What is the concept of penetration testing tools?

We all are quite familiar with what is a penetration test or a pen test. Every kind of software testing technique makes use of certain tools, so does penetration testing. 

This article is focused up on the tools that are meant for carrying out the penetration testing. Before moving on to the discussion about the tools, let us buck up with some concepts of penetration testing. 

About Penetration Testing

- Penetration testing gives a measure of the security of the software system or application or a computer network. 

- This is done by the simulation of the attacks as from the outside malicious attackers. 

- The attacker can also be an insider. 

- The attackers are classified in to outsiders and insiders on the basis of the approach of their access to the software system or application. 

- The attackers not having any authorized access to the system are called as outsiders and those who have any extent of authorized access to the system are called insiders. 

- The first step in the penetration test is the identification of the potential vulnerabilities of the system by carrying out an active analysis.

- These vulnerabilities are a consequence of the improper configuration of the software system or they may occur also because of flaws in the hardware and software components of the system. 

- Some of the technical counter measures may also revoke these vulnerabilities.

- The penetration is performed in the way that a potential attacker might follow to attack the system. 

- After the identification of these vulnerabilities, these are brought to the notice of the owner of the system. 

- These potential vulnerabilities are then coupled with a proper assessment of their potential impacts on the system as well as organization using several effective penetration tests. 

- Some technical counter measures are then designed to reduce their impact on the system. 

There are several reasons that make the penetration testing way more valuable. Now coming to the discussion regarding the penetration testing tools, since there are many ways in which the penetration testing can be carried out, there are several types of tools that can be employed for the penetration testing.

Approach used in Penetration testing

- Depending up on the amount of knowledge the tester has about the software system or application, either the black box approach or the white box approach is followed. 

- If the tester has less knowledge of the system, he/ she is likely to follow the black box approach.

- On the other hand if he/ she has ample amount of knowledge then the white box approach is used. 

- Accordingly the tools are chosen i.e., black box testing tools for black box approach and similarly white box testing tools for the white box approach. 

- It is required that the location and the extent of the system to be tested is determined properly before starting the testing. - For the white box approach the tester needs to know about the critical aspects like the IP address of the system and source code. 

- If the amount of knowledge is intermediate between the amounts required for the black box and white box approaches, then the grey box testing approach is allowed. 

- This involves the intermixing of the white box and black box testing techniques. 

- Both the white box testing tools as well as black box testing tools can be employed here. 

- All these three approaches have their own merits and demerits which are often debated.

- These tools are deployed for the creation of the hostile environment for the testing of environment.

Types of Penetration Testing Tools

1. Port Scanners

2. Vulnerability Scanners

3. Application Scanners

4. Web Application Assessment Proxy

What are different aspects of Interactive SQL injection attack?

SQL injection attacks are one of the security threats that are quite prevalent in the cyber world these days, attacking and stealing sensitive information from a million web sites and web applications.

SQL injection attacks are also known for disrupting the functioning of the web sites and web applications. There are so many types of SQL injection attacks. This article is all about the aspects of interactive SQL injection attacks. 

About Interactive SQL

- Using interactive SQL the data base administrator or programmer can easily and quickly define, delete, check or update the data base contents for problem analysis, data base management and testing. 

- Interactive SQL allows the programmer to insert two rows in to a table as well as test the SQL statements before they are executed in a software system or application. 

- Not only this, the interactive SQL can be used by data base administrator for the below mentioned purposes as well:

1. For revoking and granting the privileges

2. Create or drop tables, views, and schemas etc.

3. For selecting information from the catalogue of the system tables.

- A message regarding the complete execution of the statements or error during the execution is generated at the end of the run of the SQL statements. 

- During the execution of the statements are quite long and take more time are accompanied with some status messages regarding the completion of the statements. 

- In some cases, help messages are also generated whenever needed. 

- There are some functions that are supplied by the interactive SQL:

             1. The statement entry provides the following functions:

(a) Typing in an interactive SQL statement and executing it.

(b)  Retrieving statements

(c)  Editing statements

(d)  Prompting for SQL statements

(e)  Paging through the previous statements

(f)   Paging through the previous messages

(g)  Calling session services

(h)  Starting the list selection functions

(i)    Exiting the interactive SQL

2. The prompt function: Using this function either a complete SQL statement or a partial statement can 

be typed in to a program. After this the syntax of the statement can be prompted. You can also have the

menu for the SQL statements at one command. One can select the SQL statement of his/ her choice from 

the menu and prompt the syntax for that particular statement.

