Vulnerability Testing

Software testing is a process to identify defects or bugs in a system. Software testing has various testing types that are used per an application’s requirements. Security is an essential requirement of an application. Applications are mostly hacked, and unauthorized access to steal information or money from the application. To address the security problem of an application Vulnerability testing was introduced. Vulnerability testing is s process to identify security vulnerabilities in an application.

What is Vulnerability Testing?

Vulnerability testing or Vulnerability Assessment is a process to identify the loopholes in the security to reduce the security attacks in the application; identification and reducing the vulnerable areas that are prone to hacker attacks is called Vulnerability testing. It is one of the software testing techniques that is crucial for an application that demands high security and is more likely to attack or unauthorized access.

For example, all POS applications, Banking applications, etc have high chances of malicious attacks as they deal with money. These applications must go through vulnerability testing to ensure they are safe to use and protect customers’ confidential data.
There are various tools and techniques available to process vulnerability testing, some of them are Intruder, Acunetix, Nessus, etc. Vulnerability is based on the following types:

1. Data-based.
2. Host-based.
3. Network-based.

Vulnerability can be due to the following reasons:

• Internal design issues.
• Properly not following the security development process.
• Design architecture.
• Test failure.
• Uncover test scenario.

Why Vulnerability Testing?

Vulnerability testing unfolds the security loopholes which helps the developer to cover them and safeguard an application. Some of the key points for doing vulnerability testing are as:

• Security: To make a system more secure and reliable, so that there is no unauthentic access and no hacker attack. Vulnerability testing tests the system to identify the security loopholes in the system and reduce them by referring them to the concerned developing team.
• Design issues: In vulnerability testing, the operating system, application software, and network are scanned to identify the security leakage that helps in identifying the drawbacks in designing the application and helps a developer to know the vulnerable areas and redesign them.
• Prioritize the security issues: Vulnerability testing identifies the insecure design issues and helps the developer to prioritize them as per severity.
• Password strengthening: The most important security option is the password, testers validate that the password option is secure enough not to be cracked by attackers.

Vulnerability Testing Process

There are five simple steps in the vulnerability testing process:

1. Planning: Plan the testing by knowing the requirements of the system with documentation The planning phase includes everything from starting to the end of the testing, covering areas to test which can be:

• Data-based vulnerability testing: where data is tested to identify loopholes in the security of the data.
• Network-based: Testing the network issue which can harm the security of an application.
• Operating system based: Sometimes, there can be issues with security in the OS over which the application works.

Testers define the scope of testing like the internal and external design of the system and these are of 3 types:

• Black box testing: The tester knows the external design of the system and can cover the external vulnerable areas only.
• Grey box testing: It is a combined form of black box and grey box testing and the tester can review vulnerable areas in the complete system.
• White box testing: The tester knows the internal design of the system.

2. Collect Information: Collect all possible information that is helpful to cover maximum vulnerabilities from network, OS, unauthentic access, hacking ways, and more. The information applies to all scopes of vulnerability testing. The information helps in knowing the ways to break the security of an application. 

3. Identify vulnerable areas: After collecting information, test the application by writing test cases and covering all test scenarios to identify the vulnerable areas.

1.  Vulnerable scanners are used to identify all possible unsecured areas. Testers use both manual and automation testing techniques.
2.  Assign priority (low, medium, high) to the identified vulnerable areas to make it easy for to resolve by developers.
3. Developers deal with security leakage by implementing the design of the system.
4. Identification of all possible areas with resources to make a secure system.

4. Report: After covering all vulnerable areas make a deeply examined report and address it to the development team to secure the system.

5. Remediation: The testing team delivers the report to the development team, where remedies are identified to:

1. Find ways for all vulnerable areas.
2. Apply a security mechanism to cover the security loophole.

Types of Vulnerability Scanners

Vulnerability scanners are automated tools to scan all IT assets on the network to disclose the vulnerability areas. These tools are paid and freely available. There are five types of vulnerability scanners:

1. Host-based:  A host is a web server to connect with other servers on the internet and communicates with them. The host-based scanner identifies vulnerabilities in the workstation, OS platform, and other related areas. It also calculates the damage to the system due to unauthorized access. The host-based vulnerability scanner identifies the vulnerable areas and resolves the detected damage and identifies the damage level.
2. Network-based: It identifies the possible vulnerable areas over the network as the application interacts with the internet to provide services to users. It tries to identify security attacks on wired or wireless networks by scanning the application on the network. It scans all devices and software working over the network to identify security loopholes.
3. Database-based: A database is most prone to hackers’ attacks as it contains an organization’s confidential information. If the database is attacked it affects the brand value, revenue, and trust of customers. Scanning the database of an application to unfold the weak areas of the database that are vulnerable to attack or are insecure and find ways to cover insecure areas.
4. Application-based: These scanners scan an application to identify vulnerabilities in the application due to updating an application. Cyberattacks are the most common security attacks on an application, they add malicious data into the website’s original data that breaks the customer’s trust. A vulnerability scanner helps in determining the new and existing vulnerabilities with the amount of damage reported in an application.
5. Wireless-based: The wireless scanners scan the ports and identify the security issues in the network of an application. After identifying the security weak points, it reports the team and the developer tries to strengthen the security by using encryption or other ways.

