In the fast-paced world of startups, software testing often takes a backseat to feature development. However, implementing effective software testing for startups isn’t just about finding bugs—it’s about building customer trust and reducing long-term costs. This guide explores how emerging companies can establish robust testing practices without breaking the bank.

Why Software Testing for Startups Is Critical

The misconception that software testing for startups is a luxury rather than a necessity has led many young companies to face costly setbacks. According to industry research, fixing bugs in production can cost up to 30 times more than addressing them during development. For resource-constrained startups, this difference can be make-or-break.

• Reduced Technical Debt
  • Catch and fix issues early in development
  • Prevent the accumulation of problematic code
  • Save significant resources on future maintenance

• Enhanced Product Reliability
  • Ensure consistent performance across different scenarios
  • Minimize unexpected crashes and downtime
  • Build trust with early adopters

• Improved Customer Satisfaction
  • Deliver a smoother user experience
  • Reduce customer support tickets
  • Maintain a positive brand reputation

• Lower Long-term Maintenance Costs
  • Decrease time spent on emergency fixes
  • Reduce resources needed for debugging
  • Enable more efficient feature development

• Faster Time-to-Market
  • Streamline the development process
  • Reduce last-minute fixes before launch
  • Enable confident feature releases

Essential Testing Strategies for Startups

1. Automated Testing Foundations

When implementing software testing for startups, automation should be a top priority. Start with:

• Unit Tests
  • Test individual components in isolation
  • Verify basic functionality
  • Catch issues at the code level

• Integration Tests
  • Ensure different components work together
  • Verify system interactions
  • Test data flow between modules

• Basic End-to-End Tests
  • Simulate real user scenarios
  • Verify complete user journeys
  • Test critical business flows

• Continuous Integration Pipeline
  • Automate test execution
  • Ensure code quality before deployment
  • Maintain consistent testing standards

2. Manual Testing Approaches

While automation is crucial, strategic manual testing remains valuable for:

• Exploratory Testing
  • Discover unexpected issues
  • Test edge cases
  • Identify usability problems

• User Experience Validation
  • Assess interface intuitiveness
  • Verify design consistency
  • Test accessibility features

• Edge Case Scenarios
  • Test unusual user behaviors
  • Verify error handling
  • Validate boundary conditions

• Beta Testing Programs
  • Gather real user feedback
  • Identify real-world issues
  • Test in diverse environments

Cost-Effective Testing Tools for Startups

Modern software testing for startups doesn’t require enterprise-level budgets. Consider these affordable options:

• Open Source Testing Tools
  • Jest: Perfect for JavaScript applications with zero configuration needed
  • JUnit: Robust testing framework for Java applications
  • Selenium: Comprehensive web application testing solution

• Cloud-Based Testing Platforms
  • BrowserStack: Test across multiple browsers and devices
  • LambdaTest: Automated and live testing capabilities
  • TestingBot: Parallel testing and CI/CD integration

Building a Testing Culture

Success in software testing for startups begins with culture. Implement these practices:

• Test-Driven Development (TDD)
  • Write tests before implementing features
  • Ensure code meets requirements
  • Maintain high-quality standards from the start
• Quality-First Mindset
  • Regular code reviews with testing focus
  • Comprehensive testing documentation
  • Systematic bug tracking and prioritization

Best Practices for Resource-Constrained Teams

• Prioritize Testing Efforts
  • Focus on core features
  • Risk-based testing approach
  • Regular security testing

• Leverage Community Resources
  • Open source tools
  • Testing frameworks
  • Community support

Common Pitfalls in Software Testing for Startup

Many startups face challenges when implementing software testing. Here are key issues to avoid:

• Postponing Testing Until Launch
• Ignoring Performance Testing
• Insufficient Test Coverage
• Poor Test Documentation

Measuring Testing Success

Track these metrics to evaluate your software testing for startups:

• Test Coverage
• Bug Detection Rate
• Time to Fix
• Customer-Reported Issues
• Release Stability

Scaling Your Testing Strategy

As your startup grows, your testing needs will evolve. Plan for:

• Expanded Test Coverage
• Additional Testing Types
• Team Growth
• Tool Updates

Key Takeaways

• Start testing early
• Automate strategically
• Build a testing culture
• Focus on critical features
• Scale gradually

Remember: Investment in software testing for startups is not an expense—it’s insurance against future technical debt and customer dissatisfaction.

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What is Continuous Integration?

Continuous integration (CI) is a development practice that involves frequently merging the changes in the code. A development team member may merge the code multiple times frequently in the day. Every integration change that is pushed in the code repository is verified by an automated test which runs as soon as the code change is pushed, this provides with the faster feedback on the code committed and gives a fair insight whether the merged code works as expected.

Continuous Integration is becoming an essential part of Agile and DevOps environments as it speeds up development cycles, reduces manual effort and improves code quality.

Automated testing is a fundamental part of the CI process, not only it helps in providing the faster feedback but also enables teams to detect bugs and errors early and ensure only high-quality code is deployed to the pipeline which eventually leads to production.

What is an Automated test?

An automated test script is a set of instructions written in a programming/scripting language. It is designed to test the functionality of a software product as per the business validation. Automated test scripts are usually based on a set of test requirements and carry out tests on the software which would otherwise need to be completed manually. Automated tests help in quick verification of the functionality in less time and provides us with the timely feedback on the code changes pushed to the repository.

Why write Automated tests?

If we look at the traditional SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), whenever a member from the development team used to merge the code in the repository, the QA team was required to check if the code was working as expected by running the manual regression tests. This actually had multiple drawbacks like lots of manual efforts involved, late feedback on the code changes, no continuous testing of the build. This all eventually led to an increase in the development cost and time to production.

By writing automated tests we can get the feedback on builds quickly, reduce the manual efforts on testing and it also serves as a documentation for the functionality as tests once written will be modified only if there is change in the feature otherwise it is expected to run and pass. Automated tests also make it easier to test across multiple platforms, browsers and devices without having to manually re-run tests

Automated tests also help in running the regression test cycles quickly, so we don’t have to put in lots of manual efforts. Hence, automated tests serve as a safety net by verifying that new changes to the code don’t break existing functionality.

