// Slime Mold

Web Application

In today’s digital landscape, even Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) leverage web applications to encapsulate their corporate ethos, yet they remain prime targets, with data indicating 43% of cyber onslaughts target SMEs, leading to 60% ceasing operations within six months post-attack. Predominantly, these breaches initiate from web applications due to their public accessibility. Slime Mold fortifies web applications’ defense by employing the OWASP ASVS framework, which aligns with the OWASP Top Ten, spotlighting prevalent real-world attack vectors. Opting for this service transitions your security stance from reactive to proactive, ensuring accurate penetration testing of your web application, culminating in a comprehensive report to preempt and counter potential cyber threats, all in alignment with the MITRE ATT&CK® matrix.

Procedure

3 Types

OWASP ASVS testing has three verification levels: L1, L2, and L3, determined by testing depth

L1

Black Box

Testing is done without knowledge of the web application's internal details, mimicking an external attacker's approach. However, unlike real-world attackers who aren't time-bound, this method may not offer a comprehensive security analysis of the application.

L2

Gray Box

This method blends elements of both black box and white box testing. While the tester is aware of certain application details like software and architecture, they don't have complete source code access. Using OWASP ASVS L2 verification is highly beneficial for this approach. It's recommended due to its ability to address the time limitations found in black box testing.

L3

White Box

Full visibility of source code and backend elements is used in this testing method. It offers the most thorough analysis of a web application's security. However, it's not the most realistic approach since attackers typically rely on dynamic analysis rather than examining the source code. This method is also the most time-intensive.

classification

5 Main Categories

The classification encompasses a structured approach designed to cover every facet of Web Application Manual Penetration Testing.

Access Control is a fundamental component of the OWASP ASVS. It ensures that only authorized users can perform specific actions within an application. Proper implementation of access control mechanisms is crucial to prevent unauthorized access and potential breaches. 

  • Verification Levels: Access Control is addressed across all three levels of verification (L1, L2, and L3), with each level delving deeper into the intricacies of ensuring secure access.
  • Principles: The standard emphasizes the principle of least privilege, ensuring that users have only the minimum necessary access to perform their tasks. This minimizes potential damage if an attacker compromises a user account.
  • Checks: OWASP ASVS provides specific checks to validate that access controls are correctly implemented. These checks range from ensuring proper session management to verifying that role-based access controls are in place and functioning as expected.
  • Continuous Verification: Access Control isn’t a one-time task. The ASVS recommends continuous verification to ensure that as applications evolve, their access control mechanisms remain robust and effective

Input validation is a crucial security measure highlighted by the OWASP ASVS. It ensures that only properly formatted data enters a system, preventing malicious data from causing harm. 

  • Purpose: Input validation aims to verify that the data provided by users is both safe and appropriate for its intended use.
  • Importance: By validating inputs, systems can prevent various attacks, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and command injection, which exploit poorly validated input data.
  • OWASP ASVS Guidance: The ASVS provides specific criteria and guidelines on how to effectively implement input validation to ensure robust application security.
  • Techniques: This includes whitelisting acceptable inputs, rejecting known bad inputs, and sanitizing data to remove potential threats.
  • Depth: While basic input validation can catch many threats, OWASP ASVS recommends a more comprehensive approach, ensuring that validation occurs at multiple layers, from the user interface to the backend systems.

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, system, or application. It ensures that an entity is who it claims to be. 

  • OWASP ASVS Focus: The ASVS provides a comprehensive set of guidelines specifically for authentication mechanisms. This ensures that applications implement authentication in a secure and robust manner.
  • Importance: Proper authentication prevents unauthorized access. Without it, malicious actors could impersonate legitimate users and gain access to sensitive data or functionalities.
  • Verification Levels: Within the ASVS, there are different levels of verification for authentication. Depending on the application’s security needs, developers can choose the depth of authentication checks.
  • Best Practices: The ASVS recommends practices like using multi-factor authentication, ensuring secure password storage, and implementing proper session management.

A methodical and deliberate process simulating cyber-attacks on APIs and Web Services using the structure provided by OWASP ASVS ensuring a comprehensive coverage of potential security issues. 

  • Key Focus Areas in Manual Pen-Testing of APIs and Web Services:
    • Authentication and Authorization: Ensuring that only legitimate users can access the API or Web Service and that they can only perform actions they’re permitted to.
    • Data Validation: Checking for vulnerabilities like SQL injection, XML External Entity (XXE) attacks, and other input-related flaws.
    • Rate Limiting and Throttling: Ensuring that the API or Web Service can’t be overwhelmed by too many requests in a short time, leading to potential Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
    • Sensitive Data Exposure: Ensuring that confidential data, such as passwords or personal information, isn’t inadvertently exposed or leaked.
    • Business Logic Flaws: Identifying vulnerabilities that might arise from the specific logic and functionalities of the application.

 

  • Configuration Management: Emphasizing the importance of secure configuration throughout the application’s lifecycle. This includes ensuring that default configurations are altered to enhance security, unnecessary features are disabled, and only essential components are enabled.
  • Sensitive Data Protection: Proper configuration ensures that sensitive data, such as user credentials and personal information, are protected both in transit and at rest. This involves using encryption, secure protocols, and other protective measures.
  • Error Handling: Underscoring the need for secure error handling. Applications should be designed to handle errors gracefully without revealing sensitive information. For instance, generic error messages should be displayed instead of detailed stack traces or database errors.
  • Logging Configuration: Proper configuration ensures that logs capture essential security events without storing sensitive user data. This aids in monitoring and detecting potential security threats.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Configuration changes and error handling procedures should be continuously monitored and reviewed to adapt to emerging threats and ensure ongoing compliance with OWASP ASVS standards

Standards

OWASP ASVS (Application Security Verification Standard) and MITRE ATT&CK® are pivotal frameworks in the realm of cybersecurity, each serving distinct purposes for manual penetration testing. OWASP ASVS provides a structured methodology for verifying the security posture of web applications, categorizing its guidelines into three levels of verification depth. It emphasizes secure coding practices, configuration management, and error handling, among other facets of application security. On the other hand, MITRE ATT&CK® is a knowledge base that outlines the tactics, techniques, and procedures tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) employed by adversaries to exploit systems. It offers a comprehensive matrix of potential attack vectors, aiding penetration testers in simulating real-world threat scenarios and identifying vulnerabilities. When combined, these frameworks provide a holistic approach to manual penetration testing, ensuring that applications are not only resilient against known vulnerabilities but also prepared for advanced threat tactics that adversaries might employ.