Security Testing Tools Research Articles

Enhancing Software Security: A Research-Driven Automation Framework

With the ever-growing dependency on software in critical systems such as healthcare, finance, transportation, and defense, among many others, the need for robust security in software has never been greater. Breaches of security, in which an undetected vulnerability was often the culprit, lead to severe financial loss, loss of reputation, and even legal action for organizations and end-users. While technology has considerably improved, conventional security practices have repeatedly have failed to address the rapid growth of complexity and dynamic nature in modern software systems. The paper presents a critical requirement for an organized and active approach toward software security for its lifetime. We propose an automation framework driven by research that responds to these challenges by fitting into the tight cooperation of security testing tools in order to automate the detection and mitigation of vulnerabilities: it engenders a continuous improvement culture of security. This framework will be tailored to support Agile development and DevOps workflows, seamlessly embedding security in the rapid, iterative cycles of development. This framework will allow an organization to measure and improve quantitatively its security practices over time by harnessing actionable metrics and insight.

Developing a framework for enhancing security testing of android applications

Mobile applications have advanced a lot and now offer several features that help make our lives easier. Android is currently the most popular mobile operating system, and it is susceptible to exploitation attempts by malicious entities. This has led to an increased focus on the security of Android applications. This dissertation proposed the development of a framework which provides a systematic approach to testing the security of Android applications. This framework was developed based on a comprehensive review of existing security testing methodologies and tools. In achieving the study objectives, a test application was run on an emulator, Burp Suite was used as a proxy tool to capture HTTP and HTTPS traffic for analysis, reverse engineering was carried out, static and dynamic analysis were executed, network traffic was captured and analysed with tcpdump and Wireshark, intent sniffing was carried out, fuzz testing was discussed, and a proof-of-concept tool (automation script) was developed. This work covers various aspects of Android applications’ security testing, and the proposed framework provides developers with a practical and effective approach to testing the security of their Android applications, thereby improving the overall security of the Android application ecosystem.

SAST Tools and Manual Testing to Improve the Methodology of Vulnerability Detection in Web Applications

Statically analyzing code during development is a common process of the development process, using Static Application Security Testing tools. SAST analyzes code without its execution and is also very fast compared to dynamic means and therefore focuses on a certain program part. However, the results of static analysis tools are not always accurate, either missing vulnerabilities or reporting false positives. This paper considers an evaluation of several SAST tools and an analysis of student code samples with known vulnerabilities, comparing manual analysis with the results of SAST tools. The results confirmed that SAST tools properly identify critical vulnerabilities and provide errors. A tool has identified ShiftLeft as the most efficient tool; however, its findings overlapped with the results of other tools for some applications. In addition, an analysis of student projects showed the most frequent vulnerabilities as Cross-site Scripting (XSS), NoSQL/SQL Injection, and Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) which make up more than 52% of the found vulnerabilities.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools for Smart Contracts: How Far Are We?

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools for Smart Contracts: How Far Are We?

TRIUMPH OF SECURITY : FORTIFYING DIGITAL FORTRESSES WITH TRIPLE GUARD AUTHENTICATION

Abstract : Network security is crucial in today’s interconnected world, and traditional text-based passwords are insufficient. This paper introduces a Three-Level Security system to enhance protection with a multi-tiered approach: Level-1 Login-based Password, Level-2 Graphical Authentication, and Level-3 Image-Based Password. The system ensures authorized access, defines user permissions, and encrypts data. It includes monitoring, rate limiting, regular updates, and penetration testing, using Python-based tools for vulnerability scanning. Triple Guard encrypts data both at rest and in transit, ensuring confidentiality and integrity. It adaptive to emerging threats and vulnerabilities, integrating Python-based security testing tools for vulnerability scanning and code analysis. By providing developers and administrators with a robust and extensible password security solution . Triple Guard encrypts data both at rest and in transit, preserving its confidentiality and integrity. Index Terms :-. Login Password Authentication, Graphical Authentication, Image Authentication, Python, Chatgpt.

Development and Employment of Cyber Security of e201 File Web Application for Data Center College of the Philippines of Laoag City, Inc.