After writing the automated tests we need to integrate it into the automated pipeline so it performs the tasks to run the tests. Let’s now discuss the automated pipeline as it is a building block for CI/CD.

What is an Automated Pipeline?

An automated pipeline is a process of software development which helps in building, testing and deploying the code. It helps in minimizing the manual efforts and thereby removing the human errors and provides a consistent process to release the software to different development environments and finally to production.

Hope now you have a basic understanding of Continuous Integration, automated tests, and automated pipeline. Let’s now move towards discussing how we can integrate the automated tests in the continuous integration workflow and get best output on our builds.

How to integrate automated tests with Continuous Integration workflow?

The following guide provides an overview of how automated tests can be integrated within a Continuous Integration workflow

Defining Testing Strategy

Before we can start creating automated tests, we need to define the testing strategy. The objective of defining a test strategy is to:

• Explain what the tests are intended to achieve.
• Create Different Test environments.
• Running different tests like Unit, Integration, Systems and End to End Tests.
• Deployment of the builds in different environments.
• Automated deployment of Build to UAT/Production.
• Planning for Separate pipeline to run performance tests.
• Planning for running security checks to test for the vulnerabilities in the code.

Test Strategy document should outline how the software development will progress. It should also provide an overview of the QA Process.

Choosing a Test Automation Framework

After finalizing the testing strategy, we need to pick an appropriate automation testing framework. Now, for choosing an automation framework following points can be taken as a recommendation:

• Tech Stack of the Software under development: It is good to choose the framework which has the same programming language as the tech stack of the software under development, as this gives the benefit of getting help from the developers as well while writing automated tests.
• QA Team’s knowledge on programming language: Now, this is a point which can be taken up after discussion with the team. It emphasizes choosing a framework which is built in the programming language which majority of the QA Team members are familiar with. This way we might get quality code written for the tests as well as easy implementation of the framework. The other perspective to look around this point is, if the suggestion is to choose a framework which is robust and popular and has a large community however the team is not much familiar with the programming language it uses, then it should be seen what the learning curve is, if the team is ready to learn the new language and adapt it and implement the framework and how much time it will take for implementation. Decision should be taken after discussion with the team to choose a framework must be taken after consideration of the mentioned points.
• Community Support and ease of use: These are the basic points that should be checked when considering a framework for writing tests. How easy it is to configure and write tests. Does the framework have good community support in case there is an issue faced by the team implementing it. How can it be configured and run in the automation pipeline, are the points which can be thought upon and accordingly a choice should be made.
• Cost: There are a variety of tools and frameworks available, so you need to consider the environment and application requirements when selecting an appropriate solution. It’s important to evaluate the cost associated with each tool. Check the pricing and the license cost and also about the long term offerings the tool has to make.
• Open-Source automation framework: If an Open-Source automation framework is to be chosen, it must be checked if there are any issues open which are related to security vulnerability, as it might indirectly affect the application under development. Also, point to be noted here is if the project or framework is actively maintained by its owners, precaution should be taken to not choose a framework which is archived or not actively maintained as it may create a blocker for implementation if any issue is found, and since it is not actively maintained, it would be easy to fix the issue.

Once we choose the automation framework, we should follow the best practices so it caters to the news of the organization.

Creating Test Scenarios/ Test Cases

We need to write the test scenarios and respective test cases for scenarios. Test Scenarios/cases should be created after analyzing the requirements. A list of pre conditions that needs to be followed should also be generated to test the application. Most importantly, scenarios and cases should be segregated correctly based on which tests can be automated and which ones can be tested using manual exploratory tests.

Writing Automated Tests

In this step we will be writing the automated tests. This involves creating scripts that can be executed when new code is pushed to the repository. It should be noted that appropriate assertions should be performed in each test which should provide us with right feedback about the feature under development. Automating your tests will help to reduce the time and effort for running the regression tests and also ensures that new code is properly tested before it is deployed.

Execution and Reporting

Test Execution

We need to decide how we are going to execute the tests. Hence, we need to keep the following points in consideration:

1. Test Environment
2. Automated Pipelines
3. Ensure proper logging of errors/ warning/ debug to monitor the test execution.

Test Reporting

A detailed test execution report helps in providing the correct situation of the respective build, if it is good or has issues. Test Reports should include description of the tests that were executed, test data used for executing the tests, information on any bugs that were detected, as well as performance metrics.

Summary

CI/CD has become an integral part of the Software Development Life Cycle. With Continuous Testing we can always be production ready and reduce the manual efforts and improve the code quality as well.

To integrate our automation tests in CI/CD pipeline we should define a test strategy, create test cases and scenarios which can be used for writing automation tests, choose an appropriate test automation framework by discussing with your team.

We should also make sure that we have appropriate knowledge about the framework we are choosing, be it a commercial one or an open source, and how that framework will be integrated with the CI/CD pipeline. Finally, we should check out how the tests will be executed and reports will be generated which can come handy for showing the overall picture of the automation test run to the Stakeholders.

DevOps testing is a type of software testing that combines traditional software engineering and Quality Assurance methods with the test automation, process automation, and the combining practices of DevOps. But before we move towards discussing “DevOps Testing” in detail, let’s first understand What is DevOps?

What is DevOps?

DevOps is the combination of Dev(Development) and Ops(Operation). It is a collaboration of people, process and technology within the Software Development teams for faster development and delivery of the software to market. It also helps in providing faster feedback on the builds and fixing the issues that arise as development progresses.

Previously Teams like Operations, Security, etc used to work separately from the Software development teams which created a gap between these teams and the releases and after release processes were hit. DevOps ensures that all the teams work in an engaged mode to ensure faster feedback and deliver quality products.

