controls in place. During this activity, we’ll also look for any false positives.

Detox Security Team will analyse issues that require manual identification and exploitation as well as exploit automatically detected vulnerabilities. Business logic issues, authentication/authorisation bypasses, direct object references, parameter tampering, and session management will all be covered.

Burp Suite Pro, Metasploit Framework, sqlmap, and B33F are examples of tools.

Post Exploitation

Making a report

Detox Technologies will formally document the findings after completing the active portion of the exam. An executive-level report and a technical findings report are typically included in the deliverables.

The executive-level report comprises a high-level overview of the assessment activities, scope, the most critical/thematic concerns detected, overall risk scoring, organisational security strengths, and relevant screenshots. The technical findings report, on the other hand, will detail each vulnerability, including how to reproduce the problem, understand the risk, proposed repair methods, and useful reference links.

2. Quality Control

All evaluations are subjected to a thorough technical and editorial quality assurance process. Follow-ups with the client to confirm or refute environmental information may also be necessary.

3. Presentation

The presenting of all documentation to the customer is the final activity in any evaluation. Detox Team will go over the material with the customer, make any necessary revisions, and answer any questions about the assessment results. Following this action, we’ll submit fresh documentation changes and, if necessary, schedule formal retesting.

Conclusion

We understand the effort and amount of detail that goes into application development at Detox Technologies (we’re highly experienced developers! ), thus we know firsthand how simple it is to overlook some security problems. Unfortunately, hackers are aware of this.

They’ll be on the lookout for ways to actively exploit these flaws, such as SQL injection, social engineering, phishing, malware injection, or leveraging other web application vulnerabilities. To counteract these unscrupulous actors, we’ll conduct a risk and vulnerability assessment to assist us completely understand your setups and uncover any potential vulnerabilities. After that, we’ll utilise our powerful testing tools to assess how your web application holds up to our pen-testing.

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