In the era of globalization, web-applications are turning to become a part of the IT assets of an organization. The open-source or third-party developed web-based applications are enabling organizations to ensure ease in conducting their business operations. Besides, various organizations are migrating from legacy systems to web-based applications, which provide them with centralized data warehousing capabilities. The digital threats have developed from attacking FTP, Telnet/SSH, and mail servers as a large number of services are exposed to the Internet have increased significantly, however, in recent years, web applications play a critical role in half of the breaches that happen around the world. Web applications have become the simplistic route for the hacker as they prove to be least resistant to infiltration and gain access to the internal network/resources of an organization.
Network scanners and assessment tools are responsible for validating and verifying the presence of vulnerabilities within the network and the accessible assets. However, in the case of a web application, it is the business logic which needs to be tested, since any Network Vulnerability Scanner would scan the web-servers and not the content which is being pulled away. The most common victims of web application breaches are Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, etc., Database Administration tools like phpMyAdmin, and SaaS applications. Web applications are developed using different frameworks and methodologies, which are designed to ensure faster delivery of the content to ensure business continuity.