Purpose of DevOps Testing

The purpose of DevOps testing is to ensure that the application and its environment are stable, accurate and secure. This type of testing integrates automated test scripts with the core software development and deployment process, allowing for more rapid testing, more reliable results, and quicker feedback to development teams.

The main objective of DevOps testing is to reduce the time it takes to develop a solution without compromising on quality. It involves automating the process of testing, which helps in increasing the speed of delivery and provides more timely feedback. Additionally, the scope of DevOps testing can be used to identify the vulnerabilities and defects in the code that are not detected by traditional software testing approaches.

Furthermore, integration testing, performance testing and security testing can also be part of DevOps testing in order to ensure the application meets the desired criteria. Lastly, DevOps testing offers several benefits such as faster time to market, improved reliability and reduced cost of delivery.

DevOps LifeCycle

Devops Lifecycle consists for 5 important phases, those are listed below :

1. Planning.
2. Development
3. Testing
4. Deployment.
5. Operations.

Let’s discuss these phases in detail.

Planning

The crucial factor in deciding the delivery is the plan. It helps in getting the answers to the common question like:

1. What is to be developed?
2. When it is to be developed?
3. Who will be working on what?
4. When will it be delivered?

In this phase, teams sit together and discuss the features to be developed, the business goals, defining the entry and exit criteria for the features, and timelines to release the product to market.

Clients are involved in this planning phase as well to ensure the transparency between the stakeholders and the development team. Hence, in case there is something that needs to be prioritized can be discussed in this phase and accordingly adjustments can be made to the plan.

Once the plan is finalized, following action items needs to be worked upon:

1. Creating Backlogs
2. Prioritizing the features.
3. Creating Agile Dashboards to monitor progress of projects.
4. Delivery Dates.
5. Working towards coordination with Third Party Vendors.

Development

This is the main phase where the actual development of the software takes place. In this phase the team works towards the following:

1. Selecting/Creating Development Environment.
2. Writing the code to develop features.
3. Perform Static Code analysis and review the code.
4. Write Unit, Integration, Contract and Component test.
5. Use version control, like Git, to collaborate on code and work in parallel.
6. Build and deploy the code to different environments.

Testing

Testing is the most important part of the DevOps LifeCycle as it is involved in every phase of the LifeCycle from Planning to Deployment. Without Continuous Testing, DevOps can not succeed.

In the Planning phase testing is done by checking if we are heading into the right direction by asking right questions and getting all the clarifications about the product in development.

Once the developer commits the code to the repository, the automated pipeline starts running the scheduled tasks for Unit tests, Integration tests, System tests and End to End Tests. Any failure in any of the stages breaks the pipeline and team is required to fix the broken stage and rerun the tests. Hence, the development and testing happen in parallel and the team gets faster feedback on every code commit.

Deployment

This is the phase which is of most importance from the Operations point of view and many times in my experience, I have seen that even after performing multiple test checks, running Automation regression tests thoroughly, the deployment had failed and the build is of no use from the end user’s perspective. Hence, DevOps Testing ensures that whatever build we generate is stable and can be deployed to any environment successfully.

It is recommended to have different environments for checking the stability of the builds, like once the development is completed and all the automated checks are performed on the build, the build should get deployed to QA Environment and then to UAT and after the UAT sign off, finally to production.

This deployment is done automatically as soon as all the tests staged in the automated pipeline passes.

Operations

This phase involves maintaining, monitoring and troubleshooting applications in the production environment. Automated logs and events generated in production could be great help in diagnosing the issues and fixing them quickly. Continuous Testing and Automated Deployment helps in providing the faster feedback in the builds which eventually helps in actual production to deployment.

Following the Test Pyramid in DevOps Testing

Test Pyramid is a process that can help the development and testers to build and deliver high quality software.

The lower section of the pyramid helps in getting faster feedback as the issues we find in the lower section of the pyramid are less costly to fix.

The main aim is to get faster feedback on the builds. As we move in the upward direction of the Test Pyramid, the feedback is slower and issues are more costly to fix.

Let’s discuss the Test Pyramid that can be followed for practicing Continuous Testing in DevOps.

Unit Tests: This stage runs the unit tests as soon as the code is committed by the developer to the repository.

Service/Integration Tests: These tests are executed after the Unit Tests are successfully run. The main idea behind these tests is to check the different components/Services of the system are communicating and working correctly in sync.

System Tests: These tests are run once the unit and integration test checks are successfully run. These tests check the integrated system as a whole.

End to End Journey Tests: These are the end to end user journeys which QA team normally write. These are regression tests for the system. These tests ensure that the system is working correctly from the end user’s point of view.

Manual Exploratory Tests: The tests which can not be covered as a part of Automated tests can be tested in this stage. In this stage, manual exploratory testing of the application is done to find out the stability and the working of the application. Here, functional and non functional both kinds of testing can be done to check the quality of the application.

Conclusion

With the businesses demanding frequent quality releases, it is necessary to bake the quality within the product. The traditional practices of Software Delivery has been replaced by DevOps where automated pipeline helps in Continuous Testing and Automated Deployment to deliver the product to the end users frequently with quality.

Introduction

With the digital revolution, demands have been increased for the softwares to be delivered to the end users at the earliest. However, it is very important to release a bug free application into the market else the business will have to face brunt. Hence, it is essential to automate the checks and test the application thoroughly before releasing it.

Automation testing makes the testers life easier as the code once written for regression tests can be repeated again and again for rechecking without putting in manual efforts. This saves time and money and also builds in confidence for releasing the application into production with quality.

Regression tests are very much required to be performed as it helps us in knowing the quality of the build against the recent changes made to the application, be it a website or mobile application. And if this is performed using automated tests it can heavily decrease the testing time. A small functionality of testing a CRUD operation of an application might require 5-10 mins of Manual Tester’s time while the same could be tested using Automated Regression tests within 20 seconds approximately.

Automation testing, however, requires, right set of tools, test automation frameworks, technical expertise and testing teams skillset to get the best results. In this blog, we will learn about the best practices for test automation framework.

But before we move on towards discussing the best practices for automation framework, let’s first understand What is an Automation Framework?