Web-based systems in today's interconnected world play a vital role and need of enhanced cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive information since cybercrimes are increasing rapidly. The focus of the study is on the development of an e201 file web application for the Data Center College of the Philippines which will be accessed through a web browser. The objective study is to evaluate the cybersecurity of the developed application, particularly in handling essential personnel records using confidential data OWASP ZAP security testing tool and its software quality based on ISO 25010 specifically in software functionality, usability, and security to determine if it is ready for live deployment. The study utilizes the Research and Development model as its research design to achieve its purpose. The conceptual framework of the study utilized the used of Input-Process-Output model and the Agile Iterative model in the development. The result of the security testing and suggestions of the OWASP ZAP, cyber security was employed in the web application including Content Security Policy Header, HTTOnly Cookie flags, SameSite attribute, X-Content-Type-Options Header, and Anti-CSRF Token. With an overall mean of 4.41 in the result of Users Acceptance Testing, it implies that the system is a great help for the institution. The positive feedback received from evaluators confirmed that the development of the e201 files web application were successful. This study implies that utilizing the OWASP Zap is a great help in strengthening cybersecurity and ISO 25010 in the software quality assurance of web applications of educational institutions.

On the Benefits of Vulnerability Data Consolidation in Application Security

This research aims to build upon a conceptual idea of consolidating all application security vulnerability data from monitoring, detection, and discovery tools into a physical system that allows for convergence of observation and response to an event that is a threat. Multiple application security testing and monitoring tools are deployed at different layers of an application architecture and capture activities that occur at that layer. This multi-layer data capture is disconnected without any analysis of data lineage from the externally exposed web attack surface to deep down into the application and data layers. It is only through this data consolidation can one provide a reliable statistical analysis of correlating multiple vulnerability information and synthesize an attack pattern and predict possible events accurately. The benefits of such a system are discussed in this paper that includes how one can organize the data, identifying temporal and spatial correlation of events, focusing on specific web requests that point to a specific vulnerability, and formulating a fast response to such events. Advantages of integrating with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR/XSOAR), Extended Detection Response (XDR) are briefly discussed. The analysis can be further used to develop a predictive system using deep learning (DL) techniques using correlation of application security vulnerability information.

A Comparative Analysis and Benchmarking of Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Tools

Cybersecurity is crucial in today's era of advanced technology, rapidly developing scientific understanding, and a completely interconnected global society to guarantee high safety in all aspects of life. Furthermore, there is an ever-increasing number of difficulties and dangers to achieving security in cyberspace. One of the most basic and essential ways to avoid cybersecurity is to conduct security testing for vulnerabilities. In order to make the most of the potential synergies between various types of analysis tools, this paper combines static white box security analysis (SAST), dynamic black box security analysis (DAST), and interactive white box security analysis (IAST) in that order. This investigation aims to improve security vulnerability detection while decreasing false positives.

Comprehensive Empirical Study of Python JWT Libraries

JSON Web Token (JWT) is a simple, compact way to share claims in a space-constrained environment. JWT is part of the interoperable JSON-based identity suite. Many libraries that provide JWT-based authentication and authorization exist. While the JWT standard is secure, some implementations still need to be made. This research paper delves into a comprehensive analysis of the prominent Python libraries utilized for JWT authentication. By meticulously examining these libraries, we aim to provide an in-depth understanding of their features and capabilities. Our investigation encompasses an enumeration of the distinct signing algorithms that are supported by each of these JWT Python libraries.To ensure the robustness and security of these libraries, we employ a multifaceted approach that utilizes various statistical application Security Testing (SAST) tools. These tools play a pivotal role in our assessment by not only evaluating the adherence of the codebase to the PEP8 standard but also by meticulously scanning for common security vulnerabilities and bugs that could potentially compromise the integrity of the authentication process.Our research goes beyond mere identification; we meticulously analyze each warning generated by the SAST tools, emphasizing those warnings that hold the most tremendous significance regarding potential security risks. Furthermore, our investigation extends to gauging the popularity and adoption of each library. To achieve this, we leverage GitHub statistics and harness the power of the Sourcegraph code search utility. By delving into these metrics, we gain a comprehensive view of the community’s engagement, usage trends, and overall traction of each library. In summary, this paper thoroughly explores the landscape of JWT authentication in Python, encompassing library evaluation, security assessment, warning analysis, and popularity metrics.

