Misconfigurations, insufficient access controls, and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats make Kubernetes environments vulnerable to attack. Organizations can better protect their applications and data by following well-established security best practices.

This guide covers the essentials of Kubernetes security for 2024, from fundamental concepts and common threats to recent incidents and actionable strategies to help secure Kubernetes environments confidently.

What Is Kubernetes Security?

Kubernetes security involves a set of practices, tools, and configurations to secure the Kubernetes environment, including clusters, nodes, containers, applications, and the network infrastructure. It covers several dimensions, such as safeguarding against unauthorized access, minimizing vulnerabilities, managing access control, and ensuring the integrity and availability of containerized applications.

Kubernetes security is complex due to its distributed nature and multi-component architecture, which includes APIs, control planes, databases, and worker nodes. Proper security measures, therefore, play a crucial role in managing the risks associated with Kubernetes deployments.

Kubernetes Security Fundamentals

As Kubernetes becomes the backbone of containerized application deployment, ensuring its security is crucial for protecting applications, data, and infrastructure. Kubernetes security involves a combination of strategies and best practices to secure the entire stack — from the control plane to individual workloads.

Here’s a breakdown of key security fundamentals for Kubernetes environments.

Identity & Access Management (IAM)

IAM controls who can access your Kubernetes cluster and what they can do within it. By implementing robust IAM practices, you can ensure that only authorized users and applications can access critical resources. Key components include:

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): RBAC allows you to define specific roles and permissions, granting users access only to the needed resources. It’s essential to assign roles carefully to prevent unauthorized actions.
• Authentication: Use secure authentication methods, such as OAuth, OpenID Connect, or Kubernetes-native service accounts, to verify user identities.
• Network Policies: Leverage network policies to restrict communication between services and namespaces, reducing the risk of unauthorized access within the cluster.

Securing the Kubernetes Control Plane

The Kubernetes control plane manages the cluster and orchestrates containerized application deployment. A secure control plane is essential for maintaining the integrity of the entire environment.

• API Server Security: The API server is the entry point for most interactions with the Kubernetes cluster. Secure it by enabling HTTPS, setting strict access permissions, and limiting access to trusted networks.
• Etcd Security: Etcd stores critical cluster data, making it a key target for attackers. Use TLS encryption for communication, restrict access, and consider encrypting data at rest to safeguard sensitive information.
• Audit Logging: Enable audit logging to monitor actions within the control plane. This helps identify suspicious activity and quickly detect any unauthorized changes.

Securing Workloads & Pods

Workloads running in Kubernetes are encapsulated in dynamic pods that can scale up or down. Securing pods is crucial to protecting applications and data within the cluster.

• Pod Security Policies (PSP): PSPs define pod security controls, specifying which resources can be accessed and under what conditions. For example, you can prevent privileged containers or limit access to the host network.
• Namespaces: Use namespaces to separate resources within a cluster logically. This isolation limits the impact of security incidents to specific namespaces, protecting the overall environment.
• Resource Limits: Enforce resource limits (e.g., CPU and memory) to prevent resource exhaustion attacks, which could otherwise impact the cluster’s availability and performance.

Networking & Service Mesh Security

Secure networking is essential to protect communication within and outside the Kubernetes cluster. A service mesh provides additional security and observability for microservices.

• Ingress and Egress Controls: Control traffic entering and leaving the cluster with ingress and egress policies. This includes using ingress controllers to enforce HTTPS connections and setting rules to control outbound connections.
• Service Mesh: Implement a service mesh like Istio to add layers of security between services, including mutual TLS (mTLS) for encryption and service identity verification.
• Network Segmentation: Segment networks to isolate different types of workloads or environments (e.g., production, staging, and testing) within the cluster.

Data Encryption & Secrets Management

Data protection in Kubernetes involves securing data both in transit and at rest and managing sensitive information securely.

• Secrets Management: Use Kubernetes Secrets to securely store sensitive data, such as API keys, tokens, and credentials. Limit access to Secrets and ensure that they are encrypted at rest.
• Data Encryption: Encrypt data at both the pod and storage levels, especially if you handle sensitive data or are subject to compliance regulations.
• Secure Storage Solutions: Integrate with secure storage providers that offer encryption and access control, ensuring that sensitive information remains protected throughout its lifecycle.

Continuous Monitoring & Logging

Monitoring and logging are vital for maintaining visibility and identifying potential security issues within the Kubernetes environment.

• Logging Best Practices: Implement logging for both cluster events and application-level activities. Store logs securely and regularly review them to identify and respond to anomalies.
• Security Scanning: Integrate security tools to scan for vulnerabilities within containers, images, and the Kubernetes environment. Regular scanning helps catch security issues early and reduces the risk of breaches.
• Continuous Monitoring: Use tools like Prometheus and Grafana to monitor metrics, track resource usage, and detect any unusual activity that may indicate security threats.

Regular Updates & Patch Management

Keeping Kubernetes components and dependencies up-to-date is essential for closing security gaps and staying protected against the latest threats.

• Cluster Updates: Regularly update Kubernetes to the latest stable version, as each release includes security patches and improvements.
• Container Image Updates: Monitor and update container images to fix known vulnerabilities. Consider automating image updates to ensure a rapid response to security threats.
• Node Security Patches: Apply security patches to underlying node operating systems and libraries. Outdated components can expose the cluster to security vulnerabilities.

Importance of Kubernetes Security

The importance of Kubernetes security lies in safeguarding containerized applications and protecting sensitive data against unauthorized access, data breaches, and other vulnerabilities that can lead to significant operational, financial, and reputational damage. Kubernetes has become central to many organizations’ cloud-native infrastructure, so its security directly impacts the resilience and trustworthiness of critical applications.

Here are some key reasons why Kubernetes security is crucial:

Protection of Sensitive Data & Resources

Kubernetes environments often contain sensitive data, proprietary code, and system credentials. Attackers could access confidential data if a security breach occurs, leading to serious consequences such as data leaks or financial losses.

Mitigation of Complex Attack Surfaces

Kubernetes’s distributed nature, reliance on microservices, and extensive configurability create complex security challenges. The platform’s many components — API server, etcd, network policies, container runtimes, and more — require unique security considerations to prevent exploitation.

Compliance with Regulations

Many industries must comply with data protection regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. A breach of Kubernetes security could lead to non-compliance, resulting in fines, legal action, or loss of business. Organizations can more easily align with regulatory requirements by enforcing Kubernetes security best practices.

Maintaining Service Availability

Kubernetes is commonly used to run high-availability applications. A security breach that results in downtime or disruption can impact an organization’s ability to deliver services, affecting customer experience and business operations.

Mitigating Financial & Reputational Risk

Security incidents involving Kubernetes environments can lead to substantial financial losses, both from direct attack impacts and indirect effects like recovery costs, legal fees, and lost revenue. A breach can also damage the organization’s reputation, causing long-term loss of customer trust.

Adaptability to Evolving Threat Landscapes

Kubernetes security is essential as cyber threats continually evolve, with new vulnerabilities and attack methods emerging regularly. Proactive Kubernetes security ensures the platform is resilient against known and emerging threats, keeping organizations one step ahead.

In essence, Kubernetes security is integral to the operational health, reliability, and reputation of organizations that rely on containerized applications, helping them protect critical assets, maintain customer trust, and ensure continuous, compliant operations.

Common Kubernetes Security Threats

Kubernetes security threats are multifaceted, stemming from misconfigurations, insider threats, and malicious external actors. Understanding these risks is crucial to implementing effective security controls.

Misconfigurations

Misconfigurations are a leading cause of Kubernetes vulnerabilities. They can arise from unsecured ports, overly permissive roles, or default settings that expose clusters to unauthorized access.

Insufficient Authentication & Authorization

Kubernetes environments can become vulnerable to unauthorized users without robust identity and access management policies. Insufficient access controls can lead to privilege escalation, unauthorized access, and potential data leaks.

Vulnerable Images & Containers

Using unscanned or outdated container images can expose Kubernetes clusters to vulnerabilities. Hackers can exploit outdated packages or insecure libraries within containers, compromising the system.

Lack of Network Security Controls

Inadequate network segmentation and unrestricted traffic flows can lead to lateral movement within a cluster, allowing attackers to escalate attacks from one container to another.

Insufficient Monitoring & Logging

Without continuous monitoring and logging, detecting anomalous activities and responding to security incidents promptly becomes challenging. A lack of visibility can delay threat detection and increase the likelihood of successful attacks.

For a comprehensive overview of container security threats and best practices, check out this guide on container security.

Latest Kubernetes Security Incidents

The importance of Kubernetes security is underscored by recent incidents, illustrating how misconfigurations and weak security practices can expose clusters to severe risks.

August 2023

In August 2023, researchers discovered that Kubernetes clusters from over 350 organizations were unsecured and accessible to the public due to two specific misconfigurations. The affected organizations spanned various sectors, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and individual projects.

These misconfigurations allowed unauthorized users to access clusters without authentication, exposing sensitive data and potentially critical applications. This incident highlighted the importance of consistent security reviews and implementing Kubernetes security posture management to detect and correct misconfigurations.

January 2024

In January 2024, researchers identified a major security loophole within Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) related to user access permission groups. A misunderstanding in permission configurations allowed any user with a Google Account to access millions of containers, including those belonging to a Nasdaq-listed company.

This incident highlighted the risks of misconfigured access controls and emphasized the need to understand access management best practices clearly.

Kubernetes Security Best Practices & Recommendations

A proactive approach to securing Kubernetes involves implementing various best practices across authentication, network security, and monitoring.

Strengthen Access Controls

Implement robust access control policies to restrict cluster access.

• Use RBAC: Assign minimal privileges necessary to operate each role effectively. Regularly audit permissions to avoid privilege escalation risks.
• Integrate Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adding MFA to user authentication ensures an additional layer of security, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

Enhance Kubernetes Network Security

Network security is paramount in preventing lateral movement within a cluster.

• Network Policies: Leverage Kubernetes network policies to limit communication between pods, reducing the likelihood of internal spread if an attack occurs.
• Implement a Service Mesh: Service meshes like Istio or Linkerd provide mTLS encryption, identity management, and access controls to secure inter-pod communication.

Secure Containers & Images

Containers and their underlying images must be secure to maintain Kubernetes security.

• Regular Vulnerability Scanning: Use Kubernetes security scanners such as Trivy or Aqua to scan images for vulnerabilities and potential threats.
• Use Trusted Base Images: Avoid using public images that may contain vulnerabilities. Instead, pull images only from trusted sources or use custom-built images.

Protect Sensitive Data with Secrets Management

Managing and securing secrets is essential for maintaining data confidentiality.

• Encrypt Secrets: Always encrypt sensitive data stored in etcd. Enable encryption at rest to safeguard sensitive information within the cluster.
• Limit Secrets Access: Apply the principle of least privilege to secret access. Only authorized pods or users should access secrets, and usage should be audited regularly.

Conduct Regular Monitoring & Logging

Proactive monitoring and logging are essential to quickly detect and respond to potential threats.

• Enable Audit Logs: Kubernetes audit logs capture user activity and API interactions, providing valuable data for incident investigations.
• Use Kubernetes Security Monitoring Tools: Integrate monitoring tools like Prometheus or Falco to gain real-time insights into Kubernetes security events.

Implement Kubernetes Security Posture Management

Kubernetes security posture management tools help to maintain a strong security foundation by continuously assessing and identifying security issues.

• Deploy Tools Like Prisma Cloud and Aqua Security: These tools offer comprehensive features, including configuration analysis, risk prioritization, and automated remediation.
• Regular Security Assessments: Conduct regular security audits to identify misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that could compromise Kubernetes’ security posture.

For more container security recommendations, visit this guide on container security best practices.

Bottom Line: Building a Resilient & Secure Kubernetes Environment

Ensuring Kubernetes security is essential to protecting containerized applications from evolving cyber threats. Organizations can significantly reduce the risk of security incidents by implementing robust access controls, securing network traffic, using trusted images, and continuously monitoring Kubernetes environments. With the growing reliance on Kubernetes, following best practices and leveraging advanced security tools is fundamental to maintaining a resilient and secure Kubernetes environment.

For more in-depth information on container and Kubernetes security vendors, see this guide.

The post Kubernetes Security Best Practices 2024 Guide appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Top Penetration Testing Categories

We’ve grouped the tools below according to their function in a pentest exercise. Some fall into multiple categories, and there’s some overlap between categories, but this list represents our assessment of the main function performed by each specific tool. Here are the major categories, with links you can use to skip down to the best tools in each category:

• Best web app scanning tools: ZAP, Nikto2, W3af, WPScan
• Best password crackers: John the Ripper, Medusa, Rubeus
• Best pentesting frameworks: Burp, Metasploit, Fiddler
• Best wireless network scanning tools: Hashcat, Aircrack-ng, wifite
• Best exploitation tools: BeEF, SQLmap, SET
• Best sniffing tools: Ettercap, Tcpdump, Wfuzz
• Best network scanners and enumeration tools: Nmap, Wireshark, Gobuster, Amass

4 Best Web App Scanning Tools

These open-source penetration testing tools help professionals test the security of web-facing applications, servers, and other assets. The top four options include OWASP, Nikto2, W3af, and WPScan.

OWASP

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) maintains Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP), which stands between the tester’s browser and a web application to intercept requests, modify contents, or forward packets, among other tasks. OWASP teams actively maintain it and support multiple programming and scripting languages. OWASP is comprehensive and full of features, such as spider, passive and active scans, a request editor, a marketplace, and plug-ins.

Pros

• Actively maintained by OWASP teams
• Comprehensive and full of features, such as spider, passive and active scans, application programming interfaces (APIs), and request editor
• Supports multiple programming and scripting languages
• Provides graphical and command-line interfaces (CLIs) as well as good documentation
• Convenient for various levels of experience, from beginners to enterprise security teams

Cons

• Can be harder to install and offers a less friendly UX than premium products such as the Burp Suite
• Needs additional plugins to provide some features

Nikto2

Nikto is a light web server scanner that works with command lines to identify common web flaws, such as server misconfigurations. It can be installed with Kali Linux or as a single package with the command sudo apt install nikto. It performs tests against multiple items, including thousands of potentially dangerous files and common gateway interfaces (CGIs), and checks for outdated versions of servers and version-specific problems on hundreds of servers.

Pros

• Straightforward tool covers common needs
• Can test intrusion detection systems (IDS)
• Supports files for input and output

Cons

• Beginners might get confused
• No graphical user interface (GUI)
• No known community or support

W3af

w3af, or Web Application Attack and Audit Framework, is a scanner with a framework to analyze applications and generate reports with its findings. Once the app is mapped, the tool sends crafted requests to trigger specific bugs in the code, such as SQL injections, and to report positive cases.

Pros

• Easy to learn and use
• Generates helpful reports
• Automates many tasks
• Provides thorough documentation

Cons

• The GUI can be challenging

WPScan

WPScan is a popular security tool for WordPress. It can be used with pentesting distributions like Kali Linux, with Docker, or as a binary. A quick scan can reveal typical flaws of WordPress installations, such as the use of the XML-RPC protocol or outdated dependencies, but it can also perform brute-force attacks efficiently. Behind the scenes, the CLI tool uses the WordPress Vulnerability Database API to retrieve WordPress vulnerability data in real-time.

Pros

• Comprehensive, offering good documentation
• Entirely built for WordPress

Cons

• Free plan has limited API quotas
• A lot of prerequisites if users don’t use Kali Linux
• No GUI

Pricing upgrades: The CLI tool is free but limited; premium small business and enterprise versions are available.

If your business is trying to start its own pentesting initiative, check out our guide to developing a pentesting program, which includes steps like setting specific priorities and scheduling tests.

3 Best Password Crackers

Password cracking consists of retrieving passwords stored in computer systems. System administrators and security teams as well as hackers can use these tools to spot weak passwords. John the Ripper, Medusa, and Rubeus are the top password crackers.

John the Ripper

John the Ripper is one of the most popular free password crackers included in Kali Linux; it also has a premium version. It combines several approaches to password cracking into one package. It also supports hundreds of hash and cipher types, including macOS, Windows, web apps, groupware, database servers, network traffic captures, encrypted private keys, filesystems and disks, archives, and document files.