    3. The list selection function: Using this function one can select from the lists of one’s authorized schemas, relational data bases, views, tables, SQL packages, columns, constraints and so on. These selected elements then can be later inserted in to the SQL statement wherever the cursor is positioned.

      4.The call session services: These services account for the following functions:

(a)   Changing the session attributes.

(b)   Printing the current sessions.

(c)    Removal of all the entries from a selected session.

(d)   Saving the session in a source file

Aspects of Interactive Session

- The parameter values that have been specified for the STRSQL command.

- The SQL statements that were entered in the session accompanied by the corresponding status messages       following each and every SQL statement.

- Values of the parameters that have been changed via the session services function.

- The selections that one made from the list of the elements.

- A unique session ID consisting of the current work station ID and the user ID is supplied by the interactive SQL. 

- This session ID concept has been developed for supporting the multiple users having the same user IDs for using the interactive SQL from different work stations at the same time. 

- Also, one can run multiple interactive SQL sessions using the same ID and that too simultaneously. 

What are different aspects of Inference SQL injection attack?

SQL injection attacks nowadays are rising up by a huge mark in the cyber world, making a huge number of web sites and web applications its poor victims. Few years back the SQL injection attacks were not much in news but, now they have come to top the web’s vulnerabilities chart.

SQL injection attacks have emerged as a popular and notorious means for harming the security of the websites and web applications. 

Actually how exactly an SQL injection attack come in to affect? 

- In a typical SQL injection attack, some statements written in SQL language serve as input to a web form.

- This is done in order to obtain a web site or application that will carry out operations on the targeted data base.

- Such fake obtained web sites via the SQL injections are often badly designed. 

- The attacker employs this badly designed web site to get the access to the private data base contents. 

- It is a kind of code injection technique and that is often set for exploiting the security vulnerability in the software of the web site or web application. 

When does an injection attack occurs?

An injection attack occurs through two usually committed mistakes which are:

1. Incorrect filtering of the input by the user for entering the escape characters in string literals which are embedded in the vicious SQL statements. Here then emerges a scope for the potential manipulation of SQL statements which is done by the end user who is using the data base.

2. The unexpected execution or running of the input entered by the user that has not been strongly typed. This is commonly referred to as incorrect type handling. The constraints are then left unchecked.  

Approaches of Inference SQL Injection Attack

The SQL inference injection attacks are usually used for mining of data. There are 3 approaches that are used for data mining following inference SQL:

1. In band approach: The in band approach involves the extraction of data via an already existing path between the application and the attacker. For example, returning the data in a well rendered error message or web page.

2. Out of band approach: The out of band approach involves the creation a new path between the application and the attacker. This is actually worked out by establishing a connection between the data base server and the client by employing a network function such as HTTP, data base connection, e mail and so on.

3. Inference: Inference does not involve any direct transfer of any actual data rather the value of the data is inferred directly by calculating the differences between the responses from the attacker as well as the application. This is generally done by revoking several questions. Deliberate differences between the two responses are generated based up on the answers to the revoked questions. 

About the Inference SQL Injection Attack

1.The inference approach can also be used at the bit level and it makes use of properties such as status of the web server, time and difference in the content.

2.Making use of these properties, it enables the attacker for correctly inferring the data values.

3.Inference SQL injection has proven to be a great mile when it comes to the extraction of the data using SQL injections. 

4.It came to be extremely useful when the other two methods for data retrieval i.e., in band and out of band didn’t prove to be successful. 

5.The inference SQL attacks only affect the SQL servers and they are quite slow due to time delay. 

6.Since 2002 no remarkable improvements have been witnessed in the field of inference SQL.

7.The inference SQL injection attacks have an added advantage which is that they can be employed in any SQL injection situation. 

8.When a specific query is injected in to an ADQ (application defined query), the web server generates a response code depending up on the data values. 

9.It is quite common for an attacker to initially look for exploiting the SQL injection vulnerability by using the in band results.

10.But this not feasible every time since in some situations time is the major factor, in such situations out of band or inference methods are deployed. 

11.Not only data, but logic can also be inserted in to the query of the application.

12.In this the output of the application can be controlled and based on this output the stored values can be inferred from the data base.

13.The creation of an SQL inference attack is based on the sophistication of the information that the attacker has regarding it beforehand. 

