[2024 Updated] What is Application Security Testing?
Due to the dynamic behaviour of the internet and business needs, organizations have to worry about application security as businesses use it excessively to streamline operations.
Mobile apps are found to be the most significant source of data breaches, leading to severe business damage. So, enterprises are adapting advanced application security testing (AST) in the software development life cycle to deal with these problems effectively.
Checking software security helps find and fix issues before it is released. Testing app safety helps software developers keep their programs more secure by carefully studying the code in advanced ways.
1What is Application Security Testing?
Application security testing involves various practices and technologies to ensure the high-level security of applications by developers from early development stages to deployment and maintenance.
AST includes testing, auditing, reporting, and analysing software applications to generate secure codes and add preventive measures against possible internal and external threats to devices and data.
AST has also undergone various phases, from manual to the latest automated testing of software processes. Today, most organizations are utilizing multiple AST tools to ensure the high-end security of applications for their businesses.
The primary goal of AST is to reduce vulnerabilities from released apps by identifying and addressing their root causes and mitigating potential impacts on business operations.
26 Types of AST Tools
Here are the six most common types of AST tools:
- Static Application Security Testing
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) is a white-box testing technique that involves developers with excellent knowledge and understanding of software codes. They analyze the actual code and investigate non-compiled code to identify issues. SAST can work without the execution of the application during the production phase.It provides static analysis techniques to analyze the source code and binaries to find weaknesses and expose vulnerabilities. It ensures the implementation of standard and secure coding practices like CERT, CWE, and OWASP to help developers create a strong, highly secure app. It also provides reports and feedback for developers to analyze and immediately remove the flaws.
- Dynamic Application Security Testing
DAST works on a black box testing approach that helps developers analyze issues during app run time and identify vulnerabilities. Unlike SAST, security testers are unaware of the app architecture during dynamic application security testing.It is an automated security testing suitable for low-risk applications, and for critical apps, DAST must be implemented with web security testing techniques to get practical outputs. DAST identifies issues with requests, responses, scripts, memory breaches, session handling, data injections, and authentications.
- Interactive Application Security Testing
SAST and DAST tools have changed to Interactive Application Security Testing techniques for finding additional security vulnerabilities. IAST performs collective functions of both SAST and DAST.Like DAST tools, it checks software while it's running in real-time and also checks the built-in program code in the application server directly, just like SAST tools. These tools are perfect for scanning the source code, data flaws, and third-party libraries to ensure smooth and accurate API testing.
- Runtime Application Self-Protection
Runtime application self-protection (RASP) is an advanced tool originating from SAST, DAST, and IAST. These tools check the traffic at run time and analyze their behavior to identify suspicious activities and malicious content.It helps to secure data on devices and makes application security stronger. It can visualize the source code and highlight the issues, just like SAST. RASP identifies the threats and provides instant protection by notifying the administrators or breaking the session at run time.
- Mobile Application Security Testing
Mobile application security testing is a valuable technique for secure mobile applications. It is strengthened enough due to the combination of static and dynamic testing techniques and investigation for digital forensic techniques.MAST enables a thorough diagnosis of threats and issues specifically for mobile devices that might occur due to weak mobile app security. Some common vulnerabilities MAST identifies are jailbreaking, spoofed Wi-Fi connections, device rooting, and validation of certificates.
- Software Composition Analysis
SCA can only find vulnerabilities in open-source components and cannot find them in proprietary components. They are particularly good at detecting vulnerabilities in open-source components by analyzing the software's libraries and source code.Additionally, they detect and inform if an element is outdated or repairable. SCA identifies dangerous vulnerabilities by carefully identifying the components and version of applications being utilized and then removing them. SCA tools typically use the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, however some commercial programs may use proprietary sources for detailed descriptions.
3What Are the Challenges of Application Security?
- Data Breaches
Data breaches are common but challenging for enterprises using multiple applications with different security levels. Data breaches result in high financial and reputational loss for enterprises, and the primary reasons for their occurrence are misconfigurations, malware infections, and compromised credentials.Enterprises and developers must implement high-security measures like SSL encryption, regular scanning of activities, and identification of phishing and other malware attacks to overcome this challenge.
- DDoS Attacks
DDoS attacks prevent the proper function of apps, making it challenging for people to use them. They are introduced into the application and available in different types, like SYN Flood and HTTP Flood.
You can protect yourself from DDoS attacks using robust security techniques and watching tools to find unusually high traffic. - Improper Security Testing
Compromise on adequate security tests on applications results in the entry of vulnerabilities to the network. You cannot find all the vulnerabilities with a single security testing tool. So, use maximum testing techniques and tools to meet all security endpoints for app security.Maintaining the testing results for proper remediation of issues is also necessary.
- Inadequate Visibility
It is crucial to identify issues in apps carefully at early stages; otherwise, it can cause severe damage and increase the costs and time for resolving problems.Utilize automated tools and testing techniques to remove issues at the starting phase.
- Improper Access Controls
Access control management is crucial to ensure application security, but it is hard to manage manually. You can use technologies and tools to manage access controls effectively. Lockdown devices into specific apps and only approved apps can be used. It also can increase the risk of attacks.
4When and How to Use AST Tools?
Multiple AST tools are utilized at various stages of the application development lifecycle to ensure the safest utilization of app functionalities in business operations. Here are some significant uses of AST tools at different phases:
- Development Phase
Conduct SAST during the development phase to identify potential risks and vulnerability stages. You have to run such testing tools regularly during the development phase to fix issues instantly.
