Security Testing

🛡️ Security Testing: Be the Castle Guard Before the Dragons Arrive!

🏰 The Big Picture: What is Security Testing?

Imagine your software is a beautiful castle. Inside are treasures: user data, passwords, money, and secrets. Security testing is like hiring guards to check every door, window, and secret passage before real thieves try to break in.

One Simple Idea: Find the holes in your castle walls before the bad guys do!

🗺️ Our Journey Today

We’ll explore 7 important ways to protect your castle:

1. 🎯 Security Testing Overview
2. 🥷 Penetration Testing
3. 🔍 Vulnerability Assessment
4. 🌐 Web Vulnerability Testing
5. 🔐 Authentication Testing
6. 👮 Authorization Testing
7. 🎫 Session Management Testing

1. 🎯 Security Testing Overview

What Is It?

Security testing is checking your software for weaknesses that bad people might use to steal, break, or mess up things.

Think of it like this:

• Your house has a door lock 🚪
• Security testing = trying to pick that lock yourself to see if it’s strong enough

Why Does It Matter?

Simple Example

Bad Code (weak lock):

password = "123456"

Good Code (strong lock):

password = "X#9kL@2mN!pQ"

Security testing would catch the weak password!

2. 🥷 Penetration Testing (Pen Testing)

What Is It?

Penetration testing is like hiring a friendly ninja to break into your castle. They try everything a real attacker would—but they’re on your side!

Think of it: Your friend pretends to be a burglar to test your home security.

How Does It Work?

graph TD
    A["🎯 Plan the Attack"] --> B["🔍 Find Weak Spots"]
    B --> C["💥 Try to Break In"]
    C --> D["📝 Write a Report"]
    D --> E["🔧 Fix Problems"]

Real Example

A pen tester might:

1. Try to guess passwords
2. Look for hidden admin pages
3. Send fake data to forms
4. Try to access files they shouldn’t

Example Finding:

“We found the admin page at /secret-admin with a weak password admin123. We logged in and could delete all users!”

Key Point

✅ Penetration testing = Actually trying to hack in ❌ Not just looking—actively attacking (safely)

3. 🔍 Vulnerability Assessment

What Is It?

Vulnerability assessment is like a health checkup for your software. You scan everything and make a list of all the weak spots.

Difference from Pen Testing:

• Vulnerability Assessment = “Here are 50 possible problems”
• Penetration Testing = “I broke in through problem #12”

The Process

graph TD
    A["🔎 Scan Everything"] --> B["📋 List All Weaknesses"]
    B --> C["⚠️ Rate by Danger Level"]
    C --> D["🔧 Fix Most Dangerous First"]

Danger Levels

Simple Example

Scanner finds:

⚠️ CRITICAL: SQL Injection possible on login form
⚠️ HIGH: Passwords stored without encryption
⚠️ MEDIUM: Server reveals version info

4. 🌐 Web Vulnerability Testing

What Is It?

Websites have special weak spots. Web vulnerability testing checks for web-specific problems that hackers love to exploit.

The Top Web Villains

🧪 SQL Injection

Bad guys put code in your forms to steal data.

Normal login:

Username: alice
Password: secret123

SQL Injection attack:

Username: ' OR '1'='1
Password: anything

This could let them log in without knowing the password!

🎭 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Bad guys inject evil code that runs in other users’ browsers.

Normal comment:

"I love this product!"

XSS attack:

<script>stealCookies()</script>

🔓 Broken Access Control

Accessing pages you shouldn’t.

Normal: /user/profile/123
Attack: /user/profile/456
(seeing someone else's data!)

Testing Tools Check For:

• SQL Injection ✓
• XSS attacks ✓
• Broken links & access ✓
• Insecure file uploads ✓
• Missing HTTPS ✓

5. 🔐 Authentication Testing

What Is It?

Authentication = “Are you who you say you are?”

It’s like checking someone’s ID at the castle gate.

What We Test

graph TD
    A["🔐 Authentication Testing"] --> B["Password Strength"]
    A --> C["Login Protection"]
    A --> D["Password Reset"]
    A --> E["Multi-Factor Auth"]

Common Problems

Example Test

Test: Can I log in with “password123”? Result: ✅ Yes (BAD!) Fix: Require minimum 12 characters, numbers, symbols

The Password Test Checklist

✅ Minimum 8-12 characters? ✅ Requires mix of letters, numbers, symbols? ✅ Blocks common passwords like “123456”? ✅ Limits login attempts? ✅ Hashes passwords in database?

6. 👮 Authorization Testing

What Is It?

Authorization = “Are you allowed to do this?”

Authentication asks: “Who are you?” Authorization asks: “What can you do?”

Castle Example:

• Authentication = Checking your ID at the gate
• Authorization = Can you enter the treasure room?

The Problem

graph TD
    A["👤 Regular User"] -->|Tries to access| B["🔒 Admin Panel"]
    B --> C{Check Authorization}
    C -->|NO - Blocked| D["✅ Secure"]
    C -->|YES - Allowed| E["❌ VULNERABILITY!"]

Common Authorization Bugs

1. Direct Object Reference

Your profile: /user/profile/100
Try changing: /user/profile/101
→ See someone else's data! 😱

2. Missing Role Checks

# BAD - No check!
def delete_user(user_id):
    database.delete(user_id)

# GOOD - Role check!
def delete_user(user_id, current_user):
    if current_user.role != "admin":
        return "Access Denied!"
    database.delete(user_id)

3. Privilege Escalation Regular user → Admin powers (BAD!)

What Testers Check

• Can users access other users’ data?
• Can regular users do admin things?
• Do all sensitive actions check permissions?
• Are roles enforced on the server (not just hidden in UI)?

7. 🎫 Session Management Testing

What Is It?

When you log in, your app gives you a session — like a wristband at a theme park. Session management testing checks if these wristbands are secure.

How Sessions Work

graph TD
    A["🔐 Login"] --> B["🎫 Get Session Token"]
    B --> C["🌐 Use Token for Requests"]
    C --> D["⏰ Token Expires/Logout"]

Session Problems to Test

Example Attacks

1. Session Hijacking

Your session: ABC123
Hacker steals: ABC123
Hacker is now YOU! 😱

2. Session Fixation

1. Hacker gets blank session: XYZ789
2. Tricks you into using XYZ789
3. You log in with XYZ789
4. Hacker now has logged-in session!

Good Session Practices

✅ Random, long session tokens ✅ Tokens expire after inactivity ✅ New token after login ✅ Secure cookie flags ✅ Invalidate on logout

Cookie Security Flags

Set-Cookie: session=abc123;
  HttpOnly;    ← JavaScript can't steal it
  Secure;      ← Only sent over HTTPS
  SameSite=Strict;  ← Prevents CSRF

🎯 Putting It All Together

🚀 Remember!

Security testing is like being a friendly dragon who tests the castle’s defenses before the mean dragons arrive.

🛡️ Find the holes. Fix the holes. Protect the treasures.

The best time to find a security problem? Before the bad guys do!

🧠 Quick Recap

1. Security Testing Overview → Check for weaknesses before attackers do
2. Penetration Testing → Friendly hackers actively try to break in
3. Vulnerability Assessment → Scan and list all possible problems
4. Web Vulnerability Testing → Check for web-specific attacks (SQLi, XSS)
5. Authentication Testing → Verify login security
6. Authorization Testing → Ensure proper access control
7. Session Management Testing → Protect those login wristbands!

🏰 Your castle is only as strong as its weakest wall. Test them all!