14.The inference SQL attack through the web server response codes present a major problem which is that they can be quite easily be detected by the good web server administrators.

15.But, the attackers are so clever that they have figured out another such inference attack called content manipulation inference attack.

16.Using this, they are able to keep the response code constant while simultaneously changing the web site content. 

How does penetration testing tool emphasize on web application security?

In this internet savvy world, web applications have become an important part of web utilization. Web applications provide a means to utilize or exploit the services offered by the web in a more meaningful manner. 

The earlier years saw less use of web applications, but now it is reaching new heights day by day with a great demand for improving the existing ones along with the introduction of new ones. With such a vast number of users, the application needs to maintain its security from the malicious attackers among these users and so adequate security measures have to be taken.

For this purpose, it is required that the security mechanism of the applications to be checked thoroughly for any vulnerabilities and security leaks via the penetration testing. Penetration testing is perhaps the best testing methodology when it comes to the testing the security different software system components like network security, data base security etc. 

There should be some testing methodology that could dig out all the potential vulnerabilities. Is there an answer? Yes there certainly is! The penetration testing! Perhaps many of us are familiar with this testing methodology. In this piece of writing we have discussed how the penetration testing tools emphasize up on the web application security. 

About Penetration Testing and its emphasis on Web Application Security

- Penetration testing is yet another testing methodology that has been adopted for testing the security of the  web applications against the malicious attacks.

- It provides a way to evaluate the security level of the web application by troubling the application with false simulated attacks as malicious attacks from the outside as well as inside attackers. 

- It also deals with the aliens, foreigners or outside attackers who do not have any authorized access to the computer system or network and inside attackers who do have that access.

- An active analysis is required to be carried out for the penetration testing which carries out an assessment of all the potential vulnerabilities of the web application that are merely a consequence of its poor security level as well as configuration level. 

- Apart from this the known and unknown flaws form both the hardware as well as software components of the application contribute to these vulnerabilities rather than only operational weaknesses.

- A proper active analysis is achieved only if it is carried out from the view point of a malicious attacker and involves the active exploitation of the recognized vulnerabilities.

- The web application security depends up on the effectiveness of the testing.

- The testing in turn is largely affected by the effectiveness of the tools that are employed in the testing.

- The tools indeed affect the web application security, since if the tools are reliable and efficient in searching for the vulnerabilities, obviously there will be more stringent checking of the security mechanisms. 

- The identification and recognition of the vulnerabilities is always the first step in penetration testing.

- A required number of penetration tests are then carried out on that particular system with the coupling of information with the active assessment of the risks associated with the computer system or network using the penetration testing tools. 

- A whole lot of effective tools are designed to reduce the affect of the identified potential vulnerabilities. 

- Penetration testing tools have been recognized as important component of the web application security audits. 

How does penetration testing tool emphasize on data base security?

Data base is one of the critical elements of a web application and very much crucial for its proper functioning. All of the sensitive information regarding the functioning of the application as well as the user data is stored in the data base. 

This data is of very much use to the attacker. The attackers can steal this data and use it to their advantage. Therefore, it becomes absolutely necessary that the data base of an application must be provided with adequate security coverage.

Penetration testing is one of the ways to ensure the data base security. Most of us are familiar with what actually is the penetration testing. In this piece of writing we have discussed how the penetration testing tools emphasize up on the data base security. 

About Penetration Testing and Database Security

- Penetration testing is yet another testing methodology that has been adopted for testing the security of a computer network or system against the malicious attacks.

- It is quite a decent measure to evaluate the security level of the computer network by bombarding the network with false simulated attacks as malicious attacks from the outside as well as inside attackers.

- Penetration testing is concerned with the security of the data base both from the aliens, foreigners or outside attackers who do not hold any authorized access to the computer system or network as well as the inside attackers who do have that access, but it is limited to a certain level. 

- The whole process of the penetration testing involves performing an active analysis using the penetration testing tools.

- This active analysis brings about an assessment of all the potential vulnerabilities of the whole data base system that are merely a consequence of the malfunctioning of the poor security level as well as configuration level of the application. 

- This active analysis is deemed to successful only if it has been carried out from the view point of a malicious attacker and is concerned about the active exploitation of the recognized vulnerabilities.

- The data base security depends up on the effectiveness of the testing which is in turn is affected by the effectiveness of the tools that are employed in the testing. 

