Earlier, the QA industry had a horizontal focus and was the same across various business domains. But, today the industry inclined towards specialization; to be precise the domain specialization has become a must. This verticalization of the QA industry is bridging the gap between business users and IT teams, thus, helping increase the significance of the work/product delivered to end-users. Therefore, it is important for QA teams to have a profound knowledge of their business domain before testing an application.

Ways How Domain Specialization Plays a Role in Evolving QA Practices

To consider QA teams as quality gatekeepers, their understanding of the domain must match the required industry standards. In this infographic, we will discuss the 7 major ways how the domain specialization plays a key role in evolving QA practices

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Cybersecurity has become one of the crucial features of the e-commerce industry. Without maintaining proper security practices, online merchants put themselves and their customers at high risk for payment fraud. Smaller companies have a higher risk of security scams due to inadequate internet security from cybercrimes.

Contents 1. Major Threats to an e-commerce company 2. Phishing attacks 3. Credit card fraud 4. Cross-Site Scripting 5. Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS Attacks 5. Bad Bots Aiming at E-commerce Industry 6. Solution: Extensive Security Testing

According to recent reports, one in five small business retailers falls prey to credit card fraud every year.

Not just hacking, but accepting fraudulent payment has also become a huge risk for all e-commerce companies. These security issues not only cause financial consequences but also hamper a brand’s reputation. Especially at the time of the big sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, these fraudulent activities increase as the number of customers on the website increases. Last year’s Black Fridaysale records speak for themselves.

According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. retailers earned a record $7.9 billion on November 24, 2017, an increase of nearly 18% from 2016.

This activity pushed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth past $100 billion the day after 2017 Thanksgiving.

Major Threats to an e-commerce company

E-commerce security risks can be caused accidentally, intentionally or can be caused by a human error. The most predominant cybersecurity threats include phishing attacks, credit card fraud, DDoS Attacks, unprotected online services, etc. The user data such as login credentials, credit card numbers, etc. are some sensitive information that is protected by a customer. However, when it comes to e-commerce websites, we do not think and put our card number, CVV, and other information demanded by the e-commerce companies to make our transaction successful without being aware of its security.

Here are the main types of security threats to an e-commerce company.

1. Phishing attacks

Phishing attacks target user data like login credentials and credit card numbers. These attacks use social engineering methods where an attacker poses as a trusted entity and deceives a victim into opening an email or a text message.

2. Credit card fraud

There are several areas within an e-commerce website that aids as a point of interruption for a hacker to take payment and user information. An attacker by using malware extracts credit card information and sells the data. After this, the fraud is committed to mining the highest value possible through ATM withdrawals, e-commerce transactions, etc.

3. Cross-Site Scripting

This form of cyber attacks gives attackers access to the user’s information that is stored in the user’s computer. In this attack, the attacker inserts a JavaScript snippet on a vulnerable web page, and to a browser, it looks like a normal script and is executed in a normal manner. These attacks leave the website vulnerable to phishing attempts or malware installation.

4. SQL Injection

Website security SQL injection can shake any website using an SQL database, which includes various well-known e-commerce platforms like Magento. In this type of attack, a hacker inserts malicious SQL statements in a payload which looks like an authentic SQL inquiry. The attacker creates an administrative account for himself, erase database entries, or view private information if they manage to access the database.

5. Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS Attacks

High-profile e-commerce sites are susceptible to DDoS attacks, and smaller e-commerce sites may also be vulnerable if their DNS provider is targeted. This attack aims to take down the site by disturbing servers with requests. This attack overloads the servers, slowing them down considerably and taking the site temporarily offline, averting legitimate users from accessing the site or completing orders.

6. Bad Bots Aiming at E-commerce Industry

Bots are prevailing all over the Internet, and they can be both good and bad. Good bots are generally used by search engines to index and crawl the websites for search results. Whereas, bad bots gather information from websites such as card details, login details, etc. or take over real accounts by guesstimating the passwords.

According to a recent industry report, 97% of sites are hit with some sort of bad bots. For e-commerce sites, bad bots account for an average of 15.6% of a website’s traffic, with good bots accounting for 9.3% of traffic.

It’s a huge risk to e-commerce websites and applications.

Solution: Security Testing

Using the right security testing methods, e-commerce companies can minimize the threat of fraud and instill trust within their customer base. By performing stringent security tests on an e-commerce website/application, companies can significantly reduce the number of errors and create a shield for your website before it is launched in the market. Hence, before your company becomes prey to the attackers and before it gets too late, make sure you evaluate your current testing program and consider executing end-to-end security testing.

