The Importance of Security Testing


The average cost of a data breach to companies worldwide is around $4 million and the average time it takes to identify a breach is 196 days. These figures indicate the importance of security testing for software applications. Identity theft is on a rise and malware attacks adds to the pain of the customers. Security threats are one of the biggest obstacles in providing a great user experience.

Security testing is the most important part of the mobile app testing process and it ensures that your app is secure and not vulnerable to any external threat like malware and virus. By doing this we can figure out the loopholes in the app which might lead to loss of data, revenue or trust in the organization.

Types of Security Testing

There are 7 types of security testing as mentioned below which can be performed on real devices or online Android emulators:

  1. Vulnerability Scanning
  2. Security Scanning
  3. Penetration Testing
  4. Risk Assessment
  5. Security Auditing
  6. Position Assessment
  7. Ethical Hacking

Vulnerability scanning: Automated system is used to check the app for any common security issues.

Security scanning: This is done to check system and network issues and to find out how to reduce the risk.

Penetration testing: In this, a simulated attack is performed to check for the weak points which can be leveraged by external hackers.

Risk assessment: The risks to the app are classified as a low, medium and high priority and then some measures are recommended to reduce the risk.

Security auditing: An inspection is done on the application and operating system to find out the issues and it can be performed by inspecting the code.

Ethical hacking: The hired professional hackers attack the app to expose the security flaws to rectify the issues.

Position assessment: It is a combined effort of security scanning, ethical hacking, and risk assessment to get an overall security position of the application.

Prevalent security issues

Let’s have a look at the major security threats that should be eliminated during security testing.

Privilege elevation

In this, the hacker might app but he/she can increase the privilege that has been provided by already have an account in your app and using the services provided by your default. For example, if the app has a clause for some credits for referring this app to a friend then the hacker can extend the limit and get more money out of it.

Unauthorized data access

The most common type of attack is by gaining unauthorized access to fetch valuable information. This can be done simply by hacking the login credentials or by hacking the server to access the data.

URL manipulation

Hackers manipulate the URL query string if the app or website used HTTP GET method to transfer data between the client and the server. The QA team can pass a modified parameter value to see if the server accepts it.

Denial of service

This type of attack is done to render the services of the app by making it inaccessible to the end users. In this the hackers can also rapture the working mechanism of the app and the server machine to make it unstable.


There are many tools available to perform security testing and to simulate real-world hacking or virus attack to evaluate the posture of your app. Security is the key to a successful app functioning and is crucial to make your app secure to provide the best user experience without the fear of any kind of data theft or identity spoofing. This is the only way to build trust in the business.

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