Tools for Vulnerability Testing

1. Intruder: It aims to find security weaknesses before any hacker attacks. It is an online vulnerability scanner to identify the security drawbacks of an application. It is a paid scanner and provides a free demo. Its features are:

• Automatically scan an application to find loopholes.
• Alert the application when new ports are accessed and some new changes are made in an application.
• Experts provide continuous penetration testing with high coverage to an application.
• It helps in reducing the time between finding vulnerable areas and fixing them, as it continuously checks an application.
• Secured the whole IT infrastructure from all IT assets to ports.

2. Acunetix: It is a vulnerability scanner for websites, web applications, and APIs. It is a paid scanner and you can use its demo version to know more about it. Features of Acunetix are:

• It is easy to use.
• It is automated and can detect around 7000 vulnerabilities including all vulnerable areas.
• It uses advanced scanning technology to scan all web pages and even password-protected web pages.
• It helps in identifying the true vulnerabilities.
• It prioritizes the vulnerable areas to know their impact on the web page or an application.

3. Frontline: It is the most popular vulnerability scanner with 4.5 ratings and is a network vulnerability scanner. Along with finding vulnerable areas it also defines its remedies. The features of Frontliner are as:

• It is user-friendly.
• It fixes some vulnerabilities just with a single click.
• Along with identifying vulnerable areas, it also makes its priority list for early fixing highly vulnerable issues.
• It identifies the security issues before any cyber attack and helps in securing the application.  

4. Nexus: The highly demanding vulnerability scanner with around 2 million downloads. It is a freely available scanner and developed by Sonatype to identify security loopholes. Some of the features of Nexus are as:

• Easy 3-step scanning process.
• Provide open risks in the applications.
• Way to cover highly vulnerable areas.
• Identify the security risk in the early stages. 

5. Nessus:  it is a freely available tool for non-enterprises and a minimum charge for enterprise use, it is sold by Tenable Security. It alerts the testing team on finding some vulnerable areas and provides mitigation measures. Some of the features of Nessus are as:

• It identifies malicious attacks and quickly identifies vulnerable areas.
• High-speed recovery of IT assets.
• Recovery of sensitive data.
• It provides port scanning. 

Difference between Vulnerability Testing and Penetration Testing

Below is the difference between vulnerability testing and penetration testing.

Parameters	Vulnerability Testing	Penetration testing
Definition	It is a complex testing technique to find the security vulnerable areas.	It is a testing technique to find the weakness of the system
Testing mode	It is automated testing.	It is a manual testing process.
The type of System	It is for non-critical systems.	It is for critical real-time systems.
Another name	It is also called a Vulnerability assessment.	It is also called Pen Testing.
Purpose	It uncovers security vulnerabilities and tries to reduce the attack and threat probability.	It finds and tests vulnerable areas in a system.
Duration of testing	Testing is performed whenever a new IT asset is introduced.	This testing is done once a year.
Areas of testing	It operates in five parts: host-based scanning, database scanning, wireless scanning, network scanning, and application based.	It is performed only on the application.

Advantages of Vulnerability Testing

1. Security: It enhances the security of an application by securing it from malicious attacks, unauthorized access, etc. Security is the foremost requirement of the digital world. Vulnerability testing tries to find all vulnerabilities in the application. 
2. Automated: It is an automated testing approach that reduces testers’ burden and consumes less time.
3. Successful application: A successful working application that is secure and fulfills user requirements.
4. Easy to execute: The testing is easy to execute due to automation tools and scanners to scan the application to identify vulnerabilities.
5. Scanning tools: There are several scanning tools to scan applications, networks, databases, and hosts. The tools are paid and freely available to reduce the work of the testing team.

Disadvantages of Vulnerability Testing

1. Costly: It is costly and adds an amount to the testing process.
2. Cannot find new vulnerabilities: It is unsuccessful in finding new vulnerabilities, and the application fails to gain security.
3. Low success rate: Its success rate is not very high due to the discovery of a new way to attack the security of networks, applications, databases, and other IT assets.