- The tools indeed affect data base security, since the more effective are the tools, the more improvement will be there in the security mechanisms.

How Penetration Testing emphasize on Database Security?

- First step in the penetration testing of the data base is always the identification and recognition of the vulnerabilities and security leaks. 

- A number of penetration tests are then carried out on that particular application data base while simultaneously coupling the information with the active assessment of the risks and threats associated with the data base using the penetration testing tools.

- A whole lot of effective tools are designed to reduce the affect of these vulnerabilities.

- Penetration testing tools have been recognized as important component of the data base security audits.

- There are several other reasons why the penetration testing tools holds good for the data base security:

1. They provide assistance in the assessment of the measure of the operational and business impacts of the attacks on the data base system.
2. Successfully test the effectiveness of the security defenders in detecting and responding to the attacks.
3. Provide the evidence in support of the investments that need to be made in the security field of the data base.

How does penetration testing tool emphasize on security subsystem?

Security is one of the important contributing factors in the success of a software system or application. The security level of the software system or application also influences the security of the users that use that system or application. The higher the security of a system is, the more secure it is for use. 

Since security plays a very important role in the computer world, there has to be some strategy or testing methodology that could judge or assess the security levels and mechanisms of the software systems and applications.

Do we have any such testing methodology? Yes of course we have! The penetration testing! 

About Penetration Testing and Security Sub Systems

- This software testing methodology has the answers to all our security related issues.

- The security mechanism of a software system or application is comprised of many sub mechanisms or sub systems which are commonly addressed as security sub systems. 

- These security subsystems are security components that make up the whole security model of the system.

- These sub systems ensure that the applications are not able to access the resources without being authorized and authenticated.

- Furthermore, they keep a track of the security policies and user accounts of the system. 

- There is a sub system called LSA which is responsible for maintaining all the information and details about the local security of the system. 

- The interactive user authentication services are provided by the security sub systems.

- The tokens containing the user information regarding security privileges are also generated by these sub systems. 

- The audit settings and policies are also managed by the security sub systems. 

- The following aspects are identified by the sub systems:

1.       Domain

2.       Who an access the system?

3.       Who has what privileges?

4.       Security auditing to be performed

5.       Memory quota

How Penetration Testing tool emphasize on Security Sub Systems?

So for having better security at the surface, it is important that the security at the sub systems level should not be over looked. All these matters make the security sub systems very essential. 

Therefore, it is required that to improve the overall quality of the security mechanisms, these sub systems should be tested. 

- The penetration testing tools emphasize upon the security sub systems in the same way as they emphasize the network security.

- Penetration testing was first adopted for the testing of the security of a computer network or system against the malicious attacks.

- For providing a way to evaluate the security level of the computer network by bombarding the network with false simulated attacks as malicious attacks from the outside as well as inside attackers. 

- The whole process of the penetration testing is driven by an active analysis which involves an assessment of all the potential vulnerabilities of the security sub systems that are merely a consequence of its poor security level as well as configuration level. 

- Apart from this, the flaws form both the hardware as well as software components contribute to these vulnerabilities rather than only operational weaknesses. 

- The security at the sub system level depends up on the effectiveness of the testing. 

- And the testing in turn is affected by the effectiveness of the tools that have been employed in the testing. 

- The tools indeed affect the sub systems’ security, since if the tools are reliable and efficient in finding vulnerabilities, obviously there will be more improvement in the security mechanisms. 

- A whole lot of effective tools are designed to reduce the affect of these vulnerabilities.

How does penetration testing tool emphasize on network security?

The term “penetration testing” is not unheard these days and perhaps many of us are familiar with this type of testing. In this piece of writing we have discussed how the penetration testing tools emphasize up on the network security. 

About Penetration Testing

- Penetration testing is yet another testing methodology that has been adopted for testing the security of a computer network or system against the malicious attacks. 

- It provides a way to evaluate the security level of the computer network by bombarding the network with false simulated attacks as malicious attacks from the outside as well as inside attackers. 

- The aliens, foreigners or outside attackers do not hold any authorized access to the computer system or network but the inside attackers do have that access, but it is limited to a certain level.

- The whole process of the penetration testing is dependent on an active analysis. 

- This active analysis carries out an assessment of all the potential vulnerabilities of the computer network or system that are merely a consequence of its poor security level as well as configuration level. 

- Apart from this, the known and unknown flaws form both the hardware as well as software system contribute to these vulnerabilities rather than only operational weaknesses. 