What is an Automation Framework?

Automation frameworks are a set of guidelines related to coding standards, test data management, configuration management, etc which helps in increased code-usage, reduced script maintenance and duplicate codes.

There are no strict rules for an Automation Framework, it is just a guideline which helps in reducing the complexity and makes scripting easier.

Best Practices for Automation Framework

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the design of a test automation framework will vary depending on the specific needs of the organization. However, some best practices for test automation framework design include:

1. Keep it Simple

Don’t try to build a framework that is too complex or that covers too many different types of tests. A good rule of thumb is to keep the framework as simple as possible, while still providing the functionality required by the business. The other side of asking to keep it simple is considering the team’s skill set, as the freshers join in the team, it will help them grasp the framework knowledge easily, which eventually adds to the productivity. Otherwise, extra efforts will be required to be put in to explain the framework which will add up to the training of the new members in the testing team.

2. Use a Modular Approach

Modular approach is based on the popularly known OOPs concept – Abstraction. This approach should be used so that different parts of the framework can be easily updated as required. This will make it easier to maintain and improve the framework over time. This approach also helps in code reusability.

3. Make it extensible

As Automation Framework is the foundation for writing automated tests, it should be designed in such a way that it can be easily extended to support new types of tests or new features as and when the need arises. This will make it more flexible and easier to adapt.

4. Discuss Tech Stack with the Team Members

Before you start working on the Automation Framework, discuss it internally with your team, it will help in evaluating the idea of framework creation and you will have more clarity to start your work with.

Points like the following can be brainstormed with your team:

• What Programming language to be used?
• Which tool should you opt for – Open Source tool or Commercial?
• Should the framework be in the same language as the application is built in?
• List out tools that can be used for your framework, like in case of Web Automation whether Selenium WebDriver Or PlayWright Or Cypress? 
• Touch upon the Pros and Cons of the tools selected and decide which one to go ahead with.
• How will the tool be integrated into the CICD Pipeline?
• Support to run the tests on a cloud platform.

Conclusions should be made after brainstorming on the above topics collectively with the teams thinking about the overall benefit of the application under test.

5. Use standard tools and technologies

It is always recommended to use the latest tools and technologies for the framework so that it can be easily maintained and support the framework in the long term. Use Standard tools which are popularly used in the industry, as these tools have a large community, you get quick help in case you get stuck anywhere.

6. Do a Proof of Concept before starting with the tools

Once the brainstorming is done and tools are decided, it’s better to create a card on the Scrum board for doing a Proof of Concept with the tool to understand the complexity of implementing the tool. Here, Pros and Cons should be noted and accordingly steps should be taken after a team discussion whether to use it for creating a framework or not.

7. Separate the Configuration

It is recommended to separate the configuration from the framework. 

For example, if you are developing a Web Automation framework, values like OS Name and its version and Browser name and its version should be supplied from a separate configuration file so you don’t have to make changes in the Test Runners inside the framework to run different tests. 

Also, consider  a scenario where you have to run parallel tests on different browsers – here setting the browsers, its respective versions, etc from the configuration file will be really helpful. And finally, if you want to run the tests locally, or on a cloud platform, again these values can be set using the configuration file itself.

8. Reporting

Reports are an integral part of an automation framework. Choose a standard reporting tool to be integrated with the framework. It would be good if  the framework is extensible so that it can be plugged in with any reporting tool used widely in the market. 

Stakeholders are mostly interested in knowing the data and figures as well the percentage of the tests that are automated. This report should help you out with all the possible figures required.

9. Capture the Logs

Capturing the logs helps in detecting the errors easily. Logs should be captured accordingly for the actions/events performed by the automation framework. It is suggested to generate appropriate log files for the logs, which can be used for debugging the test failures or framework related errors.

10. Document the framework

Documenting the framework is a good practice as it helps in easily understanding the framework, how it works and how to use it. Example code with samples should also be provided in the “How To” section. 

It will eventually save the time when new joinees enter your team, this document can serve as a guide to them.

Conclusion

In this blog, we learned about the best practices used for creating test automation frameworks.Test Automation can help you deliver the best product to the market by testing your application continuously. Automation Frameworks helps you in organizing and writing the tests, hence it should be created using the best practices followed in the industry.

What tools can be a value-add for your security testing activity?

The famous tool that I use is “Brain” and it’s greatest “Capabilities”

Note that, I explore a lot of tools during the journey of penetration testing as I come from a context-driven school of hackers.

A. Understanding the business(Heuristics to learn)

• Talk to the key people
• Communicate with cross-functional teams
• Take a look at the specifications document
• Use the software if its available on the web in order to learn
• Read about similar businesses
• Browse through exploits-database if similar businesses had any kind of serious “hacking stories” in order to learn from them and also utilise the ideas in the project.
• Software tools like “Passive Recon(naissance) add-on”, “Netcraft Site Report”, Maltego XL (If I have the licence), Whois, NMap, Fingerprinting tools, WayBackMachine (To check how was the evolution of a particular web application),GoogleDorks(I love this).

B. Creation of the Report

• Videos for Proof of Concept (I use many different screen recording software based on the context of the operating system that I am using. Mostly malware free software/ open-source based on my due diligence)
• Screenshots wherever applicable (For web: FireShot / GreenShot /Or even Print Screen feature J)
• Detailed description covering minute aspects of the vulnerabilities
• Add my contact details and availability (If required. Usually, a night-crawler. However, I prefer to be available during the client’s time-zones if insisted).

If you perform manual tests please specify

Well, I never understood what “manual” tests are. I have never heard of “manual programming” or anything like that. Everything comes from the brain and applying various thinking skills.

I use a tool-assisted exploratory approach to perform security / penetration tests and sometimes it is without any tool-assisted, but the brain itself can be a tool to me. For example: I can run OWASP Top 10 using scanners, but they are merely instructions and cannot really come up with creative and intelligent attack vectors or payloads in order to discover the potential vulnerability

So, my answer is:

I use mixed approaches which includes Scanners ONLY + Brain Assisted Tests for OWASP Top 10 or any other kinds of attacks + Scanners and Tools Assisted Exploratory Testing.

