Web Application Penetration Testing: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

What is Web Application Penetration Testing?

Web Application Penetration Testing  (WAPT) is a complete process of delivering the best web security posture by gathering information and recognising loopholes of the web that a cyber attacker could have exploited. It gives you a better comprehension of a web network’s strength against hackers.

Why is Web Application Penetration Testing important?

A Good Web Application Pentesting company will help you:

• Give a clear understanding of the severity of risk involved in web application security to the organisation
• Assist the organisation in securing online transactions to prevent theft
• Provide proactive & detailed solutions to secure the organisation from any type of web application exploitation
• Help you (The Client) in making secure future development strategies
• Evaluate the efficiency of the existing security approach

Process of Web Application Penetration Testing:

1. Active and Passive Information Gathering:

Active information is gathered by target systems like Network Scanners, Error Pages, Source Codes, to target websites required for identifying loopholes and misconfigurations. In Passive Information gathering, data and information is collected from direct sources like the internet or readily available target system.

2. Execution Phase:

Based on the gathered information, execution is done by targeting a system using various tools, software and backdoors to exploit vulnerabilities of the web network caused by the attackers.

3. Reporting and Analysis:

After gathering information and execution, the next process is to create a concise structure for your audit and differentiate them based on their severity so that the developers primarily focus on the most critical vulnerability and take action accordingly.

Also Read: Data Protection Officer: Roles, Responsibilities and Career Opportunity

Types of Web Application Penetration Testing:

Internal Web Penetration Testing

To find internal weaknesses that personnel with a particular level of authorized access to the internal web application network could exploit (intentionally or accidentally), internal web penetration testing is carried out within the organization. Internally, exploitation is carried out by:

• Staff Members trying to conduct cybercrime from inside to misuse, alter or spread sensitive information
• Malicious Attacks by the employees who have left the company
• Attacks on internal security Passwords & Policies
• Phishing Attacks, Social Engineering Attacks and Protocol Abuse

External Web Penetration Testing

This testing is done outside the organisation by browsing public web pages and identifying information about the target host to unravel the passwords and gain access to the data. External Testing includes:

• Organisation firewall
• Organisation server
• IDS

Top Penetration Testing Tools:

Netsparker:

It is one of the powerful automatic web application penetration testing tools that can scan up to 1000+ web applications in one day and evaluate everything from cross-site scripting to SQL injection. It is a popular tool used by developers to find SQL & XSS vulnerabilities in web applications and take advantage of weak spots in an instantly readable way. It gives an accurate proof-based detection of the attacks and helps in preparing regulatory compliance reports.

Wireshark:

Software called Wireshark, formerly known as Ethereal 0.2.0, is capable of capturing and analyzing network packets, including source and destination protocols, both online and offline. It provides a clear analysis and looks into every aspect of a network of web applications. For a number of operating systems, including Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Linux, this open-source program is accessible.

Metasploit: 

It is one of the most used pen testing tools that helps developer teams verify and control security assessment, enhance the experience and empower defenders to constantly stay a step forward in the hacking game. The tool collects testing data for over 1500 exploits and examines existing vulnerabilities within the infrastructure. This is a very easy-to-use GUI clickable interface tool that is best for the beginner hacker to gain knowledge and identify vulnerabilities and security flaws to set up defensive measures.

Burp Suite Pen Tester:

It is an automated advanced penetration testing tool ideal for scanning activities of web-based applications. It comes in free as well as an advanced version of checking browser and destination servers.

Network Mapper:

Nmap (Network Mapper) is a free and open-source utility for network discovery and security auditing. Developers also use Nmap in the planning process for the availability of the host network, services offered by hosts and the operating system they are running and detect vulnerabilities from the backdoor to execute exploitation.

Astra Pen Testing:

This is a comprehensive & interactive pentest dashboard that analyses vulnerabilities & gives them appropriate rank. 0 false positives have been ensured by the manual pen tester and provided intensive remedy support.

HackerOne:

It is the top hacking-generated sheltered platform that assists developers in fixing critical vulnerabilities and warns you before the vulnerabilities are found. It encourages you to communicate directly with the team by using this tool and provides amalgamation with products like GitHub and Jira.

Invicti:

It is an extremely accurate automated scanner that reduces the amount of time required for manual verification by helping to check vulnerabilities with full confirmation that they are genuine and free of false positives.

Just a little loosening in your focus can lead to financial and goodwill loss. You can gain complete knowledge regarding WAPT from taking cyber security course in ahmedabad. It will help you in breaking the vulnerabilities before attackers destroy any network / server. Cyber octet is one such organisation that effectively detects loopholes and takes proactive actions to safeguard data and information from malicious attacks.