Tips and Tricks for a Successful Web Application Penetration Testing

Last updated on April 7th, 2024 at 10:54 am

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Do you expose your website and business to security breaches?

Security is taken for granted by many organizations today. Just because a particular industry or business is not on the hit list or target, it can not be guaranteed that no one wants to break into your system. Hackers are very intelligent and they took very clever steps, and use very complex methods. So an organization must need to take all precautions to prevent them from penetrating their systems.

There are many reasons for the website being attacked. When a hacker discovers your vulnerability. Before getting deep into knowing the Tips and tricks for a successful web application penetration testing, first, it is crucial to understand what actually is a web application penetration testing?

What is a web application penetration testing?

It is the process of invading a web application through various attacks or threats until it finds a solution for its weaknesses. Through web application penetration testing, you can discover and patch critical security vulnerabilities in web applications before they are utilized by attackers.

If you want your organization to be free of hackers and to fill in the security gaps then you must go for web application penetration testing services, don’t waste a second and prioritize your security objectives. 

Now let us explain to you some helpful tricks for potential web app pen-testing. 

Tips and tricks for successful web application penetration testing

These tips will help everyone on the Q/A team get on track and focus on their goals. Let’s get started;

  1. Establish your goals and objectives – Identifying scope or goals is the most important task because it will enable you to have an understanding of what is to be tested and what is not. But the scope must be lined up with the business needs of penetration testing of Web applications. The major objective of web application penetration testing is to know how and to what extent hackers exploit discovered vulnerabilities, thereby putting your business at risk. Web application penetration testing results will also focus on what countermeasures can be taken to lower the threats and risks, or else completely rectify all of them.
  2. Relevant components must be tested – Do not test components outside of the scope defined during the penetration testing pre-participation process. Make sure that you stay within the agreed range and that you follow the agreed rules agreed with the customer.

Remember that time allotted to perform a pen test is limited so cover the testing of each important component you’ve mentioned in the scope. 

  1. Risks severity – with respect to priority of rectification – Not all loopholes should be treated in the same way. The degree of attention required for a particular loophole depends entirely on the target organization’s risk appetite and the extent to which a risk owner is willing to digest a risk on a given system. 
  2. Develop hacker personas – As a penetration tester, you need to be in a hacker role. In this way, you begin to think and arm yourself with a specific set of skills, goals, and motivations like a real hacker.
  3. Consultation – A single pen tester can not determine which applications or data is at risk so it’s always a better option to consult with the key stakeholders involved in the pen testing process. These people will be able to inform you of details like the logical reasoning behind the application, the types of risk or level of threat the business has to bear, and much more including worst-case scenarios, etc. 
  4. Selection b/w In-house and external testers –  If the organization has the skills, it can benefit from using its internal employees. In addition to the cost savings and the fact that they are already familiar with your system, the internal team also makes it very convenient to conduct regular web application penetration testing. 

It is also recommended to hire a professional web application penetration testing team from the outside to provide more professional knowledge and a more objective view. 

Final Thoughts

If an organization considers value for its market reputation and share then it must have to invest great amount and effort in the web application penetration testing.  As the threat landscape changes, cybersecurity must be understood as a continuous process. Once you feel complacent and once thought that the web application is not secure enough, your web application will again be vulnerable to hackers. Even though web app penetration testing is supported by a set of tools, methods, and techniques, a potential and expert tester does not rely on this alone instead he/she utilizes skills, expertise, shows some creativity, and thinks logically.