What kind of vulnerabilities have you found in websites? Please specify

Starting from encryption based vulnerabilities to SQL injection, Authentication based weaknesses / vulnerabilities, Authorization, Buggy SSL implementation,Man in the Middle Attacks, Network Interception, Reverse Engineering, Cross-site Request Forgery, Arbitrary unvalidated inputs, code injection, Database HiJacking, Out of Memory, dDoS (I wouldn’t really call this as a vulnerability though), finding sensitive data captured in the logs (Log file analysis), HTTP requests and response related vulnerabilities and anywhere my brain could think of finding a loophole. They also could be a sequence of activities performed on the victim or target or a software in order to achieve the hacking goals.

Have you ever tried to test if vulnerability in a website that you find is really exploitable?

Yes, I do that always with mental modelling and then writing an exploit to demonstrate the severity of the discovered vulnerability.

I would love to share an experience of exploitation which I performed in a website. This was an education platform (New York based NGO) and it had a lot of features and various roles / authorisations.

Roles: Student, Teacher and Administrator

Authorisation Levels: Pretty good implementation

Identification: I found out cross-site scripting vulnerability in the TinyMCE editor image insert feature which was integrated within the application.

After identification: I started to think what can I do with this vulnerability? How can I show the severity or damage potential of this XSS vulnerability that I have found. I started to use my feature touring mindmap to identify the features that connect me to different roles in the application. Well, I saw the “MESSAGING” feature in the application where you can send a message to the administrator or teacher being a student. The exploit I was thinking of goes this way — Write AJAX / JavaScript (Malicious) which will force the administrator to create a new administrator or delete all users or add more users and any function that I wanted to execute being a student role

AJAX Snippet of Code Writing: Here, I took the help of my team member who has programmer skills in writing AJAX scripts. I shared my idea of exploit and he helped me in writing this AJAX script in few minutes (less than 15 minutes) which was capable of executing the XSS via Messaging System / Feature for Administrator Role and then creating a new administrator with the given credentials in the AJAX request embedded in the XSS exploit

In short, “Logon as a Student” → “Create malicious AJAX XSS exploit” → “Send the exploit script to Administrator through the TinyMCE editor / Messaging Feature” → “Administrator opens the message and sees a popup box which says, Welcome to the Mail 2.0” (This message is set to not make the victim feel sceptical about this exploit) → And once the popup shows up, it means that our script has or is running in stealth mode (which means, nothing is shown on the UI so that administrator will feel doubtful or something fishy is going on).

Result: I logged in with the credentials of new admin created (the exploit) and I have gained access to the full application and I can do anything now. In short, “I am the Supreme / Super Admin”.

Have you ever carried a PT in which the starting point was “outside” of the company network? (i.e. social engineering/ web app PT etc.) If so please describe.

I mainly perform two ways of attacking. Firstly, from outside the network so that I am not biased from internal networks or access. Secondly, I would also like to perform it from inside the network because that can be faster in discovering and fixing the vulnerabilities found.

I was hired to perform penetration testing from outside the company network and this also included social engineering the employees of that particular company because the Director of the company was also interested in inside security and weaknesses in the people working.

Platform: Web / Mobile / Internet of (Every)thing

My key tasks:

• Identify the rogue insiders
• Perform elicitation on the employees by social engineering
• Perform OWASP Top 10 Attacks
• Go beyond OWASP Top 10
• Provide counter-measures in terms of algorithm
• Suggestions to improve security controls and making it harder for the bad guys

Social Engineering: I found the author names from the javascript files and I tried gathering information about the author (programmers in this context) and found their phone numbers from the public records. Once found, I dialed their number and spoke to them addressing their name and the work they were doing at that company. I also mentioned, I am a new employee and I need some quick help. It’s urgent as I need to send the reports to the Director of the Company. I also took the Director’s name to make myself sound more confident and be persuasive.

With this simple telephone call, I got following information:

• Firewall (Third-Party)
• Version of the Firewall
• Admin login URL path
• Credentials to the production database (Ha ha, this was crazy)
• Other team members who were working on “X” features

All of this was just in one call. This mission was solved and my report said, “Training the employees about cyber security is a must”. And I also was hired to conduct training for all staff”.

I performed OWASP Top 10 Attacks across all the features while I automated some of the features with the same payloads. Not only I addressed OWASP Top 10 attacks, but also spoke to them about smaller vulnerabilities turning out to be nightmares. For example: In the domain who.is information, I found out the name of the admin, phone number, email address and office address. I told them, instead of hacking your application, someone may hack into the email address of the web administrator and bring down the domain or delete all the files.

 I also did a missing security headers scan and told them why “X” headers are important to improve your security and harden the security layers. I insisted they not show the “Administrator Login Webpage” to the whole world, but just allow such sensitive pages to be rendered / loaded only when the URL is accessed by a specific static IP address or company IP network range. I told them, the cost of investigation during a hack is less compared to when your sensitive webpage is publicly accessible around the globe. Maintaining the whitelist of IP addresses to access sensitive pages improves security.

During the end of 10 days of web application pen testing, I was able to find at least 30 Vulnerabilities out of which 2 were 0-day vulnerabilities and others included critical ones and minor ones. The list included CSRF mixed with XSS, Directory Listing, Authentication wasn’t encrypted, SSL certificate misconfiguration, Mixed content allowing a hacker to see the credentials plainly as login form was integrated in HTTP page and not HTTPS, SQL Injection bringing down their server down (but no access to data) by looping and many others.

Please describe the method you use to perform a Penetration Testing.

Here are some of the high-level ways on how I approach penetration testing.

