In today’s digital world, security testing is essential to ensure the flawless and proper functioning of an application in a production environment. It focuses on evaluating various elements of security covering confidentiality, integrity, vulnerability, authenticity and continuity. Taking into consideration and analyzing various layers of information system across infrastructure, networks, database and different channels, security testing aims at making the applications safe and free from vulnerabilities.

Security testing deals with all the layers of an application. The various kinds of testing concepts use a combination of automated scanner tools that evaluates lines of codes for anomalies in security and penetration testing which simulates an attack by unwanted channels.

Vulnerability assessment is also a key component of security testing. Through this, an organization can evaluate their codes for any vulnerability and take steps to rectify them.

Security testing is about finding all possible loopholes and weaknesses of the system which may lead to a loss of information, revenue and other specifics. No company wants that.

There are professionals to perform the security testing and assessment who do it at different levels, different technologies and with different approaches. It is thus very necessary for companies to use the services to ensure the smooth running of their business.

There are several types of services to ensure security:

• Web Application Security Testing: Web application security testing tests and assesses the security and possible loopholes of the application on the web. It also works to prevent attacks from unknown sources on the web.
• Secure code review: This is the process of auditing the source code to verify the presence of proper security controls and they work as intended. This means checking lines and lines of code used to develop the application. Secure code review helps in detecting the vulnerabilities which would otherwise take a lot of time to find.
• Design Review: Design review of an application helps in understanding the risks that the application has due to weaknesses in the system’s design. Performing Design Review before and after development helps in making the design better.
• Architecture Review: It is an interview and document-based process to find flaws in the network topology and the overall environment of the technology.
• Threat Modeling: Threat modelling involves the identification of potential threats by assessing the types of attackers and asset mapping. This helps to understand the assets that need to be protected and the type of threat.
• Risk Assessment: Risk assessment provides the company with a detailed view of the level of security of the system, threats and risks and ways to mitigate them in the most efficient way.
• Mobile Application Security Testing: Helps in detecting vulnerabilities and removing them in Mobile applications.
• Infrastructure Penetration testing: Helps in identifying to prone the infrastructure is to penetration and rectifying them.
• Cloud and Infrastructure Security: Checking the cloud security and finding loopholes to mitigate them.

Security testing a necessity today and companies should avail the services to avoid risks and threats and move towards a safer tomorrow, digitally.

Francisco Butler