Security Testing of Web Applications: A Search-Based Approach for Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerabilities

Author(s):  
Andrea Avancini ◽  
Mariano Ceccato
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Festim Halili ◽  
Lirie Koraqi

This paper addresses the security aspects of the software applications in the framework of several entrepreneurship. It has a certain goal and structure, through which it modestly aims to present the security aspect of web applications in Kosovo companies. At first we tried to give some theoretical concepts about security in general and security testing in particular. The key research elaboration of the research problem addresses the security aspect in the sector of companies that develop applications and do their testing, here we will dwell on a case-study case of different companies in Kosovo. The purpose of this section is to argue the importance of security and its application to various companies.


Author(s):  
Almudena Alcaide Raya ◽  
Jorge Blasco Alis ◽  
Eduardo Galán Herrero ◽  
Agustín Orfila Diaz-Pabón

As any other computer program, Web applications are susceptible of including vulnerabilities that may not only disrupt the provided service, but also facilitate private and personal information to an attacker. As these applications are usually public or even publicized, attacks are expected to be more and more frequent, making it necessary to supply the means to provide an adequate level of security in the utilization of Web applications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 383-401
Author(s):  
Steffen Pfrang ◽  
Anne Borcherding ◽  
David Meier ◽  
Jürgen Beyerer

Abstract Industrial automation and control systems (IACS) play a key role in modern production facilities. On the one hand, they provide real-time functionality to the connected field devices. On the other hand, they get more and more connected to local networks and the internet in order to facilitate use cases promoted by “Industrie 4.0”. A lot of IACS are equipped with web servers that provide web applications for configuration and management purposes. If an attacker gains access to such a web application operated on an IACS, he can exploit vulnerabilities and possibly interrupt the critical automation process. Cyber security research for web applications is well-known in the office IT. There exist a lot of best practices and tools for testing web applications for different kinds of vulnerabilities. Security testing targets at discovering those vulnerabilities before they can get exploited. In order to enable IACS manufacturers and integrators to perform security tests for their devices, ISuTest was developed, a modular security testing framework for IACS. This paper provides a classification of known types of web application vulnerabilities. Therefore, it makes use of the worst direct impact of a vulnerability. Based on this analysis, a subset of open-source vulnerability scanners to detect such vulnerabilities is selected to be integrated into ISuTest. Subsequently, the integration is evaluated. This evaluation is twofold: At first, willful vulnerable web applications are used. In a second step, seven real IACS, like a programmable logic controller, industrial switches and cloud gateways, are used. Both evaluation steps start with the manual examination of the web applications for vulnerabilities. They conclude with an automated test of the web applications using the vulnerability scanners automated by ISuTest. The results show that the vulnerability scanners detected 53 % of the existing vulnerabilities. In a former study using commercial vulnerability scanners, 54 % of the security flaws could be found. While performing the analysis, 45 new vulnerabilities were detected. Some of them did not only break the web server but crashed the whole IACS, stopping the critical automation process. This shows that security testing is crucial in the industrial domain and needs to cover all services provided by the devices.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Isatou Hydara ◽  
Abu Bakar Md Sultan ◽  
Hazura Zulzalil ◽  
Novia Admodisastro

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities are among the top ten security vulnerabilities affecting web applications for the past decade and mobile version web applications more recently. They can cause serious problems for web users such as loss of personal information to web attackers, including financial and health information, denial of service attacks, and exposure to malware and viruses. Most of the proposed solutions focused only on the Desktop versions of web applications and overlooked the mobile versions. Increasing use of mobile phones to access web applications increases the threat of cross-site scripting attacks on mobile phones. This paper presents work in progress on detecting cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in mobile versions of web applications. It proposes an enhanced genetic algorithm-based approach that detects cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in mobile versions of web applications. This approach has been used in our previous work and successfully detected the said vulnerabilities in Desktop web applications. It has been enhanced and is currently being tested in mobile versions of web applications. Preliminary results have indicated success in the mobile versions of web applications also. This approach will enable web developers find cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in the mobile versions of their web applications before their release.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (9/2019) ◽  
pp. 27-32
Author(s):  
Marcin Pachnik

The article presents and compares modern methods of generating test data in the process of automatic software security testing, so called fuzz testing. The publication contains descriptions of methods used, among others, in local, network or web applications, and then compares them and evaluates their effectiveness in the process of ensuring software security. The impact of the quality of test data corpus on the effectiveness of automated security testing has been assessed.


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