- Clouds Tech FZE, D-OFF-134, Techno Hub, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, UAE
Code review verifies the security of the source code of your application to find security flaws that could have been overlooked during the development phase and could leave your application vulnerable to attacks. Source code review helps organizations identify risks in the eventuality of an attack or data breach. It helps to eliminate vulnerabilities by the software development team at an early stage thereby enhancing the code effectiveness to reduce application maintenance costs and overall development costs.
An insecure application could potentially allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access, compromise application functionality, or steal sensitive data thereby impacting the business not only in lost revenue and legal sanctions but also through reputational damage. Verifying source code prior to application deployment can help to reduce the time and resources that would otherwise take if vulnerabilities were found after the code has been deployed. Implementing source code reviews alongside secure coding best practices is important to provide assurance about the security of your application during the development process.
Our approach to the secure code review is to first understand the purpose of the whole application, then the purpose of each function, as it fits into the Customer Name environment. By establishing what is expected, our auditor can more effectively design attacks that are likely to succeed. This understanding is critical in ensuring not only are common vulnerabilities detected but attacks very specific to your application and the business process it supports can be crafted and tested.
The tester will use a comprehensive testing methodology that will identify security vulnerabilities from the OWASP Top 10 as well as security vulnerabilities that are specific to the application itself.
Below is a description of how we specifically perform Secure Code Review.
The first phase of the methodology covers the information-gathering activities needed in order to properly plan and carry out the code review. This includes the compilation of basic information about the code to be reviewed, an analysis of the applicable controls, and the preparation of the testing environment if any specific requirements are demanded by the particularities of the code.
The next phase covers the execution of the test cases selected for the code review in the previous phase, taking into consideration the scope, objectives, and constraints set. The execution process is divided into three sequential phases, each providing data as input for the next one. All of them are carried out by the code review team, using both automated and manual tools. To further organize this phase, three main activities are defined:
This activity covers the execution of the automated tools selected for the analysis of the code. The following categories are analyzed:
Once the managed mode activity is finished, the code review team generates a set of results, by complementing these results with a full manual review of the applicable controls.
The final part of the execution phase focuses on those sections of the application found to be most at risk, alongside several more specific tests that require further evaluation.
Hybrid Approach:Â By using both automated and manual testing methods, we actively set the industry benchmark in security testing. We collect large amounts of data with automated testing tools and then use that data to conduct manual testing methods to explore further. This hybrid approach ensures that your application and organization are thoroughly covered and secure against potential attacks.
We conduct manual code review & automated code review and follow the industry best practices and guidelines specified by OWASP Top Ten, OWASP Code Review Guide, ASVS, WASC, SANS, and NIST for security risks and provide recommendations according to industry-standard secure coding techniques for software development.
Our manual review team reviews the application security architecture and develops custom rules to identify security issues with the application code. We review the code, both manually and using automation tools, from a developer’s application development perspective to identify flaws in design and programming and vulnerable programming constructs and functions.
We assess the identified vulnerabilities and back doors thoroughly to eliminate false positives. We also prepare an in-depth report with the identified vulnerabilities and recommendations to fix the code, mitigate risks, and improve cybersecurity during the development phase to reduce your development costs. Security code review pricing depends on the approximate lines of code of the application.
Supported languages and platforms (commercial & open source) include Java, C#, ASP, VB.Net, VB, C++, Php, JS, Ruby, Apex, VBScript, Perl, Android, iOS, HTML5, PL SQL, Python, Scala, Go, Kotlin, Groovy & Cobol.
The vulnerabilities that are checked as part of the security test include Access Control, Arithmetic Operation On Boolean, Blind SQL Injections, Buffer Overflow, CGI Reflected XSS, CGI Stored XSS, Client-Side Only Validation, Code Injection, Command Injection, Connection String Injection, Cookie not Sent Over SSL, Cookies Scoping, Cross-Site History Manipulation, Dangerous File Upload, Dangerous Functions, Data Filter Injection, DB Parameter Tampering, Dead Code, Deprecated And Obsolete, DoS by Sleep, DoS by Unreleased Resources, Double Free, Environment Injection, Environment Manipulation, Files Canonicalization Problems, Files Manipulation, Frame Spoofing, Hardcoded Absolute Path, Hardcoded Password, Impersonation Issue, LDAP Injection, Password in Connection String, Process Control, Reflected XSS, Resource Injection, SQL injection, Stored XSS, UTF7 XSS, XPath Injection, etc.
The first phase of the Source Code Review methodology covers the information-gathering activities needed in order to properly plan and carry out the code review. This includes the compilation of basic information about the code to be reviewed, an analysis of the applicable controls, and the preparation of the testing environment if any specific requirements are demanded by the particularities of the code.
Our code review covers OWASP Top 10 and WASC 27 classes. Additionally, we review for
The details of prominent vulnerabilities that are checked during the Source Code Review:
Threats such as SQL injection, OS Command Injection, and LDAP injection, to verify the user data sent to an application as part of a command or query.
XSS vulnerabilities occur when a web application accepts user inputs on a web page without proper validation. Cross-site scripting allows an attacker to execute scripts in the victim’s browser that can hijack user sessions, deface websites, or redirect the user to malicious sites.
Many web apps and APIs do not properly protect sensitive information, and cybercriminals can steal or tamper with such data.
Authentication and session management are frequently designed incorrectly, allowing cybercriminals to compromise user credentials, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other flaws to steal other users’ identities.
Restrictions on what authenticated users can do are often not properly enforced which can lead to horizontal and vertical privilege escalation vulnerabilities.
Numerous legacy or poorly configured XML parsers evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks.
The following methods are used during the source code review process, based on customer requirements:
Our experts manually identify security vulnerabilities line by line within source code that an automated tool would often miss. Such vulnerabilities typically exist within critical functionality, including business logic, encryption, network communications, and access controls.
A fully automated approach can ensure breadth of coverage in the identification of some of the most commonly found vulnerabilities, using commercial code-scanning and our custom tools.
Source Code Review is generally conducted as part of the Penetration Testing (VAPT)Â Â exercise.
Clouds Dubai is a leading cybersecurity distributor, delivering cutting-edge products and expert services including Penetration Testing, SOC-as-a-Service, ISO 27001 Managed Services, and vCISO solutions.
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