Major Challenges Faced by Testers while Performing Security Testing

Today, most of the software applications are written using web technologies that can be accessed anywhere and anytime using the Internet. Things have evolved over the years; especially security of browser-based applications as compared to conventional client based architecture is not the same. There is a huge gap between codes that run on a computer as compared to websites that run inside a browser. Therefore, security testing holds immense importance for web based applications. This has resulted in a huge demand for testers. If we talk about testers having the expertise in this area, web application security has proven to be a daunting task.

How is Security related to your Testing?

Security Testing is a technique to ensure whether a system protects data and maintains functionality as expected. Security testing covers a larger test space as compared to functional testing. While testing security aspects, you can try automating most of the part that is possible and work smartly with the rest. Developers have a comparatively tougher job, as they are required to write algorithms to resolve an NP-complete problem (complete path traversal) efficiently.  The key is to precisely select the speed of traversal, as there is a lot to do.

1. High-priority vulnerability

You can make trade-offs in resources and coverage while performing functional testing. In addition, you can analyze and narrow the scope of testing by focusing on the critical aspects from a business perspective and considering those that are mostly used. However, it is always better to test the entire application with certain non-critical bugs identified, but not fixed.  The scenario is just vice-versa in the case of security testing. Here, even a non-critical issue can cause similar damage as one on the application’s login page.

2. Test hidden parts of the application

A functional tester is concerned with testing an application’s front-end and back-end interface. A performance tester is primarily concerned with the load levels that a back-end can handle. The test target is defined by the application in all other cases. However, in security testing you must defend against a variety of unspecified attacks:

  • An SQL injection attack through textboxes, radio-buttons, drop-downs, and other UI controls.
  • A hidden POST parameter
  • A GET parameter
  • A cookie value

3. Protect application from damage

Testers must consider the behavior of the application under test if the user were to perform normal or at worse random actions. However, if a user modifies the value of a cookie, they should not validate or verify the application’s behavior in the functional testing phase. In case of security testing, testers are expected to consider the entire ways that a user might willfully damage the application under test. This would increase the number of areas to be considered while performing security testing.

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