Security Testing

Security Testing

Security testing is a part of testing domain which tests the authentication of an application to examine how that application is secured from unauthorized users or hackers. Security is of pivotal importance to any organization. Every organization has to secure its information or data from financial impacts. In security testing, the tester has to perceive how to destroy the system.

In security testing there are certain principles to be followed like confidentiality which is used to check if unauthorized users are able to access the information i.e. the information and resources has to be accessed only by the authorized parties. Confidentiality of information is carried out at all the stages like processing, storage and display the information.

Integrity is used to check if the information is unaltered while sending it and receiving it from one party to the other and also display information to the users as per user’s restrictions. In authentication, we identify the users who access the data or information before they gain access. User can access data or information only if authentication check is passed. One time passwords, asking security questions are included under authentication methods.

Authorization- Once the authentication is passed, authorization is checked in which users are restricted to only a few content as per the permissions. Availability-system is available for authorized users and both databases like primary and secondary databases are maintained for data availability

In security testing areas, Network Areas, Client side and server side application security and system software security are the major ones.

In network areas security testing is conducted on the policies and resources. In client side application, testing is conducted enduring that the client cannot handle. In server side application, testing is done to ensure that server code and its technology is secured. In system software security, testing is performed on Operating System and database and other softwares that the application depends on.

Security testing is done to avoid loss of customer or client trust, to secure web applications from unauthorized users or hackers, to avoid destruction caused by the attackers, to avoid hacking of data or information, to reduce the time taken to recover from loss of data and reduce the cost to recover from the loss.

There are different types of security testing. They are, vulnerability scanning which includes whole system under test is scanned to figure out the vulnerabilities. Here we verify the vulnerable access points. In penetration testing, an attack from hackers is simulated in the existing system which includes the tester to think of destroying the application. Vulnerability is to target the assets of the company that are visible in the company’s website. Ethical hacking ensures continuous security throughout the organization and its applications. In risk assessment, risks are classified into high, medium and low based on certain factors. In security scanning, the entire system under test and finds the network weaknesses and they are fixed. In security review, it reviews all the standards and sees to it that all standards are followed through GAP analysis.