• Agreements like Non-Disclosure, Explicit Written Permission in order to perform Pen Testing related activities (In addition, I would also like to quickly understand the cyber laws of what’s legal and what’s illegal because I don’t want my biased nature as laws change based on jurisdiction).
• Understand the Business
• Understand the Application by using Touring Heuristics
• Create a Feature Map using Mind-Maps
• Identify the Pen Testing Objectives / Goals and Establish a Context
• Perform Threat Risk Modeling
• Identify Vulnerabilities in the System
• Write Exploits / Do Vulnerability Advocacy through Risk Analysis
• Use Vulnerability Scoring System that suits the context (DREAD / STRIDE or CVSS is what I use in my work, but I can tweak these models in order to suit the context of the client and project)
• Create a Report that matters to the various stakeholders of the project

WordPress is cool, but it can also be cool for malicious evil hackers.

Local Risks that matter. Are you mitigating them or avoiding them?

• Do you have an antivirus (up-to-date)? (Kaspersky, Avast, Super Anti-Spyware, MalwareBytes.org or any other which does a great job)
• Are you doing a weekly scanning (full-scan) on the computer that you use for your work?
• If you use a public computer, do you trust them?
• There is no point in having great website security if your computer is infected by a keylogger.
• Are you leaving your cPanel session alive without logging out?
• Are you using a secure enough password on your cPanel?
• Is the FTP software that you are using secure enough? (For instance: WS_FTP has a security vulnerability) Read more at https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-193/product_id-336/Ipswitch-Ws-Ftp-Server.html
• Is your WiFi protected? Are you using WPA2? If not, then I recommend it.
• Do you like to work from Coffee Shop or Starbucks? Maybe you don’t want to log in to your bank account, WordPress site, cPanel, or anything that is sensitive and is of value to you.
• Maybe you can try using VPN software?
• I recommend using a work computer or bank account details on a computer which is only used for “safe-browsing” purposes. Do not mix torrents or websites which are really malware-prone with your work.
• In short, make your local environment safe and secure. It just takes awareness and following certain guidelines mentioned above.

Is your hosting secure?

• Shared hosting: Usually unsafe if you are a reputed business and also it becomes easier for hackers to see your data when they hack into someone else’s account.
• How credible is your hosting company? Maybe you can do some search on Google, ask questions, and do some research. WARNING: Avoid FAKE warning sites.
• Good web hosting = Pricing is gonna be a bit expensive. Bad Web Hosting = Very cheap and very vulnerable.

WordPress Security – Are you doing these?

• Are you updating your WordPress timely?
• Maybe you can turn on auto-updates on your hosting control panel?
• Are you using WordPress hosting services?
• Are you using backup services and also some secure server settings on your cPanel?
• Maybe you want to look at https://wpengine.com/plans/ (Managed Hosting and Security plans) for your WordPress. [ Optional ].

Changing the configuration of your WordPress

• Change the settings of your WordPress because WordPress is open-source and black-hat hackers may be aware of certain naming conventions and try to gain access or try hacking using those default values. Change is for the better
• Modify the table prefix (change wp_ to something else).
• Change the “admin” username. Change it to something else which is not easy to guess by a human or brute force tool.
• Set a secure password. (Do not use the family name, dictionary name, 123456 sequences, or 123 at the end of the password).
• Security keys in WordPress to add a layer of security.
• I see some WordPress sites show the username as author/display name in articles or blog posts. In such a case, changing the “admin” default username to something else is a total waste. Doesn’t make sense.

WordPress Secure Installation

1. Create a new database with a “not so easy to guess” database name. (This is to change the
   table prefix of default WordPress which is wp_)
2. Go to MySQL in cPanel and create a new database. Create the database name something
   like, “r238ab991” this is hard to guess.
3. The next step is to create a strong username and strong password (I know it’s hard, but
   you can try).
4. Use usernames like ew8292lkn320 and password as (maybe you can use password
   generators provided in your hosting. But, make sure they are more than 10 characters
   with better password rules). Look into the password strength meter as well if your
   hosting has one (But, beware of buggy ones. I can show 100/100 by using less than 6
   characters as well ;-)).
5. Make sure you give “All Privileges” to the database user you created.
6. Download the latest WordPress files from http://wordpress.org/ website.
7. Open the wp-config-sample.php file with the text editor once you extract the compressed
   files or archive.
8. Replace the values with your database name, database user, and database password.
9. In the same file wp-config-sample.php, you will find a place to add secure keys. Generate
   the keys and use them. Your WordPress API to create these salt/keys.
10. Also, change the table prefix from wp_ to something else.
11. Change the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php
12. Connect to FTP using FileZilla and transfer all the WordPress files to your server.
13. Once uploaded, go to your website in the web browser.
    [ You will see wp-admin/install.php Choose your language and continue ]
    1. In the username “DO NOT USE admin as USERNAME”. Choose something obscure. For instance: ce897esc
    2. Choose the password which is stronger. Longer the password, the better the password. Maybe you can use http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/ to generate a secure password with better entropy.
    3. There is a setting called “Allow your website to be indexed by search engine”. It is checked by default. You can uncheck it till you create a full-fledged website with all pages in place.
    4. Once the installation is done, make sure you change your Display Name. You don’t want your obscure username to be displayed as an author under every blog post. That’s a hint for black-hat hackers to use the same username in the wp-admin login form. To change this, go to Users → Your Profile and go to the “Nickname” field. Change it to something else. It can be your name or full name or anything else. Then choose the Nickname as “Display name publicly as”.

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Success Story

vTEST’s involvement leads to lower bugs in each release and overall higher quality, acting as a partner in initial processes and conversations. Communication is easy and prompt, and they constantly work to improve. They also provide valuable documentation and feedback after each release.