Can the configuration of static analyses make resolving security vulnerabilities more effective? - A user study

The use of static analysis security testing (SAST) tools has been increasing in recent years. However, previous studies have shown that, when shipped to end users such as development or security teams, the findings of these tools are often unsatisfying. Users report high numbers of false positives or long analysis times, making the tools unusable in the daily workflow. To address this, SAST tool creators provide a wide range of configuration options, such as customization of rules through domain-specific languages or specification of the application-specific analysis scope. In this paper, we study the configuration space of selected existing SAST tools when used within the integrated development environment (IDE). We focus on the configuration options that impact three dimensions, for which a trade-off is unavoidable, i.e., precision, recall, and analysis runtime. We perform a between-subjects user study with 40 users from multiple development and security teams - to our knowledge, the largest population for this kind of user study in the software engineering community. The results show that users who configure SAST tools are more effective in resolving security vulnerabilities detected by the tools than those using the default configuration. Based on post-study interviews, we identify common strategies that users have while configuring the SAST tools to provide further insights for tool creators. Finally, an evaluation of the configuration options of two commercial SAST tools, Fortify and CheckMarx, reveals that a quarter of the users do not understand the configuration options provided. The configuration options that are found most useful relate to the analysis scope.

Harbinger: A Toolkit for Vulnerability Testing of IoT Devices and Web Clients

Abstract: The need for efficient tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities has never been more critical due to the complexity and proliferation of online applications and embedded systems. We introduce a Python toolkit in this study that combines a variety of security testing and analysis methodologies, allowing users to locate and fix web application vulnerabilities and examine firmware files. Our toolkit offers aggregated reports summarizing the outcomes of firmware analysis and web application vulnerability testing, in addition to being adaptable and user-friendly so customers may change and add features to meet their unique needs. We provide the findings from testing and analysis carried out on a variety of online apps and firmware files, as well as the design and implementation of our tools. The integration of additional security testing tools, compatibility for other file formats, and the introduction of machine learning-based analysis are just a few of the future directions we could take our toolset. This Python toolkit makes a significant addition to the realm of cybersecurity by offering customers a strong and adaptable solution for web application vulnerability testing and firmware analysis.

Comparative analysis of the effectiveness of OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite, Nikto and Skipfish in testing the security of web applications

Application security is one of the key aspects necessary for its proper functioning. Ensuring security consists primarily in conducting regular penetration tests and checking the vulnerability of the application to various types of attacks. The recommended solution is to use tools dedicated to detecting security holes in applications. Choosing the right tool from among those available on the market can be difficult. This article presents a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of popular application security testing tools in terms of the number of detected vulnerabilities. The analysis was based on the obtained results of scanning two Internet applications containing a number of security vulnerabilities, used to learn ethical hacking.

Automating the Detection of Access Control Vulnerabilities in Web Applications

The importance of automated and reproducible security testing of web applications is growing, driven by increasing security requirements, short software development cycles, and constraints with respect to time and budget. Existing automated security testing tools are already well suited to detect some types of vulnerabilities, e.g., SQL injection or cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. However, other vulnerability types are much harder to uncover in an automated way. One important representative of this type are access control vulnerabilities, which are highly relevant in practice as they can grant unauthorized users access to security-critical data or functions in web applications. In this paper, a practical solution to automatically detect HTTP GET request-based access control vulnerabilities in web applications is presented. The solution is based on previously proposed ideas, which are extended with novel approaches to enable completely automated access control testing with minimal configuration effort, which in turn enables frequent and reproducible testing. An evaluation with seven web applications based on different technologies demonstrates the general applicability of the solution and that it can automatically uncover most access control vulnerabilities while keeping the number of false positives low.

