In our interconnected online world, the security of applications and the data they process is essential. Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) plays a critical role in enhancing application security by offering valuable insights into potential threats, vulnerabilities, and the overall security posture of an organization.
Veracode strives to enhance its value to customers by integrating Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) into its manual penetration testing of applications. By employing an OSINT approach, Veracode’s testers can uncover critical information about potential vulnerabilities from publicly available sources, which may be overlooked by automated tools. This approach allows for a more thorough assessment of an application’s security posture, finding not only technical weaknesses but also potential data exposure.
What is OSINT?
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is the process of searching through publicly available information to detect potential sensitive data disclosure, credential exposure, and potential threats. This information can be searched for from various sources, including websites, social media, forums, and more. OSINT is a crucial tool for security professionals to stay ahead of potential threats and minimize risks effectively.
The Importance of OSINT in Application Security
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Identifying Vulnerabilities: OSINT helps in finding known vulnerabilities in software applications by checking public databases and forums where these vulnerabilities are disclosed.
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Assessing Third-Party Risks: Many applications rely on third-party components and services, which can introduce other risks.
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Monitoring Data Leaks: OSINT tools can scan the internet for instances of sensitive data being exposed or leaked.
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Brand Protection: OSINT can monitor for unauthorized use of an organization’s brand, trademarks, and intellectual property. By identifying and addressing these issues, companies can protect their brand reputation and prevent financial losses.
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Threat Intelligence: By collecting data from various open sources, OSINT provides insights into emerging threats and attack vectors.
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Enhancing Incident Response: In case of a security breach, OSINT can provide valuable context and information about the attackers, their tactics, and their motives.
Practical Attack Vectors OSINT Presents in Application Security
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Source Code Exposure: Public sites such as GitHub, Bitbucket, or other source code repositories or third party open-source software.
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Credential Leakage: Track dark web forums and marketplaces for any mention of your organization, its employees, or its customers. Public credential exposure can be either malicious via a bad actor or an unintentional disclosure by an employee.
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Sensitive Information Disclosure: Sites such as stackoverflow.com, or other resources used often by developers to ask technical questions, can result in an unintended leakage of sensitive information. Pastebin.com or any other paste type site can also store potential leaked data.
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Third Party Components: Third party components, especially open-source software, can open other attack vectors and present newly discovered vulnerabilities.
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Search Engines and Web Archives: Search engines and web crawlers will sometimes find sensitive data or sites that get cached and published. Archive sites, such as archive.org, can often hold a wealth of information on sites and applications.
Conclusion
The integration of OSINT into application security strategies is essential for supporting a robust security posture. Here at Veracode, we strive to incorporate these fundamentals into our manual penetration testing (MPT) engagements, to offer a more holistic view of an application’s attack surface and landscape. Whether it be publicly available source code or leaked credentials, having a healthy application ecosystem is one that encompasses outside attack vectors beyond the boundaries of the organization.
By incorporating open-source intelligence into your organization’s security practices, you can help better protect your applications, data, and overall organizational integrity from the ever-present threats constantly evolving online.
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