Software composition analysis is also a crucial testing tool for the development phase. It identifies and manages open-source components to track malicious activities in third-party libraries and incorporates completely secure and only known components. - Integration Phase
Implementing SCA testing is more appropriate at the integration phase than other testing techniques. This analysis helps to monitor and manage the dependencies, keeping the insecure components away from the application. - Acceptance Stage
Implementing SAST, DAST, and MAST tools is better to ensure high application security. Conduct SAST for final testing before deployment so if any vulnerability occurs in recent development phases, it will be detected and removed.
Mobile application security tests are compulsory at this stage while developing a mobile application. MAST ensures the identification of security threats concerned explicitly with mobile devices.
You also need to test the application at run-time using DAST tools so they can promptly address the vulnerabilities left undiscovered in SAST. - Pre-Production Stage
At the pre-production phase of the app development life cycle, it is necessary to test the app using SAST, DAST, MAST, and IAST tools. Analyzing the application through interactive application security testing enables developers to ensure real-time application diagnosis at run-time to avoid vulnerabilities.
How to Use AST tools?
- First, choose the right tools for application security testing and then integrate them into the development workflow to automate the testing.
- Then, customize the testing configurations and collaborate with the development and testing team. It is a critical phase to analyze application vulnerabilities and code errors.
- Regularly update the testing tools and focus on high-risk vulnerabilities to fix them instantly.
5The Advantages of Implementing AST
Application security testing (AST) offers several benefits to enterprises.
- Software Reliability
Application security testing improves software reliability by ensuring that apps operate securely without vulnerabilities, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive corporate data. AST provides a strong defense against malicious attacks and timely identification and removal. - Improved Compliance and Increased Privacy
AST helps businesses to ensure compliance with specific industry regulations like the healthcare and banking industries, where data security is the primary concern of every entity involved, especially government authorities. Compliance also prevents companies from facing legal consequences and fines. - Build User/Customer Trust
Customers only prefer trustworthy business entities. Having secure apps helps in building trust in the market. AST allows enterprises and organizations to elaborate and verify to customers that their apps are highly secure and tested with the latest testing tools. - Increased Agility
Appropriate AST tools and strategies help businesses and developers swiftly identify security threats and weaknesses in the application. It allows them to remove useless and insecure features and rapidly deploy new features to ensure high-level security.
63 Best Practices for Application Security Testing
- Utilizing Automated Testing Tools
Enterprises can ensure secure application usage by utilizing the latest automated testing tools. These are the most efficient tools for software development teams to detect vulnerabilities. These tools are automatically integrated to search for potential vulnerabilities in the application source code.They can identify SQL injections and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in the code during the development phase to prevent data leakage and misuse. Automated testing saves time and resources and helps developers ensure comprehensive code checking to make it better and optimized.
- Regularly Updating and Maintaining Security Measures
It is mandatory to regularly update and maintain application security parameters to ensure the long-term running and stability of businesses. It also improves the software's health, makes it more sophisticated to perform tasks, and improves processing speed.The primary reason for regular security updates is the dynamic nature of application security, which is always challenging due to evolving threats. It also helps strengthen firewall security and access controls, and continuous network and system maintenance and updates can lead to data breaches and system failure for businesses.
- Shift-Left Approach
With the advent of the shift-left approach, the process of security assessments has become advanced and necessarily done in earlier stages of app development. It is a proactive approach to creating robust and secure software by allowing teams to collaborate and mitigate risks at the beginning of the development process.It detects and addresses vulnerabilities faster, reducing costs for fixing problems and weaknesses. It also ensures applications' stability and long-term security by mitigating new vulnerabilities at later stages.
7Mobile App vs. Web App vs. Cloud App
| Mobile App | Web App | Cloud App | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mobile apps are developed explicitly for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. You can download and install the apps on your smart devices using specific app stores like Google Play Store or Apple Store. | A web application is also a software application that needs no downloading or installation, like mobile apps. It is directly run on a web browser using the internet. | Cloud-based applications are available on a specific cloud from where you can use it to perform business operations. Their performance and security are based on the cloud service providers. |
| Data Storage | Data is stored on the device having the app. | Data is stored either on the client or server side. | Data is stored on cloud. |
| Access Controls | Access controls are confined to device-specific controls. | Dependent on browser-based access controls. | Depends on cloud access management procedure. |
| Privacy | Can pose security concerns to the device data. | Privacy issues may arise for data stored at client side. | Privacy can be breached if cloud is not managed with robust security measures. |
| Testing | You can secure it using mobile application security testing. | It can be secured using web application security testing. | Cypress, Selenium, Nessus are some important tools for cloud based apps. |
8Final Thoughts
Application security testing is vital to ensure data safety for business entities and other officials. Various automated tools are available to ensure app security during different phases of the application development lifecycle. Testing of apps is a never-ending process that continues until the app is operational.
Some standard AST tools are SAST, DAST, IAST, RASP, MAST, and SCA. You can utilize these tools to ensure the security of apps from different angles. Common challenges of application security are data breaches, DDoS Attacks, improper Security Testing, inadequate Visibility, and improper Access Controls.
Developers and business security teams can benefit from AST tools like data security and compliance. You must follow best practices to ensure efficient security parameters for optimized app security.
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