Combinatorial methods for dynamic gray‐box SQL injection testing

SummaryThis work presents an extended and enhanced gray‐box combinatorial security testing methodology for SQL injection vulnerabilities in web applications. We propose multiple new attack grammars modelling SQLi attacks against MySQL‐compatible databases, each one targeting a different injection context. Additionally, these grammars are also dynamically refined at the beginning of each attack against an endpoint of a web application, as a further optimization of the used attack model by taking into account the specifics of the generated query of that endpoint. Our goal is to enhance existing combinatorial approaches for detecting SQL injection vulnerabilities. The newly developed methodology is implemented in a prototype security testing tool called SQLInjector+, which is an extension of an earlier prototype developed by us in prior work. This improved tool can attack (i.e. test) any web application that uses a MySQL‐compatible database management system. We evaluate our revised approach and improved prototype tool in a case study comprising of different kinds of web applications to which SQLi is a potential security threat. The case study contains the well‐known verification framework WAVSEP among other five real‐world web applications and one web application firewall. Our generated attack vectors, constructed via combinatorial methods applied to our improved and dynamically optimized attack grammars, are capable of injecting every known vulnerable endpoint in WAVSEP and also of finding new vulnerable parameters in some of the real‐world applications investigated in this paper. Our approach performs equally well or better when compared with existing state‐of‐art of SQL injection security testing tools (sqlmap, w3af, wapiti and fuzzdb) across all tested web applications in the case study.

Empirical Analysis of Vulnerabilities in Blockchain-based Smart Contracts

With the evolution of technology, blockchain a swiftly impending phenomenon i.e., "decentralized computing” is observed. The emergence of Smart Contracts (SC) has resulted in advancements in the application of blockchain technology. The Ethereum network’s computing capabilities and functionalities are founded on the basis of SC. A smart contract is a self-executing agreement between buyer and seller with the terms of the settlement between them, written directly as lines of code, existing across a distributed decentralized blockchain network. It is a decentralized software that runs on a blockchain autonomously, consistently, and publicly. Conversely, due to the complex semantics of fundamental domain-specific languages and their testability, constructing reliable and secure SC can be extremely difficult. SC might contain some vulnerabilities. Security vulnerabilities can originate from financial tribulations; there are a number of notorious events that specify blockchain SC could comprise numerous code-security vulnerabilities. Security and privacy of blockchain-based SC are very important, we must first identify their vulnerabilities before implementing them widely. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive experimental evaluation of two current security testing tools: Remix solidity static analysis plugin and Solium which are used for static analysis of SC. We have conducted an empirical analysis of SC for finding tangible and factual evidence, controlled by the scientific approach. The methodology’s first step is to gather all of the Ethereum SC and store them in a repository. The next step is to use the Remix solidity static analysis plugin and Solium to perform vulnerability assessments. The last step is to analyze the result of both tools and evaluate them on the basis of accuracy and effectiveness. The goal of this empirical analysis is to evaluate the two FOSS tools: Remix solidity static analysis plugin and Solium on the basis of accuracy and effectiveness. Some research questions were considered to reach the stated goal: What automated tools and frameworks are proposed in supporting the state-of-the-art empirical approach to SC vulnerability detection? How accurate are security analysis tools? And which tool has more accuracy rate? How effectively security analysis tools are detecting vulnerabilities in SC? And which is the most effective security analysis tool? We investigated the effectiveness and accuracy of security code analysis tools on Ethereum by testing them on a random sample of vulnerable contracts. The results indicate that the tools have significant discrepancies when it comes to certain security characteristics. In terms of effectiveness and accuracy, the Remix plugin outperformed and beat the other tool.

Dispute Resistance Multilayered RFID Partial Ownership Transfer With Blockchain

Frontend supply chains involve the transfer of large quantities of products. Therefore, incomplete transfer and product loss are inevitable. This paper presents a high-efficiency group ownership transfer protocol that incorporates blockchains to enable the efficient transfer of large quantities of products and prevent disputes regarding transfer completion. This protocol collocates authenticated information of a manufacturer with its exclusive blockchain address to generate an initial transaction block. The blockchain is then used to trace the original product manufacturers to prevent counterfeiting, and a grouping proof is employed to prevent disputes regarding transfer comprehensiveness. The proposed protocol was capable of resisting common off-chain radio frequency identification ownership transfer attacks, indicating its security. A security testing tool was employed to prove whether the on-chain smart contracts could also resist the attacks on blockchain. The analysis and experiment results revealed that the proposed protocol required fewer messages for ownership transfer and half the calculation time compared with the existing protocols. Thus, for the simultaneous transfer of ownership of a massive number of tags, the proposed protocol is the most efficient, with a reduced calculation time, thus making it most suitable for bulk cargo ownership transfer in the frontend supply chain environment.

