The OWASP ASVS is widely known across the cybersecurity world as a detailed list of security requirements and guidelines which can be used by developers, architects, security experts, tests and even consumers to design, build and test highly secure applications.
The depth of OWASP ASVS kept on increasing with time and the culmination of community efforts and feedback led to the introduction of the latest version of ASVS.
- OWASP ASVS is a comprehensive list of security requirements and recommendations.
- OWASP ASVS 4.0 is an important standard for software development with technical security controls.
- It provides guidelines for building secure applications leveraging known security architectures application security practices.
- This standard can be used to establish a level of confidence in the security of Web applications. The requirements were developed with the following objectives in mind:
- Use as a metric – Provide application developers and application owners with a yardstick with which to assess the degree of trust that can be placed in their Web applications.
- Use as guidance – Provide guidance to security control developers as to what to build into security controls in order to satisfy application security requirements, and
- Use during procurement – Provide a basis for specifying application security verification requirements in contracts.
Application Security Verification ASVS Levels
Starting from basic and moving above towards more demanding requirements, ASVS basically has three levels of security verification:
ASVS Level Basic
ASVS Level 1 is for basic applications which don’t have confidentiality as a priority and are less vulnerable to cyber attacks. The security controls enlisted in this level protect the application from the well-known vulnerabilities and all the measures are penetration testable without requiring access to source code or configurations.
ASVS Level Standard
ASVS Level 2 is something that security experts recommend for most of the applications. The security controls mentioned in this level protect the application from invalid access control, injection flaws, authentication, and validation errors, and so on.
ASVS Level 3 Advanced
This is the highest level of security that can be built into an application. ASVS Level 3 is generally preferred by applications which aim for a significant level of security like healthcare, military, and other critical applications.
As a Framework for Agile Application Security
One of the most exciting applications of ASVS could be as a guiding framework for agile application security. Development teams could implement the secure practices mentioned in the ASVS and build a secure and robust product. Following ASVS guidelines could help in prioritizing security tasks like auditing and reviewing and make everything visible, as in a standard agile process.
Developers can leverage agile security as a framework along with several application security standard methodologies proven by many application security architects. ASVS accounts for several application security controls and risks as part of the framework. Application-level security, common security loopholes, and leveraging benchmark application security tools are widely used by organizations that use agile development frameworks. ASVS aligns well to this development culture by following best-practice application security controls that align well to controls for security assessment and testing.
Value of the Pen Testing Against the OWASP ASVS Framework and Controls
Penetration testing is a great way to find areas of your application with insufficient logging too. Establishing effective monitoring practices is also essential. Pen testing helps ensure the various OPSWAT top 10 security controls have been deployed correctly.
Frequent pen testing exposed several known and unknown vulnerabilities within the application.
- Identifying and addressing vulnerabilities before cybercriminals have the opportunity to take advantage of them
- Reducing the risk of data breaches as well as damage and disruption to services
- Providing an independent overview of the effectiveness of security controls and better assurance for PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance.
- Critical web application security exploits will be identified during a pen test.
After reviewing the results of the pen test, software architects will be able to make decisions about application security along with providing a detailed security architecture guidance for ongoing development efforts. Ultimately, leveraging the continuous pen testing to support the ASVS will help continue to help development efforts to deliver a level of security assurance, new levels of security application security, and greater protection for executable code. Hybrid code reviews during the agile sprint process will provide greater integration with code scanning by embedding code scanning tools for continuous application source code testing and validation.
Conclusion
Using it as a well-defined metric for application owners and developers who could verify the level of security their applications possessed. Suitable guidance for developers so that they could build effective security controls into their application.
