What is White Box Penetration Testing?
71% of cyber executives stated that small firms are already at a point where they can't handle the increasing complexity of cyber dangers, as per reports from World Economic Forum on cyber security.
White box testing can help in the detection of vulnerabilities that businesses may address to prevent them from escalating and risking the disclosure of sensitive data, damaging the reputation, and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.
While performing penetration testing upon digital assets such as web application, API, or internal network mainly three methodologies are typically used namely, black box, grey box, and white box testing.
The classification is based on the amount of information given to the penetration tester about the target asset prior to performing the penetration test.
This blog is all about the different aspects of white box penetration testing which is also a compilation of data collected by our team of security experts.
What is penetration testing?
A penetration testing is a type of ethical cyber security assessment that identifies, investigates, and remediate vulnerabilities in your application, network and other assets.
A penetration tester typically uses tactics, methods, and procedures (TTPs) similar to that of an attacker. This helps you to understand the effectiveness of your security measures implemented and to strengthen them.
The aim of any penetration testing is based on the requirements put forth by your organization. And its kind is determined primarily based on the amount of information shared with the tester prior and the target infrastructure.
What is White Box Penetration Testing?
White box penetration testing is an approach in which pentesters are provided with full awareness of the infrastructure, system, and source code prior to the test.
They utilize this data to find more specific and complicated vulnerabilities.
This comprises inspecting the source code and infrastructure for development problems and configuration issues to guarantee that the target system is resistant to assaults. This approach is also very useful for evaluating code quality. Also, it saves pentesters time and provides a more comprehensive picture of the current security posture of your organization.
White box penetration testing is useful in environments where the access to source code, its architecture, and configurations are a must so as to find vulnerabilities within the assets.
Web applications, APIs, enterprise networks and cloud environments are common infrastructures in which white box penetration testing is performed.
An example of this is the assessment of financial web applications that handle user transactions. The source code is reviewed by the penetration testers to detect threats such as improper authorization checks in money transfer APIs and lack of enforcement of input queries which might lead to SQL injection attacks.
It is also known as clear box testing due to the same reasons mentioned above.
Following are seven of the most widely used white box penetration testing techniques:
- Static Code Analysis
- Code Coverage Analysis
- Data Flow Analysis
- Mutation Testing
- Fault Injection Testing
- Symbolic Execution
- Control Flow Analysis
Difference Between Black Box and White Box Penetration Testing
Black-Box Penetration Testing is a cyber-security methodology that simulates real-world assaults on networks, software, and systems. No knowledge of the code, architecture, or system design is provided to the testers, often known as security experts or ethical hackers in this technique, contrary to white hat pentesting.
They perform the test as unauthorized external users, much as an outsider seeking to compromise security. The black box pen test is a closed-door or exterior penetration test. And hence it is known as Black-Box Testing.
Black box testing is often performed by testers that work separately from the development team. This ensures a neutral viewpoint and exposes vulnerabilities that developers might overlook. Testers create test cases focused on the software's specifications rather than digging into the details about the way the code is performed.
Its goal is to check that the application matches expected behavior and produces the required results for different inputs. These issues may not be found by QAs since they cannot access the software's source code, design specifications, or architectural details. They engage with the system primarily through its user interfaces or APIs.
| Comparison | White Box Penetration Testing | Black Box Penetration Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Testers are given complete or majority of access to the system's internal structure, source code, and architecture. | A testing approach where testers have no prior knowledge of the system and simulate real-world attacks. |
| Testing Perspective | Helps to understand insider perspective since it mimics an attack from internal or view of a developer. | Helps to understand external perspective since it mimics an attack from an external hacker. |
| Access to Information | Complete access to source code, architecture, and credentials are given to the testers. | No prior knowledge is given to the testers and they must discover vulnerabilities from scratch. |
| Testing Depth | Deep and comprehensive coverage with primary focus on business logic, authentication, and authorization flaws. | Surface-level coverage that focuses on externally accessible vulnerabilities like misconfigurations and open ports. |
| Efficiency | Highly efficient in finding deeper level vulnerabilities in the code. | Less efficient in detecting deep application flaws but effective in real-world attack scenarios. |
| Time Required | Faster since testers have access to detailed system information. | Slower since the tester need to perform reconnaissance and discovery. |
| Cost | Expensive since it requires expertise and resources. | Less expensive but may need multiple rounds of testing for accuracy. |
| Realism | Less realistic to real world attack since attackers rarely have full system knowledge. | Highly realistic since it mirrors real-world cyberattacks. |
The Process of White Box Penetration Testing
A white box penetration testing procedure usually involves obtaining full access to the system's source code and the internal architecture, executing static code analysis, discovering potential vulnerabilities inside the source code, exploiting those weaknesses in order to assess their impact, and finally producing a detailed report defining the findings and techniques for mitigation.
They can be defined as the following:
- Reconnaissance
Detailed information about the architecture, codebase, and functionality along with necessary approvals from your organization’s key decision makers or higher level employees are gathered as the most initial step.
2.Static code analysis
The source code is analyzed based on checks such as insecure input fields, overflow possibilities, and other insecure coding practices without executing any payload to test vulnerabilities.
3.Vulnerability assessment
The application, API and all its related assets and endpoints are scanned using specialized tools to uncover potential vulnerabilities. The information about the internal working of the systems is utilized here.