- Therefore they are to be blamed equally.

- This active analysis is successful only if it is carried out from the view point of a malicious attacker and is concerned about the active exploitation of the recognized vulnerabilities.

About Network Security

- The network security depends up on the effectiveness of the testing. 

- And the testing in turn is affected by the effectiveness of the tools that are employed in the testing.

- The tools indeed affect the network security, since if the tools are reliable and efficient in finding vulnerabilities, obviously there will be more improvement in the security mechanisms.

Reasons why Penetration Testing holds good for Network Security

There are several other reasons why the penetration testing tools holds good for the network security:

- They are effective for the determination of the feasibility of the similar vectors of attack.

-  Help in the identification of the vulnerabilities which possess a very high risk when the exploitation of a combination of low level risks is done following a particular sequence.

-  Prove quite effective in the determination of the vulnerabilities that cannot be detected with the help of application vulnerability scanning software or automated testing processes.

-  Assist in the assessment of the measure of the operational and business impacts of the attacks on the computer network or system.

- Successfully test the effectiveness of the network defenders in detecting and responding to the attacks.

- Provide the evidence in support of the investments that need to be made in the security field of the computer system or network.

What are different kinds of security threats?

Security vulnerabilities and security threats are one of the biggest issues of today in the field of software engineering. As more sophisticated is the today’s software is, the more critical security issues it struggles with.

Any software is bombarded with one compulsory question that how safe and secure it is? Does it have any possibilities of keeping the attackers at bay from interfering with the security of the software system or application? Has any effective strategy been designed for dealing with any possible security issues and keep sensitive data out of the reach of the attackers and strengthen the security programs of the software system or application? 

Today as the technology is advancing; it is being misused in the creation of new methods or strategies for breaking out in to the security system of a system or application. Attackers are being influenced by the chances of financial gain and are always involved with the exploitation of the various software systems and applications over the years. This article gives a glance about all such security threats that our software systems and applications face today.

How are security threats categorized?

The security threats are categorized in to many categories:

1.        Validation of input: It faces threats like:

(a)      cross site scripting

(b)      SQL injection attacks

(c)       buffer overflow

(d)      Ccnonicalization

2.        Authentication:

(a)      Brute force attack

(b)      Network eavesdropping

(c)       Dictionary attacks

(d)      Credential theft

(e)      Cookie repay

3.        Authorization:

(a)      Disclosure of confidential data

(b)      Elevation of privilege

(c)       Luring attacks

(d)      Data tempering

4.        Configuration management: It faces following threats:

(a)     Unauthorized access to interfaces

(b)      Retrieval of configuration data

(c)      Over privileged process

(d)      Lack of individual accountability

5.        Session management:

(a)      Man in the middle

(b)      Session hijacking

(c)      Session replay

6.       Sensitive information:

(a)      Network eavesdropping

(b)      Access of sensitive data in the storage

(c)       Data tempering

7.        Cryptography:

(a)     Weak encryption

(b)      Poor key management

8.        Parameter manipulation:

(a)      Form field manipulation

(b)      Cookie manipulation

(c)      Query string manipulation

(d)      HTTP header manipulation

9.        Exception management:

(a)     Denial of service

(b)     Information disclosure

10.     Auditing and logging:

(a)      User denial for performing an operation

(b)      Exploitation of an application without trace

(c)      Covering of the attacks by the attacker

Usually security is often either thought of as an operational IT issue that is concentrated up on building defending systems or strategies for the softwares to protect them from the malicious security breaches and attackers or as an issue concerned with the protection of the personal, critical and sensitive data.  

Importance of Security

- Lack of security is what makes a software vulnerable to such issues.

- The security needs to be addressed in some more elaborate way since the attackers are far more ingenious and creative people.

- A software security must be aimed at building a defect free software system or application.

- Out of all the defects of the software system, few tend to become the source of security vulnerabilities. 

- Softwares that have been built with more concentration on the system security are found to be more resistive to the security threats and if in case they are struck with some security issue they have the capability of recovering as soon as possible. 

- It is important to incorporate security in to the software systems are from the initial phase to the last and final phase.

- This can start right from implementing secure software coding and testing methodologies. 

- The software developers, programmers and testers can be trained to implement language specific secure coding practices.

- Conducting a risk based security testing yields greater benefits. It adequately highlights the weaknesses of the software system or application.