Ethical Hacking aka Security Testing - Top 3 tools to try out by Security Testers/QAs

As QAs the sooner we get into Security Testing and understand Ethical Hacking, We will be benefited with the additional skill in the company or in the job market.

I prefer reading about Security and stay updated on OWASP Top 10 Security Risk. Read it here - https://owasp.org/www-project-top-ten/

I am sharing top 3 tool using which we can learn how to do Security testing effectively and also a resource where to try the skills learned. (These can be also packaged as basics of Ethical Hacking)

1. Burp Suite - Try it at https://portswigger.net/burp
2. Vega - Try it at https://subgraph.com/vega/download/#download
3. WebScarab (By OWASP) - Try it at https://wiki.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_WebScarab_Project
4. After learning on how to use the tools, OWASP has a great resource to try out your skills on. Do read disclaimer and make sure you are not breaking any rules of your own company. Project WebGoat (OWASP) - Experiment at https://owasp.org/www-project-webgoat/

Top 10 Web Application Security Risks

1. Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization.
2. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently.
3. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser.
4. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks.
5. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc.
6. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion.
7. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites.
8. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks.
9. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts.
10. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Below are screenshot of top 3 tools recommendation by me and the Project WebGoat info

Burp Suite - It has 3 versions and comes with a free trial. This tool has excellent feedback from my QA community friends.

Vega - Vega is a free and open source web security scanner and web security testing platform to test the security of web applications. 

WebScarab (By OWASP) - WebScarab is a framework for analyzing applications that communicate using the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. It is written in Java, and is thus portable to many platforms.

Project WebGoat (OWASP) - Try out your skills on this JAVA based application with hidden vulnerabilities

Are you an expert in any of these tools? Please comment below so that other QA community members can ask you for help on the problems that they are facing using these tools.