4.Exploitation
Once vulnerabilities are identified, it is then tested in a controlled environment without disrupting its operations. Often malicious exploits are crafted to evaluate the severity of potential breaches or other incidents.
5.Impact analysis
The impact of the vulnerabilities are analyzed and classified based on the order of criticality. The impacts can be unauthorized access to sensitive data, disruption of the applications’ functionality, or privilege escalation.
6.Reporting
All these findings are then summarized into a comprehensive report which showcases all the findings, their severity, potential impacts, and actionable recommendations for effective remediation.
Tools commonly used in white box penetration testing
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Metasploit: An exploit code creating and testing framework. It is also used to simulate attacks with the identified vulnerabilities.
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Nmap: Network scanner application used to map network related details such as the open ports, topology, OS details, etc. It also has an added feature of vulnerability scanning using custom scripts.
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Wireshark: Used to capture and analyze the network traffic. It then shows the network as packets which are then analyzed by the tester.
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JUnit and NUnit: Unit testing frameworks for Java and.NET that are used to develop automated tests for specific code units.
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Pytest: A Python-based testing framework that helps create more efficient tests.
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John the Ripper: Infamous password cracking tool that helps to detect strength of passwords.
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EclEmma: Java code coverage tool that finds specific part of the code being executed during the testing.
Benefits of White Box Penetration Testing
White box testing assists companies in proactively identifying security vulnerabilities that they can address to prevent them from developing and threatening the disclosure of critical information, undermining the brand's trust, and maintaining compliance with data privacy and protection regulations which is demanded in the industry as well as the marketplace. A well-conducted white-box penetration test would help you in staying away from faults in the tests that have a greater chance of exposing your system to hackers. White-box penetration testing is more clear and detailed than black-box testing.
1. Earlier detection of vulnerabilities
Ensuring white box penetration testing into the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) enables you to find and fix flaws in code, insecure APIs, and misconfigurations precisely reducing the cost and effort of remediation drastically.
2. Strengthened secure coding practices
White box pentesting enables developers to gain clearer understanding on the secure coding best practices. This helps them to write more efficient and secure code aligned to industry standards. This helps greatly to reduce the flaws in current code-level security posture as well as in future updates.
3. Business continuity
Ensure resilience to cyber attacks is crucial when it comes to continuity of your business. Better identification of vulnerabilities is the most crucial step in ensuring the same. White box penetration testing helps greatly to find and fix code-level vulnerabilities precisely.
4. Better test coverage
Since prior information regarding the applications assets are given to the penetration testers, white box penetration testing offers better pentest coverage. Insights about the design documents, source code, details about the programming language and libraries used, object models, and UML diagrams are shared with the tester prior to the penetration test.
Challenges in White Box Penetration Testing
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Need for experts: The need for experts is crucial in penetration testing and especially in white box. They must be able to understand the internal functioning of the systems which includes the source code, design, and documentation in order to detect vulnerabilities effectively.
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Time consuming: Due to the common nature of lengthier codebases and need for closer evaluation, white box penetration testing can be time-consuming, and demand significant efforts and resources to uncover potential paths and edge cases.
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Lack of real world simulation: Since all or most of the information about the target application and assets are shared with the tester, their ability to mimic a real world penetration tester is limited.
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Resource intensity: The entire white box penetration testing is a resource heavy process since more endpoints are to be scanned and the coverage is also higher in comparison to other testing methodologies.
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Chances for bias: Since the penetration testers are provided with full access to the codebase and system’s design, the chances for making assumptions about the assets and overlooking vulnerabilities are higher.
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Maintenance overhead: The test cases would need to be updated with the changes in code base in order to maintain the effectiveness of the penetration test.
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Lack of applicability to non-code aspects: White box penetration testing is inefficient when it comes to evaluation of issues related to the user interface, system configuration, or external dependencies.
Why Software Companies Need To Do Whitebox Penetration Testing
White box penetration testing helps your business to ensure the security, reliability, and compliance of your applications and assets.
Find deep-seated vulnerabilities With the end to end audit of source code, the penetration testers help you gain better insights about the potential threats in your vulnerabilities. This includes logic flaws, authentication weaknesses, and hardcoded credentials.
Improvise the security posture
With the assessment upon the entire codebase, white box penetration testing helps greatly to improve the security posture through hardening the software defenses and mitigating vulnerabilities before being exploited.
Comply with regulatory requirements
Data privacy and protection regulatory standards such as GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS mandates rigorous security testing. White box penetration testing helps your business to comply with the regulatory requirements by ensuring the code-level security measures are aligned with the mandates.
Reduce risks of exploitable attack vectors
Finding insecure APIs, misconfiguration issues in access control, and privilege escalation threats can help greatly reduce the risk of cyber attacks and data breaches.
Assess security of third party integrations
Due to the ease of implementation, the majority of modern applications relies heavily on the third-party libraries, APIs, and cloud services. This introduces a wide range of vulnerabilities to your applications derived from them. White box penetration testing helps your business to ensure these components don’t expose critical assets.
Optimize efficiency of the security testing
Given access to the system architecture, source code, and security controls, white box penetration testing enables penetration testers to detect vulnerabilities precisely. This is by pinpointing them faster and much more effectively compared to other penetration testing approaches.
Improve customer trust
Proactive approach to ensuring security of the applications and the assets enables your business to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring cyber security. This helps enhance the customer's confidence and trust while reducing chances of being susceptible to cyber attacks.
Robin
Senior Pentest Consultant