Although often used as a blanket term, Security Testing is actually a combination of standalone services, including Code Scanning, Vulnerability Assessments, Penetration Testing, Risk Management, and Data Encryption.
Even in businesses with dedicated IT security officers, the introduction of new code / features, apps, software integrations and web-facing applications bring a multitude of risks to be mitigated. The more fast-moving your business, the greater the risks, and the more vital Security Testing becomes. Once applications are released for enterprise or public use, it quickly becomes apparent if security has been made a priority during development or not.
Why Security Testing?
Staying one step ahead of cyber criminals is a daily challenge for IT teams. As development lifecycles shrink and pressure on development teams increases as a result, many organisations are finding that they simply can’t keep up with the constant threat of hackers seeking to infiltrate the business.
Hackers are not one set group of people, and often have varied motivations. For some, the potential rewards are financial. For others, political or corporate beliefs drive their desire to inflict harm. They accomplish this through spreading viruses, bots, phishing programs, and most prevalently in recent years, ransomware.
The potential costs to your business of inadequate application security measures are significant. Many hackers seek to tarnish a business’s reputation by leaking sensitive employee or customer information, or accessing private business information. With rates of cybercrime on the rise as our lives move increasingly online, there has never been a better time to partner with a provider of high-quality Security Testing services.
What do we offer?
Our focus is on assessing software applications for security problems, both during development and post-launch. During the development process, we provide security assessments that integrate into CI/CD pipelines and DevOps methodologies, allowing security vulnerabilities to be identified early in the same way automated regression tests are run.
We have access to a comprehensive and constantly evolving set of tools to facilitate the identification of security vulnerabilities, ranging from completely open source, to enterprise solutions such as Micro Focus Fortify, to our own internally developed Accelerators designed to fast-track automated security testing.
DevSecOps
The logical conclusion of automated security testing is something called DevSecOps.
With the DevOps model meaning that some organisations release software every week, or even multiple times a day, the DevOps team are often in charge of managing the application from cradle to grave, and must therefore be responsive and highly agile.
The infinite loop of DevOps can be seen below:
However, legacy software security tools have failed to keep pace with DevOps, and are consequently regarded as a bottleneck to the rapid development process that DevOps facilitates.
At Prolifics Testing, we believe in true Continuous Application Security, otherwise known as DevSecOps.
DevSecOps in action
Using the above loop, it becomes clear how security considerations can be baked in to the SDLC:
- At the planning stage, Threat Modelling is carried out.
- During the code stage, SAST is performed – automated code analysis. It is best to start implementing SAST the moment the code starts being written.
- During the test stage, DAST begins. Highly complementary to SAST, it gauges application security outside of the source code.
- After this, IAST is performed. IAST can be active or passive – when active, it works with DAST to pick up if there is a vulnerability during the runtime.
- Continuous security monitoring carries on because things change quickly, and information gathered is fed back into the lifecycle. AppSec and DevOps are highly compatible in this way, as both models encourage responsiveness.
Quality Fusion
Security reports being provided as PDFs is a thing of the past – ideally, one real-time dashboard is all that is needed for continuous security testing. This gives the DevOps team and the CISO full visibility, allowing the CISO to feedback quickly and accurately to the CTO and make changes quickly.
One of the tools we use to accomplish this is our Test Automation PaaS, Quality Fusion (QF).
QF is a containerised and cloud-based platform that uses open source components and embedded AI capabilities to automate test design, data, execution and analytics. It brings together multiple solutions on one test platform that users can harness ‘straight out of the box’ to automate security tests.
The best part: QF is free to use in conjunction with any of our Automated Security Testing services.
Because Quality Fusion enables codeless test automation, meaning everyone from ordinary business users to experienced DevTesters can use it, testing becomes a priority throughout the company, with automated tests being run as part of each and every build. Through QF, your organisation can begin the journey to DevSecOps.
Security Testing Accelerator
In addition to QF, our specialist Security Testing Accelerator has been designed to bring together the best of breed and most current set of open source security testing tools, which are continually updated as new versions become available.
Our framework is designed to detect the OWASP Top Ten, the most critical security risks to web applications:
- Injection Flaws
- Broken Authentication
- Sensitive Data Exposure
- XML External Entities (XXE)
- Broken Access Control
- Security Misconfigurations
- Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
- Insecure Deserialization
- Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities
- Insufficient Logging and Monitoring
At the touch of a button, the Accelerator can automatically scan an application, identify any security vulnerabilities, and produce a report with remediation steps to avoid potentially catastrophic security breaches. It alleviates the requirement for costly security experts, who often undertake lengthy and complex analysis. A suite of tests can be carried out as a one off, or as a regular activity and a part of the DevOps process of deploying and releasing code updates, together with automated functional and performance tests.
With no restrictions on using the Security Testing Accelerator, your team can ensure no security vulnerabilities are missed when changes have been introduced to the application, allowing the inception of DAST to your organisation.
Our process
Each of our Security Testing engagements begins with an overall assessment, in which we scope out your existing infrastructure, before removing false positives, prioritising issues in terms of importance, and building high-level reports. Often referred to as a Vulnerability Assessment, this often acts as a springboard into larger engagements, since issues are picked up which merit patching.
As we progress into the service proper, we start to offer manual reviews and a tailored approach to threat modelling. Most often, our trained ethical hackers simulate attacks from malicious attackers, in order to identify and fix potential vulnerabilities. Whereas other companies often automate the entirety of their Security Testing, we carry out manual reviews, as there as often flaws in systems that a tool alone cannot detect. In addition, we endeavour to scan only complete code, so that false positives can be avoided as far as possible.
In this model, we provide you with a comprehensive set of reports, some of which offer a great deal of detail, while others are designed for use by senior executives. If necessary, we even offer the opportunity for a complete code review, where our consultants go back to analyse the source code and eliminate defects before they are able to occur.
Timeframe
As a backdrop to all of our services, short- or long-term, we offer expert Security Consulting to your business, guiding you towards security best practice and training your teams from within. One key advantage to this way of working is that it ensures your organisation prioritises application security for years to come, and have the relevant knowledge to devise a comprehensive security strategy.
At Prolifics Testing, we have experience undertaking Security Testing at the very inception of projects, during development, after go-live, and following major changes / updates to applications. Wherever you are on the SDLC or with your current infrastructure, our service helps give you peace of mind when it comes to malicious attacks on your business.
Get in touch
With application security being such a pressing concern in today’s highly digital world, there has never been a better time to shore up your Security Testing strategy and make it part of your CI/CD pipeline. And with over 20 years' experience of delivering Security Testing services to clients across a wide range of industries, you’ll know you’re in good hands.
To set up a free 30 minute consultation, simply send us a quick email detailing your requirements at info@prolifics-testing.com, or fill out our short contact form.
Following a successful consultation session, we would provide you with a detailed proposal covering scope, timescales, deliverables and SLAs, along with a fixed price / time-and-materials quote, depending on preference.
We look forward to working with your organisation!
