A penetration test, often known as a pen test, is a simulated cyber attack on your computer system designed to detect exploitable flaws. Penetration testing is widely used to supplement a web application firewall in the context of web application security (WAF).
Pen testing is attempting to penetrate any number of application systems (e.g., application protocol interfaces (APIs), frontend/backend servers) in order to discover vulnerabilities, such as unsanitized inputs that are vulnerable to code injection attacks.
The penetration test results may be used to fine-tune your WAF security rules and address found vulnerabilities.
Various steps of penetration testing:
1. reconnaissance and planning
The first step entails:
Defining a test’s scope and aims, including the systems to be addressed and the testing methodologies to be employed.
Obtaining intelligence (e.g., network and domain names, mail server) in order to better understand how a target operates and its possible weaknesses.
2. Scanning
The following stage is to determine how the target application will react to various intrusion attempts. This is often accomplished by employing:
- Static analysis is the process of inspecting an application’s code to estimate how it will behave while operating. These tools are capable of scanning the full code in a single pass.
- Dynamic analysis entails inspecting an application’s code while it is operating. This method of scanning is more practical since it gives a real-time picture of an application’s performance.
3. Obtaining Entry
This stage employs web application assaults such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and backdoors to identify weaknesses in a target. To understand the damage that these vulnerabilities might do, testers attempt to exploit them, often by escalating privileges, stealing data, intercepting communications, and so on.
4. Keeping access
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the vulnerability can be exploited to maintain a persistent presence in the compromised system long enough for a bad actor to get in-depth access. The goal is to mimic sophisticated persistent attacks, which may stay in a system for months and steal an organization’s most sensitive data.
5. Evaluation
The penetration test findings are then collected into a report that includes:
- Particular flaws that were exploited
- Access to sensitive information
- The amount of time the pen tester was able to remain unnoticed in the system.
Security experts use this data to assist tune an enterprise’s WAF settings and other application security solutions in order to fix holes and guard against future assaults.
Methods of penetration testing
External evaluation
External penetration tests target a firm’s internet-visible assets, such as the web application itself, the corporate website, and email and domain name servers (DNS). The objective is to obtain access and extract useful information.
Internal evaluation
In an internal test, a tester having access to an application behind the company’s firewall mimics a hostile insider attack. This is not always emulating a renegade employee. A frequent starting point is an employee whose credentials were obtained as a result of a phishing attempt.
Testing in the dark
In a blind test, a tester is merely provided with the name of the targeted organization. This provides security workers with a real-time view of how an actual application assault might occur.
Double-blind evaluation
Security workers in a double-blind test have no prior information of the simulated attack. They won’t have time to shore up their fortifications before an attempted breach, much as in the real world.
Extensive testing
In this scenario, the tester and the security officers collaborate and keep each other informed of their movements. This is an excellent training exercise that offers a security team real-time feedback from the perspective of a hacker.
Web application firewalls and penetration testing
Penetration testing and WAFs are mutually incompatible security methods.
With the exception of blind and double-blind tests, the tester is likely to leverage WAF data, such as logs, to find and exploit an application’s weak areas during various types of pen-testing.
WAF administrators may then profit from pen-testing data. Following the completion of a test, WAF settings can be modified to safeguard against the flaws detected during the test.
Finally, pen-testing meets some of the requirements for security auditing procedures, such as PCI DSS and SOC 2. Certain requirements, such as PCI-DSS 6.6, may only be met by using a certified WAF. However, because of the aforementioned benefits and flexibility to modify WAF settings, doing so does not make pen testing any less helpful.
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