– CTO , Flight App, USA

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Plugins to be installed on WordPress for better security

[ Be careful as some plugins may slow down your website ]

• Limit login attempts
• Clef secure passwordless login
• All in one WP Security and Firewall
• Wordfence
• Limit IP addresses to login (whitelisting IP addresses)
• Hide the login page
• CAPTCHA on the login page (reCAPTCHA)
• Two-factor authentication
• .htpasswd (You need to enter this password and only then the server will authenticate you to show the login page. Extra layer for better security).
• Check the plugin’s last updated date on the WordPress.org plugins page.
• Also, look into the reviews and star rating for the specific plugin
• Add Google Authenticator on your Smartphone and then install the Google Authenticator plugin on your WordPress site.
• Some other easier plugins: Due 2 Factor Authentication and UNLOQ.io Authentication
• Create .htaccess and .htpasswd file to protect wp-login.php
• Also, password protect /wp-admin directory through cPanel
• Login errors that give hints to the black-hat hackers about valid usernames and invalid ones. (Wordfence plugin has this option under “Options” to avoid this).
• Turn on “Automatic updates” for plugins

WP Updates Settings (To update the plugins always)

• Remove /readme.html from the File Manager. Also, remove the license.txt file from the web server.
• Change the permissions for files and folders for User, Group, and World. (Read Write Execute permissions). Never give 777 to directories.
• Move wp-config.php file from public_html or wwwroot folder to one level higher folder. This way we make sure it is a bit more secure as hackers cannot try to access it whatsoever unless they break into the cPanel or Control Panel of the hosting provider or they get access to FTP.
• Create a robots.txt file to secure your folders or sensitive files being indexed by search engine spiders

Tools

• https://wpscan.org/
• https://securityheaders.io

Blocking IP’s (Malicious Activity)

• Block specific IP address
• Block entire network
• Block a narrow range of a network

Plugin to avoid Brute-Force attack

• Jetpack by WordPress.com
• Turn on the Brute Force Avoiding feature
• Also, Jetpack provides whitelist IP addresses (Just in case if you try to do invalid login attempts).
• Wordfence also has brute-force protection (Not sure at this point of time if that feature is in the commercial version or free version).

Summary / Quickview

• Take backup [ Regular ] – Full backups / Partial backups
• Run scheduled full scan on your local environment
• Use WiFi with WPA encryption
• Use secure FTP to transfer files from your computer to the server
• Maintain audit logs on your hosting environment
• Check your .htaccess files to see if it was modified by a hacker to have a redirect
• Check your plugins
• Check your users [ Maybe it was some other user who has admin access. Is it only you who is admin? If it’s only you, was the password leaked or cracked? ]
• Use scanners like WP Scan http://wpscan.org/ and http://sucuri.net/
• Use the GOTMLS scan and run the scanner → Get off the maliciously loaded scripts
• Protect your privacy of whois information [ You don’t want hackers to know the administrator’s email address and hack it in order to compromise your hosting account ].
• Something fishy? Change all your passwords. WordPress, hosting account, .htaccess .htpasswd, salt keys in wp-config.php, Google Authenticator / 2 factor authentication etc.
• Use WP Security Audit Log to do automatic audits for your WordPress website.
• Use Wordfence to avoid brute-force attacks, live traffic analysis, use it for blocking IPs or networks for a specific time, and more features.
• You can also use https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan/ to scan your WordPress website.
• Block Bad Queries, Blackhole for bad bots, WPBruiser

Counter-measures

• Disabling author pages (http://example.com/?author=1 or 2 or 3…N)

Add the following piece of code under the theme or child theme,

<?php

header(“HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently”);

header(“Location: /”);

?>

This has to be in the authors.php file.

Also, you can use the Yoast plugin, but this edit in authors.php is better in my view.

• Setting up the HTTP headers using the HTTP headers plugin

Plugin URL: https://wordpress.org/plugins/http-headers/

• X-Frame-Options
• X-XSS-Protection
• X-Content-Type-Options
• X-UA-Compatible
• Strict-Transport-Security
• Public-Key-Pins
• Access-Control-Allow-Origin
• Access-Control-Allow-Credentials
• Access-Control-Max-Age
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers
• Access-Control-Expose-Headers
• P3P
• Referrer-Policy

If you are thinking of outsourcing your security testing for your web app to some software testing company, you are reading the right blog post. This blog post is not a myth buster or marketing ploy or “grab a project” thing. We just wanted to speak about what we are good at.

Security Testing at VTEST is not a toolsmith job or some crappy work. For instance, our security specialist and OWASP CheatSheet Contributor will be testing for security if you are outsourcing security testing of your web app to us. Now, we come with great experience in hacking and we are intrinsically motivated. Nowadays, we also create awareness in testers across the globe.

Now, it may be difficult for you to decide about outsourcing based on what we say above. In such a case how about reading a testimonial from one of our customers for whom we performed security testing for a web app?

What elements do we test for your web app? Well, OWASP Top 10 is always on the list and we performed great on one of the security testing projects where we found 7 vulnerabilities out of OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities. That was awesome and made our customer and us so happy! However, the beautiful thing is about going beyond OWASP Top 10 and making sure that we have tested most of the security aspects of your web app. We build tests based on the web app, business logic and many other attributes. We hate data theft, denial of service, unauthorized access and a lot more stuff as much as our customers do.

What makes us great at web app security testing? Well, mind-set and skill-set are two crucial ingredients that make our security testing great. Also, testers and developers of web apps working together to find vulnerabilities is something that we tried and tested. And the result was cool (We are referring to 7 out of top 10 OWASP vulnerabilities).

More information about our security testing services for web application or mobile web application can be found at https://www.vtestcorp.com/software-testing-and-quality-assurance-services/

Doesn’t get you convinced? We can speak more secrets through emails. Write to hello@vtestcorp.com and we would love to help you become better in security posture for your applications and your users are going to love you for it!

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Success Story

vTEST’s involvement leads to lower bugs in each release and overall higher quality, acting as a partner in initial processes and conversations. Communication is easy and prompt, and they constantly work to improve. They also provide valuable documentation and feedback after each release.

– CTO , Flight App, USA

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How VTEST can help

Whether the process is online or offline, on cloud or in storage, VTEST is having all the latest necessary software and hardware to test applications. With experts having a knack for Web service automation testing, VTEST is ready to change the game.

VTEST it!

