Re: Application Assessment

From: Irene Abezgauz (irene.abezgauz@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 11 2005 - 11:06:39 EDT


goenw,

You are approaching it from the point of view of a network guy. Since
you said you are a network guy new to this - it's completely natural
and ok.
The problem is that application testing is somewhat different from
network testing.
The regular break-ins are not buffer overflows and DoS, they are more
along the lines of application flow bypassing, tampering with
parameters, script injections, identification of weak testing
mechanisms, you get my drift.

You start from a user perspective, which means completely blackboxed -
in any case I am not sure just how source-code could help you here
since you come from an IT background and not a programming background.

I think using an external party could be a good solution for this
problem, as it is quite difficult to deliver a high-quality
application pentest if you have no previous knowledge of how
applications work and what you should be looking for.

Irene Abezgauz
Application Security Consultant
Hacktics Ltd.
Mobile: +972-54-6545405
Web: www.hacktics.com

On 8/11/05, goenw <goenw.mailinglist@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys,
> Thanks a lot for your reply, just return from my trip. here is more
> details regarding the assessment.
> 1. there is a list of application listed to be assess which include a
> standalone win32 executable, but mainly more to web application.
> 2. the assessment will be from user perspective (no source code)
> 3. the assessment is a security assessment to find out about the regular
> type of break-ins (buffer-overflow, dos, etc)
> 4. anybody have experience with external party, which are able to share
> the experience (scope of work, test case, etc)
>
> Thanks and Regards,
> goenw
>
>
> AdamT wrote:
>
> >On 8/8/05, goenw <goenw.mailinglist@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>anybody have experience with application assessment ? I am a network
> >>guy, dont know much about the apps PT.
> >>1. is there any tools that allow me to do the assessment throughly ?
> >>2. should i have external party conduct this, what are the things i
> >>should expect from them (success criteria) ?
> >>any comments are appriciated.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Can you be more specific about the application that you're testing?
> >eg - is it a standalone win32 executable, or perhaps a web application?
> >Will you be testing the infrastructure on which it runs also?
> >Does the application rely on input from either the user, other
> >processes, drivers or other hosts on a network?
> >Big question - will you have access to the source code? All of it?
> >Example - not much use having access to the source of application.exe
> >if you don't get the source to applib1.dll
> >
> >If you're looking to get an external party in, you need to think about
> >what levels of assurance you need for this particular application. If
> >it's a branded screen-saver that you want to distribute as a PR
> >exercise, your needs (and testing methods) will be very different from
> >testing a custom web banking application.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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