PHP Penetration Testing and Security Audit: Tools and Steps

Whether you’re a web developer or a site owner, chances are you’ve worked with PHP—a widely used scripting language for web development. Major sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and WordPress rely on PHP for back-end functionality. However, over 55% of PHP sites are still running outdated versions, making them vulnerable to attacks.

A comprehensive PHP penetration test can uncover hidden security weaknesses that could compromise your site. This guide will equip you with the knowledge and tools to refine practical PHP penetration testing procedures, safeguarding your website from potential threats.

The Need for PHP Penetration Test & Security Audits

Vulnerability Identification

A regular PHP audit allows you to adopt a proactive approach to maintaining the security posture of PHP sites, especially those running on older versions. It can help identify critical vulnerabilities like Remote Code Execution, SQL injection, or even simple misconfigurations.

Regulatory Compliance

Industries require compliance with security standards like GDPR, SOC 2, or HIPAA. Regular auditing helps your PHP applications meet these standards and avoid any legal penalties, as all these compliances require regular auditing.

Improved Performance

Security audits help your PHP applications optimize their performance by identifying and mitigating inefficient code and misconfigurations that could impact their reliability and integrity.

Astra Pentest is built by the team of experts that helped secure Microsoft, Adobe, Facebook, and Buffer

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How To Carry Out a Complete PHP Penetration Test?

Information Gathering

The first step in the penetration test involves gathering information about the target PHP application. This stage allows testers to uncover entry points and potential weaknesses. Tools like Nmap, whois, wappalyzer, netcraft etc. can be used to gain a vast amount of information about the target.

Nmap is a scanning tool used to identify open ports and services used to run vulnerability scripts. Its version detection capabilities and scriptable interaction through the NSE help security professionals automate tasks, improve scan capabilities, and create custom scripts for specific situations.

Vulnerability Scanning

The next step in PHP penetration testing is to scan the applications for potential vulnerabilities using automated web server scammers. This step identifies potential security threats and weak endpoints that could lead to full-scale exploitation.

Tools like ZAP, OpenVAS, or Nikto can be used to perform complete vulnerability scanning. Nikto is a web server scanner that tests websites for security risks and vulnerabilities. OpenVAS performs an in-depth comparison of the site with a vulnerability database, providing a comprehensive overview of the security risk in the target site.

Exploitation

After gathering the information and scanning for weaknesses, the next step is to manually exploit these potential threats to their full extent and determine the actual damage that can be caused to the application, data, or organization.

The pentest can include the following tests depending on the features of the applications:

• Testing Misconfigurations: Test the PHP application for misconfigurations, such as default passwords, accessible directories, and server-level misconfigurations.
• Testing Authentication: Ensuring that the authentication is set up properly and the overall mechanism is secure allows for preventing issues like privilege escalation.
• Testing Authorization: Testing the access control rules and mechanisms helps you maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the user data and prevent unauthorized access and misuse.
• Testing Session Management: Testing if session cookies are appropriately implemented and are secure to prevent issues like session hijacking or session fixation from occurring.
• Testing Business Logic: Testing the logic of the application to ensure that any process or feature does not misbehave and bypass the security.
• Testing File Uploads: Testing the file upload rules and mechanism whether it allows uploading of malicious files causing vulnerabilities like code execution.

Tools like Metasploit can be exploited, as they automate attack simulation to execute specific payloads for a more targeted execution. Moreover, tools like BurpSuite can be used to manually test the site and its APIs to exploit weaknesses in the website’s application logic.

Hassle-Free PHP Security Audit & Penetration Testing with Astra

All penetration testing PHP tools are partly automated and always require manual intervention. Based on your needs and to provide a complete arsenal to secure your web application, Astra created the Vulnerability Management Platform.

With custom-made audits for your specific application, you can be sure of a thorough analysis and all-around testing. Automated testing combined with manual audits provides the most comprehensive PHP security audit you will ever need.

Astra security experts also go out of their way to assist your developers in fixing those vulnerabilities. Our one-stop Security Scan dashboard makes all this seamless.

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Final Thoughts

In conclusion, PHP security testing is critical to web application security. A comprehensive approach, combining automated tools and expert analysis, is essential to ensure the security of PHP applications.

It is imperative to prioritize security in developing and maintaining PHP applications by following best practices, staying updated with security patches, and conducting regular penetration tests; you can significantly reduce the risk of cyberattacks and protect their valuable assets.

FAQs

1. What is the timeline for PHP Security Testing?

PHP security testing takes 7-10 days. The rescan after fixing the vulnerabilities takes 3 more days. The timeline may differ slightly based on the scope of the test.

2. How much does security testing cost?

PHP security testing costs between $99 and $399 per month depending on the number of scans and the plan you are on.

3. Why choose Astra for PHP security Scans?

The security engineers at Astra perform extensive manual pentest on top of machine learning driven automated scans. The vulnerability reports appear on your dashboard with detailed remediation guides. You will have access to a team of 2 to 10 security experts to help you with the fixes.

4. Do I also get rescans after a vulnerability is fixed?

Yes, you get 1-3 rescans based on the type of Pentesting and the plan you opt for. You can avail these rescans within 30 days from the initial scan completion even after the vulnerabilities are fixed.