Why Vulnerability Testing Is A Vital Part Of Security Management?
For all the software applications, be it a mobile app, a web app or a website, or any digital product, the need of network security is extremely critical these days.
Why? Because the network security requirements are needed more than ever due to the range of cybersecurity issues turning up everyday. This has become a hassle for global businesses.
This asks for professional QA and software testing services to take care of such software glitches or vulnerabilities in order to build completely secure, robust, and quality digital products.
Holding or conducting constant vulnerability testing can be helpful in understanding structural weaknesses within the IT infrastructure of the organization and also in protecting assets.
A comprehensive vulnerability testing gives you extensive knowledge about your digital assets, general risks and flaws in security mechanism, potentially reducing the possibility of cyberattacks.
In this article, we will explore why Vulnerability Testing is essential and what steps can be taken to secure an organization’s assets.
What is Vulnerability Testing?
Vulnerability testing or Vulnerability Assessment refers to a process that identifies security loopholes in the IT environment of an organization with the purpose of reducing the possibilities of unauthorized access and breach of data.
It consists of a base-level testing of the cybersecurity posture of a business or an organization that leverage for security teams a list of possible threats and loopholes.
Conventionally, vulnerability testing is followed by penetration testing, which targets at the simulation of actions of external and internal intruders.
Although, both these processes are components of the mechanism for vulnerability testing and penetration testing, there exist a number of differences between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing.
Vulnerability assessment typically leverage open-source vulnerability testing tools such as vulnerability scanners for identifying the threats and flaws within the organization’s IT infrastructure.
This process allows organizations the application of a consistent and transparent approach of identifying and resolving bona-fide security threats and risks.
Benefits of Vulnerability Testing
1. Attending vulnerable areas before they receive cyberattacks
Network security exposures are often a result of improper coding and misconfiguration of IT security risk management. These weak areas can be exploited
by the hackers in order to obtain access to confidential data and execute unauthorized commands.
Managed service security providers utilize scanning tools that identify and quantify vulnerabilities in the digital environment of the organization so that the vulnerabilities can be addressed before they have been exploited by the hackers. Vulnerability assessment should be performed after regular intervals and also when a new service or feature is added in the mechanism.
2. Understanding the Risk Level
A vulnerability testing leverages the measurement of organization’s IT hygiene. During an assessment, a tool for detection works on identifying and quantifying risk exposure across all software and hardware assets of the organization.
After this the detection tool produces a report listing and scoring the detected assets and their level of susceptibility. By this, you can gain a better understanding of the risk prone areas of the IT environment of the organization.
3. Management and Allocation of Resources Efficiently
The reports obtained through scanning of the assets in the IT environment of the organization show each asset’s level of risk exposure. By knowing which areas are most vulnerable, the allocation of security resources can be done efficiently to incur updates and patching in the software that needs immediate attention.
4. Effective Security Systems Improvements
Identifying exploitable vulnerabilities of every asset within the system of organization shows which asset should be upgraded or improved instead of just patching that. Upgrading the technology will enhance the overall performance, productivity and business efficiency of the system of organization.
5. Enhance Credibility among Customers, Partners, and Stakeholders
Customers, Partners and Stakeholders value organizations that reflects honesty about the security measures they have placed in order to ensure protection of their privacy.
Arranging a comprehensive security plan makes it simple effectively communicating the organization’s security strategy to customers and enhances the credibility of the business or organization.
Regular vulnerability testing is an essential component of successful information security risk management of organizations. These assessments and testing assist in mitigating security breaches by showing that what areas of the IT infrastructure need patching and where to start first.
How to Conduct Vulnerability Testing?
Vulnerability testing or vulnerability assessment typically incorporates following major steps:
1. Planning
This is the first step in any vulnerability testing and in helpful in establishing the goals and scope of this type of testing method. This enables the person who is to conduct the testing for evaluating the rules of engagement.
This step of the process i.e., planning helps identifying all the relevant information and essential resources available to the testing person.
