Working in a software organisation, we all know the perfect time to release the product – when the product has passed the security test. This is why security testing has been and even today is the core of software testing because without receiving a clean chit by security testing, the product is withheld. The testers do a hard core task by aligning with the developers, business and product group to create strategies in understanding the vulnerabilities of the product, the threat points, and hacker’s databank to hack the system, to actuate the ingredients they would require to make the product fenced and rigid in order to face any security outbreak.
Security testing has a distinct relationship with software quality. Just because software meets quality requirements related to functionality and performance, it does not necessary mean that the software is secure. Security testing is a process to determine that the system protects data and maintains functionality as intended. A measure intended to allow the receiver to determine that the information which it is providing is correct.
Initially security testing is on the to-do list of the core functional team itself. Keeping in mind the increase in software complexities and software supply chain, it’s almost impossible to guarantee vulnerable free software. Checklists and guidelines from enterprises that promote web security have proven very useful to help in planning and implementing a security test effort. However, after the initial security testing, further to go into details, be it pen testing, white hat testing, security test experts are sought after. Based on their tests and feedback, they submit a report on the product’s security status, which is almost like a certification for the organization that the product is secure for the release to web.
It is an extremely important task to verify the security of the system because there has been no drought for web security infringes in the recent times. Security testing involves determining who should do it and what activities they should undertake. So, the team to perform security testing should be a group of skilled testers. Security is always relative to the information and services being protected, the skills and resources of adversaries, and the costs of potential assurance remedies; security is an exercise in risk management. Risk analysis, especially at the design level, can help us identify potential security problems and their impact.
While the skilled team plans and executes the security testing effort within a given release, the landscape is so vast and dynamic that it requires an on-going resident expert team that is keeping an eye for newer designs, hacks and trends on the software security globe, relating them to their product at hand and working with the developers to toughen the system to handle them. Security testing thus becomes out of band in nature with a need for on-going monitoring, analysis and fixing and in this regard differentiates itself from other types of software testing. Ensuring suitable testing of all software is not a petty matter.
Taking all the complexities into consideration, it is of extreme importance to find the vulnerabilities of system and determine that its data and resources are protected from possible intruder.
Also read: Launching your app/product without testing is Heinous!
