Will Penetration Testing Become the go-to Tool for App Security?
Business operations are relying heavily upon the development of mobile apps so the major chunk of businesses ROI depends on it. Considering the need of mobile apps, it won’t be a healthy decision to compromise on the quality or safety of apps. That’s why organizations are implementing the use of penetration testing, in order to not leave any room for errors.
Penetration testing is one of the finest testing methods to ensure the software product quality while behaving like an actual hacker, or attacker. Penetration testing fortunes are not just for the testing of web applications but it has quite a large number of benefits for controlling the security issues of mobile applications as well. The objective of penetration tests for mobile applications is to recognize the security flaws in custom-written applications. The purpose of this type of testing is not only testing the security guards that the designers have applied but also recognizing the faults and flaws that the developers or architects may have skipped or didn’t realize even existed.
The major chunk of business operations is now being operated by the development of mobile applications with some specific area or concept to target the desired customer base. As so many business operations and a major portion of business revenues depend upon the mobile apps, then don’t you think that the safety and security of such apps must be a key objective for the organizations? The market is chock-full of application testing companies that are working with an agenda to ensure the safety of such apps that will be explored by the customers in-depth. Before a user or customer detects any bug, virus, or a loophole in an app, a mobile application testing company makes sure to fix it.
Realizing such a criticality to ensure the safety of mobile applications, nowadays organizations are implementing the use of penetration testing, in order to not leave any room for errors and omissions.
Let us grab your attention to some of the reasons why pen testing is considered to be a future go-to tool for mobile application testers;
Prevents attacks earlier by estimating the behaviors of attackers and predicting their moves –
You never know and cannot be sure whether hackers will hack your mobile applications, attack your back-end systems, and steal your data. Nevertheless, you can predict what may happen in the future and reduce related risks. You can estimate the actions of the actual hacker to detect the faults in the code and fix them before the hacker came and exploits them.
Penetration testing is a special security test designed for this purpose. In penetration testing, testers use advanced tools and tech knowledge to make an estimation of the behavior of an attacker who penetrates into the client environment to obtain information and/or gain access to higher privileges without proper authorization.
Going live with apps without even worrying about safety –
With the help of mobile app security testing, You may discover security loopholes that can lead you to dangerous vulnerabilities after the mobile application goes live.
Before launching a mobile application, you can change the architecture, design, and code of the application by understanding the flaws, attack vectors, bottlenecks, and security vulnerabilities in the source code. It is cheaper to solve the problem at this stage than when it is discovered that the application’s architecture is flawed or when a violation occurs in the future. The cost at these stages will not only cover technical issues but also law, public relations, etc.
A detailed report – After careful consideration, you will get a report that contains all the information needed to ensure that your software is not attacked. Generally, this report contains:
- Information about the expert who created the report
- Penetration test start and end date
- Test reason
- Resources and data provided by the software owner
- Description of tools and hardware used for testing
- Description of the penetration testing process
- Description of the serious vulnerability found
- Suggestions to resolve these serious vulnerabilities
Penetration testing can produce a complete report on all potential threats and their prevention methods. After receiving this report, you can send it to your development team to ensure that they can resolve all risks.
After changing the code, you need to test the software again to make sure that everything is in order and the security issue is resolved.
Final Thoughts
Penetration testing is no doubt a pivotal part of security testing-probably the essential one. Penetration testing makes it possible for the quality assurance professionals to view the product from the perspective of a hacker while understanding how to take protective measures against the product security threats.
Recommended Reading :
- Penetration Testing: Domain Footprinting with Subdomain Search and Other Techniques
- 6 Effective Steps to Carry Out Penetration Testing Successfully
- 10 Security Apps to Ensure Privacy on your Android Devices
- CyberArk Uncovers Potential Risks in Kubernetes
Even though safety is a concern for all sorts of applications either web or mobile applications that can access user data (in our world, 99% of software), penetration testing is especially necessary for any product that stores and transmits health and financial data including banking mobile applications, e-commerce apps, and other as well.