Web Application Vulnerability Testing Checklist

Need help combating vulnerabilities? Click here for the ultimate web application vulnerability testing checklist to make sure your app is secure!

In this article, we will present the top tips for testing vulnerabilities in your web application. Let’s get started!

Information Gathering/Recon

• Retrieve and analyze the robot.txt files by using a tool called GNU Wget.
• Examine the version of the software/database details, the error technical component, and bugs by the error codes and by requesting invalid pages
• Discover hidden and default content
• Implement techniques such as DNS inverse queries, DNS zone Transfers, and web-based DNS Searches
• Perform directory style searching and vulnerability scanning and probe for URLs, using tools such as NMAP and Nessus.
• By using a traditional Fingerprint Tool, such as Nmap, Amap, perform TCP/ICMP, and service Fingerprinting.
• Identify the entry point of the application using OWSAP ZAP, Burb Proxy, TemperIE, and WebscarabTemper Data.
• Identify the technologies used
• Map the attack surface

Test Handling of Access

• Authentication
• Test password quality rules
• Test for username enumeration
• Test resilience to password guessing
• Test any account recovery function
• Test any “remember me” function
• Test any impersonation function
• Test username uniqueness
• Check for unsafe distribution of credentials
• Test for fail-open conditions
• Test any multi-stage mechanisms
• Session handling
• Test tokens for meaning
• Test tokens for predictability
• Check for insecure transmission of tokens
• Check for disclosure of tokens in logs
• Check the map of tokens to sessions
• Check session termination
• Check for session fixation
• Check for cross-site request forgery
• Check cookie scope
• Access controls
• Understand the access control requirements
• Test effectiveness of controls, using multiple accounts if possible
• Test for insecure access control methods (request parameters, Referer header, etc.)

Test Handling of Input

• Fuzz all request parameters
• Test for SQL injection
• Identify all reflected data
• Test for reflected XSS
• Test for HTTP header injection
• Test for arbitrary redirection
• Test for stored attacks
• Test for OS command injections
• Test for path traversal
• Test for script injection
• Test for file inclusion
• Test for SMTP injection
• Test for native software flaws (buffer overflow, integer bugs, format strings)
• Test for SOAP injection
• Test for LDAP injection
• Test for XPath injection

Test Application Logic

• Identify the logic attack surface
• Test transmission of data via the client
• Test for reliance on client-side input validation
• Test any thick-client components (Java, ActiveX, Flash)
• Test multi-stage processes for logic flaws
• Test handling of incomplete input
• Test trust boundaries
• Test transaction logic

Assess Application Hosting

• Test segregation in shared infrastructures
• Test segregation between ASP-hosted applications
• Test for web server vulnerabilities
• Default credentials
• Default content
• Dangerous HTTP methods
• Proxy functionality
• Virtual hosting misconfiguration
• Bugs in web server software

Miscellaneous Tests

• Check for DOM-based attacks
• Check for frame injection
• Check for local privacy vulnerabilities
• Persistent cookies
• Caching
• Sensitive data in URL parameters
• Forms with autocomplete enabled
• Follow up any information leakage
• Check for weak SSL ciphers

This is a post was originally posted on dzone.com