Web applications are a major target for cybercriminals as they house sensitive data and online transactions. Therefore, it is essential to perform security testing on these applications regularly.

During the testing, testers identify vulnerabilities and loopholes in the application to prevent any kind of attack on your business. This helps in preventing data loss and revenue loss.

Identifying Vulnerabilities
Security testers must identify vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. They must also evaluate the impact and severity of these vulnerabilities, which helps them prioritize remediation efforts.

Web applications are often accessible from anywhere around the world, making them a popular target for cybercriminals. If your company stores sensitive data and online transactions, it is crucial to regularly test and secure your web application.

Vulnerabilities should be identified and addressed before they become a major threat to the company’s operations. If a security flaw is ignored, it can result in loss of revenue and customer trust, reduced employee output and IT remediation costs.

Software security testing can help find issues that may be overlooked during source code reviews or white-box tests. In addition, security testing can uncover implementation errors that might be missed during static or unit test reviews.

Encryption
Encryption is a systematic way to protect sensitive information. It involves converting human-readable plaintext data into incomprehensible text, called ciphertext, which only the sender of the message can read.

Encrypting data is an important part of ensuring data security, particularly when it contains personal information such as credit card numbers or medical records. This protects against data theft and helps meet regulatory requirements.

Web application security testing should be performed during the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to ensure that all vulnerabilities are discovered and corrected before hackers can exploit them. Ideally, this should be done before an app is deployed to production.

Authentication vulnerabilities include brute force attacks, improperly hashed and salted passwords, leaks involving user account data, or typical password stuffing like password1 or admin1234. Multi-factor authentication for user verification, such as biometrics or mobile devices, is also recommended.

Authentication
When you access a web application, it needs to verify your identity before allowing you to log in. This can be done by using authentication factors like passwords, security tokens (like keys or smart cards), and biometric verification such as fingerprint scans.

Authentication is used to protect sensitive information and systems from bad actors who seek to steal or exploit it. This is an important mitigation strategy because it reduces the risk of cyber attacks and data breaches that result in loss of customer or proprietary information.

An attacker can manipulate URL parameters in browsers to insert malicious scripts and input that they later use to extract server or user data. For example, if the application uses the HTTP GET method to pass information between the client and the server, attackers can change a parameter value to inject SQL statements that extract critical information.

The web app should also ensure that all sensitive or business-critical data is encrypted. This includes information such as ‘passwords’ of users, billing details of clients, etc.

Cross-Site Scripting
XSS, or cross-site scripting, is one of the most common vulnerabilities found in Web applications. Often overlooked, it can lead to unauthorized access, identity theft and other nefarious actions.

Typically, XSS attacks occur when an application uses input from a user without validating or encoding it. This allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript or HTML into pages viewed by other users.

This can result in a number of problems, including unauthorized access to sensitive information, such as cookies, session tokens or other site-specific data. It can also be used to bypass access controls, such as the same-origin policy.

There are a variety of different types of XSS vulnerabilities. Some are more serious than others, and each has its own business impact and technical risk level. Fortunately, the majority of these vulnerabilities can be prevented or mitigated by writing secure code and working with security tools to test for them. With these steps, you can reduce your chances of becoming an XSS target.