TestingXperts has wide industry experience and has been handling a number of e-commerce clients for their security testing and other software testing and QA requirements.Connect with us to know how we can help your brand in creating a better and securer website/application.

The post Security Threats Are Haunting the E-commerce Industry. How Can Security Testing Help first appeared on TestingXperts.

A pen test is generally performed to find vulnerabilities and fix them before an attacker does. Sometimes, the IT department is aware of the reported vulnerabilities but still needs an external expert to officially report them so that the management is sure of the vulnerabilities and can fix them properly. Having a second set of eyes to corroborate all the vulnerabilities is always a good security practice.

Let’s find out the reasons why performing pen-testing is important.

The post 5 Reasons why investing in penetration testing is important- Infographic first appeared on TestingXperts.

With the explosion of high-profile hacks, ransomware, and data breaches, it’s common to feel insecure about your organization’s information security these days. As your infrastructure grows and diversifies, you have to protect your organization and its reputation like never before. In this blog, we will display how your organization can follow DevOps testing approach to boost security.

Contents 1. Latest Security Hacks and breaches 2. TestingXperts’ Security Testing Approach: ‘Tx-Secure’ (TestingXperts’ Security Testing Framework) 3. DevOps practices that can help in improving security

Latest Security Hacks and breaches

You don’t have to go far to see the cost of data breaches. In fact, 2017 has been one of the worst years to experience two big ransomware in a row. ‘WannaCry’ and ‘Petya’ are the two most prominent ransomware attacks that shook the entire world.

– WannaCry swept Asia and Europe rapidly, locking up critical systems such as the UK’s National Health Service, a huge telecom company in Spain, and other such businesses and institutions around the world, all in the fastest time. If reports are to be believed, the motive of WannaCry ransomware was not to make money but to produce a random disruption across the globe. This massive cyber-attack has hit at least 150 countries and infected 300,000 machines. The victims included universities, hospitals, manufacturers and government agencies in countries like China, Britain, Germany, Russia, and Spain.

– Petya, another recent cyber-attack hit companies across the USA and Europe. Petya was publicized to be more deadly than the ‘WannaCry’ cyber attack. With Petya, the victims were unable to unlock their computers in spite of paying the ransom. Petya attack impacted various services, and industries and Ukraine had turned out to be the epicenter of this attack. The Petya attack impacted companies across all sectors such as pharmaceuticals, shipping, hospitals, law firms and much more.

TestingXperts’ Security Testing Approach: ‘Tx-Secure’ (TestingXperts’ Security Testing Framework)

After all these incidents, it is evident that such attacks will not stop but only grow.  Companies and individuals today are under extreme pressure to build software/applications that are thoroughly tested for their security and are, at the same time, competent enough to alert users against any possible cyber-attack. TestingXperts’ homegrown security testing framework ‘Tx-Secure’ has built test accelerators and knowledge repository, using multiple open source and commercial tools, latest industry standards (OWASP, etc.) and proprietary testing methodologies. TestingXperts’ team of security experts recognize the importance of DevOps and takes it as a mindset and not a mere methodology.

DevOps reduces the gap between development and operations to speed up software delivery process and increase business agility and time-to-market. With its origins in the agile practices, DevOps promotes collaboration between teams and diminishes the gap development and operations teams and processes. DevOps as a concept understands the need for better security and ensures security precautions are built early in the cycle. Most of the practices that originate with DevOps, such as automation, collaboration, fast feedback loops, improved visibility, and more, are rich grounds for integrating security as an integrated component of DevOps processes.

DevOps practices that can help in improving security

Given below is a list of the top five DevOps practices that can improve the overall security when integrated directly into your end-to-end continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline:

– Collaboration – Configuration and patch management – Continuous monitoring – Security test automation – Identity management

On the Security front, TestingXperts is helping its customers determine the extent of availability and reliability of the application. TestingXperts, a frontrunner in adopting DevOps testing practices and agile methodologies, can help you automate your tests, maintain the security of your application, and achieve timely delivery schedules.

The post How DevOps can Boost Security of your Applications first appeared on TestingXperts.

Why Consider Automated Testing

We have listed these top 5 reasons why you should consider automated testing.

Read this infographic to know more.

The post 5 Reasons For Taking The Road To Automated Testing first appeared on TestingXperts.