DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Software Design and Architecture
  3. Security
  4. What Is Black-Box Security Testing?

What Is Black-Box Security Testing?

Most developers are familiar with black-box testing, but, how does that apply in the security world? What is 'black-box security testing'? Read on to find out more.

Ian Muscat user avatar by
Ian Muscat
·
Aug. 11, 17 · Analysis
Like (2)
Save
Tweet
Share
4.52K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Black-box security testing refers to a method of software security testing in which the security controls, defenses, and design of an application are tested from the outside-in, with little or no prior knowledge of the application’s internal workings. Essentially, black-box security testing takes an approach similar to that of a real attacker.

Since black-box security testing does not assume or have knowledge of the target being tested, it is a technology independent method of testing. This makes black-box security testing ideal for a variety of situations, particularly, when testing for vulnerabilities that arise from deployment issues and server misconfigurations.

In addition, black-box security testing offers the opportunity to cover a wide test coverage with a very low false-positives rate when compared to other testing methodologies.

An automated web application black-box security test would start by collecting information about the target. This is typically accomplished by crawling the web application for all links, taking a note of all inputs present on a page, as well as attempting to fingerprint specific technologies the web application is making use of.

The crawling stage is imperative to an automated black-box security test since this is where the black-box scanner will identify what inputs to test. A black-box security scanner will typically use a mixture of passive (typically, during the crawl) and active (typically, post-crawl) vulnerability testing techniques.

Alerts raised by a black-box security scan will then provide detailed information about vulnerabilities discovered, as well as remediation advice.

black-box security testing

Beyond one-off black-box security tests and PDF reports, automated black-box security testing tools are commonly integrated with issue trackers such as Atlassian JIRA, GitHub and Microsoft TFS; as well as Continuous Integration (CI) platforms such as Jenkins.

Black box Security testing security Web application

Published at DZone with permission of Ian Muscat, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Handling Automatic ID Generation in PostgreSQL With Node.js and Sequelize
  • A Beginner's Guide to Back-End Development
  • Top 10 Secure Coding Practices Every Developer Should Know
  • Top Authentication Trends to Watch Out for in 2023

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: