Web Application Vulnerability Assessment as a Service (WAVAaaS)

What is Web Application Vulnerability Assessment as a Service (WAVAaaS)?

Web Application Vulnerability Assessment as a Service is a proactive approach to identifying and remediating potential security risks within web applications. This service involves a team of experts using industry-leading tools and techniques to perform assessments of a business’s web applications. The assessments identify vulnerabilities and provide recommendations for remediation.

Why do I need WAVAaaS?

Web Application Vulnerability Assessment as a Service is a key component of ensuring a robust external perimeter, proactively identifying and remediating potential security risks within their web applications. With this service, businesses can protect their sensitive data and avoid the financial and reputational damage resulting from a cyber attack. This approach allows businesses to stay proactive in the face of evolving cyber threats. Other benefits of the service include:

WAVAaaS offers continuous monitoring of web applications, enabling ongoing identification of vulnerabilities between penetration tests. This ensures a swift ‘time-to-identification’, meaning issues are quickly detected and addressed.

WAVAaaS typically follows a subscription-based model, providing businesses with predictable expenses. Instead of incurring unpredictable costs associated with purchasing and maintaining vulnerability scanning tools or hiring and training dedicated personnel, businesses can budget effectively with a fixed subscription fee. This allows businesses to plan their cybersecurity expenses and allocate resources more efficiently.

WAVAaaS offers a scalable solution that can be adjusted to meet changing needs. As businesses grow or undergo changes in their infrastructure, the service can be easily scaled up or down accordingly. Whether expanding operations, integrating new systems, or downsizing, the service can adapt to align with the business’s changing landscape.

WAVAaaS offers organisations an efficient and cost-effective solution. By outsourcing vulnerability assessments to a specialised service, businesses can focus on their core operations without investing in expensive vulnerability scanning tools, infrastructure, and dedicated personnel. This allows them to allocate resources effectively and leverage the expertise of cybersecurity professionals as and when required.

Many industries have regulatory frameworks that mandate cybersecurity and data protection measures. Businesses can demonstrate their commitment to security and compliance by engaging in regular vulnerability assessments. WAVAaaS assists in meeting these requirements by providing comprehensive assessments, documentation, and recommendations, enabling businesses to satisfy regulatory bodies, auditors, partners, and customers.

Cyber Alchemy’s expert consultants stay abreast of developments in the cyber threat landscape. They continuously monitor emerging vulnerabilities and attack vectors, ensuring our clients are well-prepared to defend against evolving threats. By keeping up with the latest trends, WAVAaaS helps businesses maintain a robust security posture in the face of rapidly changing cyber risks.

Our Approach

The first stage of the engagement will define what needs to be tested, what the testing needs to achieve and why the testing is being conducted. Our diligent scoping process balances breadth and depth of testing on a frequency which keeps abreast of current vulnerabilities without scanning on a schedule which sends excess traffic to your systems. This approach provides robust assurance without the overhead. Cyber Alchemy’s experts will guide you through this process, ensuring the correct systems will be tested with an appropriate approach based on the context of the system and organisation. Once complete, the output of this stage will be a clear proposal of the work to be carried out and timescales.

Our CREST and Cyber Scheme certified consultants use their expertise and the latest hacking tools to hunt for vulnerabilities. We utilise several industry-leading vulnerability assessment tools to aid the discovery of known vulnerabilities with a lower chance of costly false positives. As a fully managed service, regular check-ups are performed to ensure total coverage of assets and validate the assessment as your business grows against the current threat landscape.

Documented Report

Each client’s reporting requirements will be discussed during the scoping call, with Cyber Alchemy offering detailed PDF reports or the list of vulnerabilities in a spreadsheet after each assessment. The spreadsheet is paired with a supplementary management summary detailing the approach and providing high-level commentary on any issues found.

Quarterly Report

A higher-level report is delivered every quarter, intended to be circulated with management and executives, which reviews the organisation’s vulnerability posture and sets strategic vulnerability management steps for the coming quarter. The quarterly report will also review the organisation’s attack surface, providing oversight of the organisation’s exposure to the outside world.

We don’t believe that report delivery marks the end of the engagement; in fact, it’s just the beginning for us. We’re in every client relationship for the long haul, providing ongoing support to ensure that issues are robustly addressed in line with your organisation’s requirements

All of our vulnerability assessment services come with our “Ask an Expert” feature, allowing developers and risk owners to ask specific questions to our expert consultants, ensuring all parties understand the context of the vulnerabilities, alongside the likelihood and impact of successful exploitation.

For clients who require further support, we offer our Full Stop Remediation™ post assessment training, which incorporates real-world examples from the assessment into the training course. This tailored approach delivers lessons to developers in a familiar context and environment, allowing the lessons learned to be immediately applied to existing projects and ensures long-term risk reduction. More information about Full Stop Remediation™ can be found below.

Full Stop Remediation™ – Secure Web Application Development Training

From the results of a penetration test, or series of assessments, our consultants can provide bespoke training to application developers on how to remediate the issues found in the assessment and DevSecOps best practices. This allows comprehensive remediation for now and the future, giving development teams the skills to identify vulnerabilities before they make it to the code base. Other benefits of this total remediation solution include:

Cost savings: Addressing vulnerabilities early in the development process is more cost-effective than fixing them after the application has been released.
Improved quality code: Secure code is often more efficient and easier to maintain, resulting in an overall improvement in code quality.
Better collaboration: When developers understand how to write secure code, they can work more effectively with security teams and other stakeholders, resulting in a more secure and cohesive application.
Foster a “Security First” culture: With better awareness of security issues and the knowledge to address them, a culture of security can be developed. With a strong security culture comes greater security, shared accountability and efficiency, forming the basis of any successful security program.

Contact us today for more information on how Full Stop Remediation™ can accelerate your DevSecOps program and put security at the heart of your development efforts.

FAQs

A technical contact (somebody who knows the ins and outs of what’s being tested) and 30 minutes to an hour. Our technical team will arrange a call, and then we can discuss all of the aspects of the assessment.

WAVAaaS is a managed service designed to be delivered regularly over several months to a year to ensure ongoing assurance, although one-off assessments can also be scheduled. The amount of time each assessment takes will be specific to your web applications and will be answered at the end of a scoping call with our technical team. The test duration depends on various factors, such as the number of hosts in scope and the services which are externally facing. Generally speaking, depending on the project size and requirements, it can range from a day to a few days.

It depends. The cost of an assessment can vary based on factors such as the size and complexity of the organisation’s web applications and the frequency of the scans. After the scoping call, our consultants will be able to provide a detailed quote which outlines what we will do and what the outputs of that work will be.

We don’t just wine, dine and dash. We’re in every client relationship for the long term. Like most providers, after the penetration testing is complete, you will receive a detailed report outlining the vulnerabilities identified, their severity levels, and recommendations for remediation. Where we differ is in the post-test support. We recommend to all clients that debrief meetings are scheduled after the assessment is completed, allowing for discussions around real-world risk, prioritisation and the best way to approach specific remediation actions. We recognise that remediation of all issues doesn’t just happen overnight, and our technical team will be happy to answer any questions while remediation is happening over the following months. This approach allows operation teams to address issues while keeping their business moving forward.

Of course, what good is a security assessment if the issues aren’t addressed?! Our team will be here to support remediation efforts throughout the IVaaS service.

We understand that timescales can sometimes be tight, and things need to get done. In these cases, we will attempt to accommodate all requests from our clients. If we don’t have the capacity, we will know a trusted partner who can. Typically, we ask for a lead time of at least two weeks, however. For people who book far in advance, we can often offer reduced rates as our thank you for being super prepared.

The frequency of the vulnerability scans depends on various factors, including the criticality of the systems involved, compliance with regulatory standards that stipulate the frequency of vulnerability assessments and the organisation’s risk appetite. As a general rule, it is recommended to conduct monthly assessments or whenever significant changes are made to the systems. The cadence of the assessments will be discussed with each client, with our experts able to recommend an appropriate approach that balances coverage, effort and cost.

Our objective is not to cause any disruption to systems during testing, but that doesn’t mean that problems can’t (and don’t) occur. There might be instances where certain vulnerabilities could cause temporary issues or downtime. There are lots of techniques that can be used to minimise the likelihood of issues occurring. For example, testing can be done outside of core business hours. Whatever is required, our team can determine a testing strategy to meet your objectives safely and securely.