With the changing landscape of the software industry post-pandemic, the importance of digital literacy and software usage has been on a rise. More and more people are using various software and various web platforms for different purposes.

This marks the importance of testing the software before launch. The process of software testing begins very early in the software development life cycle. Prediction of things like what are the potential threats, how the end-user is going to respond to the product, what the product is going to do, etc. can be done earlier, and hence testing process can initiate at early stages.

In the industry today, everything, including DevOps, Continuous Delivery, Agile, Scrum, etc. is focused on implementing the culture of newer business values actively.

When one compares these statistics to earlier years, it can be seen as these days, any application or software can be released in a much snappier attitude. This has a direct impact on old testing vocation and systems.

Any good QA or testing team of any company must get a grip on the changing trends and be on the same page as the ongoing technical innovations. In this blog, we will explore what are the changing trends in the software testing industry and what might be the challenges faced by the new lot in the coming year.

1. New goals of the tester

As we all know, for the past several years, the role of a software tester in the industry was defined as someone who prevents bugs from entering the software or who rectifies them if they are present in the system.

The perception is bound to change in the upcoming years as the tester’s goal has expanded indirectly to a broader perspective. Now, the tester must perceive how the initiation of the testing process can be done in the testing process and how that will help the software. Also, the tester must provide the testing process by offering risk assessment tools. These tools will guarantee the durability and the steadiness of the software.

In these years, testers must emphasize more on automation which will allow software engineers to continuously test their progress. Also, they must cooperate with the app developers while the development to detect the bugs live. This is a much more efficient method of doing this as otherwise a lot of time goes into this process.

2. Fast adoption of Agile and DevOps

Both of the above-mentioned practices have grown their own set of consumers and they have become favorites of many of them. This is because both of these practices’ methodologies are designed to create a smooth and seamless bond of healthy collaboration between developers and testers.

DevOps is renowned for the collaboration of crossover departments and Agile is known to be a continuous process of development and testing.

Keeping their mark this high all the time, Agile and DevOps provide quality products at a very good pace and many organizations are most likely to implement this method in the future.

3. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Testing

The majority of the innovations in the technical field are inclined toward Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning. You all must be hearing a lot about Natural language Processing, Machine learning, and Neural systems these days. The good part of this deal is that good frameworks are building better frameworks.

To show continuous transactions or predictive exchange models as per their deceiving probability, Machine learning and AI can be utilized in Banking. Many organizations are driving the digital world with the help of this emerging trend.

In the presence of such precedents, the comprehension of the software testing trends of newer innovations and the description of challenging test scenarios to get the results must be done by the software tester. Also, testing these manifestos will need developing systems that will test themselves. From here on, it is nothing but test management which is recursive.

4. It’s about Performance Engineering, Not Performance Testing

If the growth rate continues to increase, Performance engineering will replace performance testing. Running performance test scripts is much different from performance engineering. In performance engineering, the focus will be on the breakdown of various components of the framework that will cooperate.

Performance, Software, Business value, User, Security, Usability, Hardware, and configuration are the various components of the framework. Performance engineering is also more about teaming up and focusing on the most noteworthy of esteem elements. Also, it is about implementing them smoothly to ensure a fine output.

5. From Traditional to Test Automation

The old days and ways of testing that involve only performing the listed tasks are gone now. To regulate the performance of the tests and to get proper outputs, proper specialized tools are used. Mainly, the tests that needed the most hectic work ethic are automated. Like regression testing. Hence, to execute both, functional and non-functional testing, testers will utilize automation tools.

The automation of tests inspires the testing team to focus their time and efforts on experimenting rather than test needs handling. The automation process tracks down and deals with all kinds of testing requirements along with test inclusion.

6. Growing Selection of Open Source Tools

For the past few years, Open source tools have been very helpful for business purposes and the trend is bound to follow in 2022. It is beneficial in various ways like having less or no expense. This is because they are accessible free of charge. Along with this, one can say that it is more adaptable than many expensive products and effortlessly customizable.

The main thing to consider here is that clients get involved in designing it. This gives a full chance to properly plan how the software will run. Also, there are many different integrations for ground-breaking test automation.

Here, the opposing argument can be that of security. The pro of accessibility contributes to building the con of a sense of insecurity. Even after this, when it is used by more users, the chances of detecting a bug and rectifying it increases.

7. Internet of Things

In the current period, IoT i.e. Internet of Things can be said as a very fast-growing innovation. Along with the technical achievements, IoT is also a challenge for Test automation. A large set of data and information on the web is connected in various ways. A devoted program associates them to the web and pro there, it interfaces with all other things. This whole thing takes place through a hardware machine. It sounds great but there are some vulnerabilities in this framework.

The programs related to IoT must be tested in the coming year for Security, Quality, and Functionality.

 8. App penetration testing will increase tremendously

In the case of business-critical software, the usage of penetration testing has increased a lot. And the case is not just limited to web applications, many companies are also executing pen-testing related APIs, Back-end enterprise apps, and microservices. In the coming years, Penetration testing would not be considered a simple form of testing as many factors will come into play. The idea behind its working and intention is changing now and is going to change.

Testing Budgets will keep on increasing

Considering the current scenario, it is quite clear that software testing is going to be in high demand. And the expectation from the tester would be high in terms of upskilling to the latest trends and demand. Prominent IT patterns and preferences for high-end products are going to change the game forever.

This will inspire organizations to increase their budget in the IT financial aspect for software testing and QA.

Conclusion

The job profile of a software tester will be highly demanding in the upcoming years. Elements like, who are they serving, what advantages they are giving, and their cooperation with other software teams will be shifted to making the software development process faster and deliverable quicker.

How VTEST can help

As you must have observed, the only way to be harmoniously work in the software testing industry is to get adoptive to the future. VTEST beats the trend and gets ahead of the industry, by staying updated on the everchanging testing culture.

VTEST encourages testers to advance and improve their efforts by learning and acquiring a proper skill set and knowledge of the required tools to change the game in the upcoming year.

VTEST it!