2. Gathering information
After outlining a clear and detailed plan, the next step comes in the vulnerability testing or vulnerability assessment is gathering any pertinent information about a provided web or mobile application and the inherent infrastructure of the same.
This step may include business logic, privilege requirements, and any other data that could be useful while the actual testing step is being performed.
3. Identifying Vulnerabilities
Once all the relevant information has been collected, the uncovering of any existing weaknesses in the system should be sought. This part of the process can be accomplished through using both manual and automated processes.
Should complicated issues be found, the penetration testing in tandem with the vulnerability testing be performed is highly recommended.
4. Compiling a Report
This is undoubtedly the most crucial phase of the process of vulnerability testing. All your efforts will go in vain and will be proved useless if a detailed, comprehensive and all-inclusive report explaining what weaknesses your IT infrastructure contains and offering solutions about how they can be addressed in order to mitigate risks, is not prepared.
This information can be utilized for improving the IT infrastructure of the organization by the cybersecurity personnel.
A vulnerability testing involves several methods, instruments, and scanners for searching and locating grey areas in a system or network.
The type of vulnerability testing depends on how refined is the manner the discovery of the weakness has been done in a provided system. Below are some common types of vulnerability testing scans:
5. Host-based Scans
These scans involve comprehensive and detailed testing of processes, ports and functions in the system or network.
These scans are utilized for finding weaknesses and vulnerabilities in servers and network hosts. Host-based scans also leverage greater visibility into the IT systems’ configuration settings and patch history.
6. Wireless Network Scans
Wireless Network Scans are the type of vulnerability assessment procedures that works around a wireless system and are helpful in the validation of the security of an organization’s network.
7. Network-based Scanners
Network-based vulnerability scanners identify potential network security attacks and vulnerable mechanisms on wired or wireless networks.
Network-based scanners are for discovering unknown or unauthorized devices and systems on a network, help determining if there are unknown perimeter points on the system, like unauthorized server for remote access, or connections to business partners’ insecure networks.
8. Database Scans
Database scans are crucial for finding out the pain points in the database and fixing them before they are become prone to cyberattacks in the hands of cybercriminals.
These types of scans help taking proper measures for avoiding SQL injection attacks and other types of threats by the security team of the organization.
9. Application Scanners
Application Vulnerability Scanners are for testing websites in order to detect known and recognized software weaknesses or vulnerabilities along with erroneous configurations in network or web-based applications.
Your IT security partner should be capable of carrying out different types of vulnerability scans, like Credentialed and non-credentialed scans, external vulnerability scans, internal vulnerability scans and environmental scans.
The results and feedback come out of the procedure of assessment should includequantity and quality of vulnerabilities, excluding any false positives and false negatives; actionability of results; recommendations for ongoing vulnerability management including the utilization of other tools for IT security; and frequency of updates.
Vulnerability testing should provide clear, actionable information on every threat identified in the assessment process, and the corrective actions required to make
improvements in the network. This leverages IT to prioritize fixes against the overall cyber-risk profile of the company.
Vulnerability testing, is a fundamental part of overall risk management that has the potential of significantly reducing the exposure to cyber threats, and boosting the baseline of system and data protection across the entire organization.
Final Say
While leveraging several types of scans is a crucial step for risk mitigation, an effective program for vulnerability assessment will go beyond scanning intermittently.
We continuously and automatically identify and develop an inventory of all IT assets such as servers, computer devices, mobile devices etc., and analyze and detect vulnerabilities across the entire surface of an organization.
How We Can Help You?
Bytes Technolab Inc is a leading software development company that provides 360degree reliable QA & software testing services. We have in-house team of certified QA professionals who will help you conduct web and mobile application vulnerability testing to prioritize which vulnerabilities are most critical to your company or organization.
In doing so, we keep you at center to know the importance of assets and their susceptibility to come up with a strategic plan to holistically secure your digital ecosystem.
To hire the best QA experts, get in touch with us now. Let’s discuss the scope of the project and our software engineers will give you exactly what you are looking for.
Read the blog: https://medium.com/@alydamartha/why-vulnerability-testing-is-a-vital-part-ofsecurity-management-46c8dea9b2ab