Faster, Better, Safer – With Little Help of Web Application Security Testing Tools

“I feel the need – the need for speed.” Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s phrases in Top Gun (1986) stand true for today’s application development world, where it is important to deliver apps faster, stronger, and with better quality.

Companies’ reputation, customer satisfaction, and stability are directly connected to and depend on their security posture and operation readiness. The customer always expects well-performing systems, reliable, usable, and fast.

13% of founders highlighted that product mistimed is one of the reasons for start-up failure – according to the start-up failure post-mortems report.

One crucial way to keep this promise is – Web Application Security Testing.

“You want your build cycle happening almost instantly, so your developers aren’t context switching. The insights and observability we have into the monitoring process might allow us to be able to say we could speed up a release cycle….” – Melody MeckFessel, VP of Engineering, Google.

Most companies who choose to get an application out faster end up with need to sacrifice quality. Because adding web application security testing methodology to the SDLC process is problematic, as it drags on uncompromising release deadlines.

So, what can be done to avoid this chaos? Automating security testing with web application security testing tools is the answer.

Why Application Security Testing?

Security testing identifies and distinguishes web application vulnerabilities and security gaps. With efficient web application security methodologies, you can take proper steps to eliminate the security loopholes and reduce the risk of exploits.

Security testing exercises protection against malicious threats as well as pre-empts situations like system latency, data breach, and sudden web app crashes, among others. It also validates the procedures like authorization, authentication, confidentiality, availability, integrity, and non-repudiation. The core objectives of performing web application security testing are

• Retain the end-users’ trust
• Prevent inconsistent app performance
• Prevent sensitive data and information from the breach
• Increase confidence that applications are free from unexpected downtime or failure
• Save costs towards addressing security issues

Adopt the Power of Automation Testing Tools

Web applications today are complex and can be riddled with several different security issues. From misconfigured servers to bad code and everything in between, fixing this issue requires web application security to always on top priority. This demands the creation of strong cybersecurity policies and standards, which should be applied without affecting the development process.

Security needs to be integrated into the SDLC and also automated, so you can move fast while shipping high-quality products.

Web application security testing tools scan the web applications and identify the vulnerabilities, preventing security problems in real-time. They perform code analyses and provide security feedback with readable reports as soon it detects any issues -not in weeks or months. Significantly, they can aid companies tame web application security challenges without slowing down the software development process.

Some researchers predict IT companies may need to release application updates up to 120 times per year. To keep pace with such deliveries, security testing automation with web app security testing tools becomes a must. They assist developers to respond fast and handle security loopholes much more efficiently.

When it comes to automated security testing, it doesn’t mean that manual testing has no place in the process. While automated testing tools continuously scan for technical vulnerabilities, manual testing carries out its unique role in ensuring security. Security testing should be monitored by the internal or external security team.

Benefits of Web Application Security Testing Tools

Automated web application vulnerability scanners are indispensable for scanning web app vulnerabilities. Web app security testing tools include a multitude of benefits in faster and safer application delivery. To start with:

1. They perform vulnerability scans quickly than manual testing; hence, the speed of finding new loopholes also increases.
2. In manual testing, the security analyst tests the apps one by one, which is a tedious process. Web application security testing tools can cover many modules for thousands of vulnerabilities.
3. Third, automated testing tools can play a crucial role in the compliance of industry security frameworks and standards. With an automated web application vulnerability scanner in place, it comes easier for companies to focus widely on security requirements given under those regulatory standards.
4. As the automated security testing tools cover most of the repetitive and monotonous parts of web application security testing, your team won’t be overloaded with tedious work. They can instead concentrate more on complex risks.

When implemented properly, security automated can help developers to catch unexpected software behaviour and coding bugs. Because of these benefits, 57% of businesses which follow DevOps practices have already automated their security testing – according to Sonatype.

Choosing the Best Security Testing Tools for Web Application

• In an ideal security testing, you should include the tools, which allow you to automate as many tasks as possible while at the same time, allows manual monitoring of results whenever necessary.
• In addition, the security tools providers should offer manual pen-testing service for testing web apps for most common flaws like SQL injection, XSS, etc.
• Certain web app scanners blindly scan for security vulnerabilities and document results without checking the findings. It is significant to minimize the false positives and save time as no one can afford to have hundreds of distractions for their team.
• The user experience is also important just like the quality of vulnerability findings. The deliverable of the tool is a report. When choosing the best security tools for web applications, it is worth ensuring that their reporting features meet your needs and provide sufficient details to understand the findings.

The Closure

There is no doubt; the risk comes when you prioritize faster delivery at the expense of quality. As we have observed, there are plenty of reasons and several benefits of including web app security testing tools. Choosing the best security testing tools for web application can ensure the appropriate balance between faster delivery and reliable application security.