Comparing Effectiveness and Efficiency of Interactive Application Security Testing (Iast) and Runtime Application Self-Protection (Rasp) Tools in A Large Java-Based System

Comparing Effectiveness and Efficiency of Interactive Application Security Testing (Iast) and Runtime Application Self-Protection (Rasp) Tools in A Large Java-Based System

Challenges and solutions when adopting DevSecOps: A systematic review

DevOps (Development and Operations) has become one of the fastest-growing software development paradigms in the industry. However, this trend has presented the challenge of ensuring secure software delivery while maintaining the agility of DevOps. The efforts to integrate security in DevOps have resulted in the DevSecOps paradigm, which is gaining significant interest from both industry and academia. However, the adoption of DevSecOps in practice is proving to be a challenge. This study aims to systemize the knowledge about the challenges faced by practitioners when adopting DevSecOps and the proposed solutions reported in the literature. We also aim to identify the areas that need further research in the future. We conducted a Systematic Literature Review of 54 peer-reviewed studies. The thematic analysis method was applied to analyze the extracted data. We identified 21 challenges related to adopting DevSecOps, 31 specific solutions, and the mapping between these findings. We also determined key gap areas in this domain by holistically evaluating the available solutions against the challenges. The results of the study were classified into four themes: People, Practices, Tools, and Infrastructure. Our findings demonstrate that tool-related challenges and solutions were the most frequently reported, driven by the need for automation in this paradigm. Shift-left security and continuous security assessment were two key practices recommended for DevSecOps. People-related factors were considered critical for successful DevSecOps adoption but less studied. We highlight the need for developer-centered application security testing tools that target the continuous practices in DevSecOps. More research is needed on how the traditionally manual security practices can be automated to suit rapid software deployment cycles. Finally, achieving a suitable balance between the speed of delivery and security is a significant issue practitioners face in the DevSecOps paradigm.

Audit Keamanan dan Manajemen Risiko pada e-Learning Universitas Sangga Buana

Universitas Sangga Buana is an educational institution that continues to develop thefollowing technological advances by creating an e-learning system for students to facilitatedistance learning. This system is relatively new and still being developed, allowing there are stillmany gaps that others can exploit, especially on the security side of the system. To reduce systemsecurity vulnerabilities and data loss risks, it is necessary to conduct an audit of the e-learningsystem at the Universitas Sangga Buana. The stages used to determine security systemvulnerabilities and risk management in e-learning systems use the NIST framework and theAcunetix application as a system security testing tool. The final result of the e-learning systemaudit is that the e-learning system of the University of Sangga Buana is at a reasonable level withno high system vulnerabilities found and well-implemented risk management.

On Combining Static, Dynamic and Interactive Analysis Security Testing Tools to Improve OWASP Top Ten Security Vulnerability Detection in Web Applications

The design of the techniques and algorithms used by the static, dynamic and interactive security testing tools differ. Therefore, each tool detects to a greater or lesser extent each type of vulnerability for which they are designed for. In addition, their different designs mean that they have different percentages of false positives. In order to take advantage of the possible synergies that different analysis tools types may have, this paper combines several static, dynamic and interactive analysis security testing tools—static white box security analysis (SAST), dynamic black box security analysis (DAST) and interactive white box security analysis (IAST), respectively. The aim is to investigate how to improve the effectiveness of security vulnerability detection while reducing the number of false positives. Specifically, two static, two dynamic and two interactive security analysis tools will be combined to study their behavior using a specific benchmark for OWASP Top Ten security vulnerabilities and taking into account various scenarios of different criticality in terms of the applications analyzed. Finally, this study analyzes and discuss the values of the selected metrics applied to the results for each n-tools combination.