Pros

• Highly flexible configurations
• Can crack common variations such as mangling rules (e.g., Pa$$w0rd)
• Combines the best aspects of various password crackers in one package

Cons

• Can be hard to learn, set up, and configure
• Has the same privileges as the user running it, so cannot read shadow passwords
• Only penetrates passwords, nothing else

To learn how to use John the Ripper and hear more about its pros and cons, read John the Ripper: Password Cracking Tutorial and Review.

Medusa

Medusa is a powerful brute-force tool with interesting features included in Kali Linux. This command-line tool can also be installed as a Linux package using the command sudo apt install medusa. It supports thread-based parallel testing like simultaneous brute-force attacks and offers the ability to resume an interrupted Medusa scan.

Pros

• Easy to learn and use
• Fast and concurrent
• Can be extended easily

Cons

• Supports fewer operating systems and platforms than other tools
• Lack of documentation

Rubeus

Open-source and licensed under the BSD 3-Clause license, Rubeus is a C# toolset for raw Kerberos interaction and abuses. It is especially aimed at ever-more popular Kerberos use cases, which is a ticket-based network authentication protocol used in Active Directory (AD) that’s commonly misconfigured. Rubeus exploits the resulting vulnerabilities and performs functions such as crafting keys and granting access using forged certificates.

Pros

• Good for Kerberos flaws
• Includes modifications to Rubeus’ approach to Kerberoasting
• Versatile and dropped on the victim’s machine to perform various AD-related attacks

Cons

• Can be detected using several methods, either from the host, network, or domain perspectives
• Can be caught during the initial weaponization of the code itself through the use of sensitive APIs

For an explanation on how to test your organization’s security services using Rubeus and other pentesting tools, read Testing & Evaluating SIEM Systems: A Review of Rapid7 InsightIDR.

3 Best Pentesting Frameworks

Pentesting frameworks are collections of security tools that can be used to run penetration tests. The best ones, including the Burp Suite, Metasploit, and Fiddler, cover both scanning and exploits.

Burp Suite

Burp is a top-rated software suite for attacking found in the Kali Linux community edition. It’s a tremendous tool in the pentesting arsenal that can do advanced scans, but one of its best-known uses is traffic interception, such as for HTTP requests. Burp Suite’s web vulnerability scanner uses research from PortSwigger to help users automatically find web app vulnerabilities. It can handle dynamic content and unstable internet connections.

Pros

• Used by most security teams, researchers, and professionals as well as attackers
• Comprehensive
• Easy to use and configure
• Its embedded Chromium browser renders and crawls JavaScript
• A crawling algorithm builds up a profile of its target in a similar way to a tester
• Uses location fingerprinting techniques to identify hidden areas

Cons

• Harder to learn and master than other scanners
• Many features aren’t available in the community edition (free), and the enterprise edition is relatively expensive
• An all-in-one solution with tons of features that some businesses won’t use
• Tries to be everything, but should be viewed as primarily a vulnerability scanner with some penetration tools 

Pricing upgrades: In addition to the free community tools, PortSwigger offers pro and enterprise versions of Burp.

Read our pentesting tutorial on getting started with Burp Suite for more details.

Metasploit

Metasploit, developed by Rapid7, is a well-known exploitation framework that’s also included in Kali Linux. It provides useful modules and scanners to exploit vulnerabilities. This modular exploitation approach combines a particular vulnerability with a user-selected payload module and an automatically selected encoder module. Upon success, users can customize their workflow using one of the Metasploit Framework’s post-exploitation modules.

Pros

• Used by most security teams, researchers, and professionals as well as attackers
• Convenient to emulate compromised machines
• Users can create infected payloads with a graphical interface with the payloads GUI or in the pro version
• Can be easily combined with Nmap
• Tests can be automated

Cons

• Makes hacking significantly easier, including for beginners and script kiddies
• Paid versions are expensive
• Can be challenging to use at first
• May occasionally have scaling challenges in very large environments

Pricing upgrades: In addition to the open-source framework, Rapid7 also offers a professional version.

Fiddler

Fiddler is a useful collection of manual tools for dealing with web debugging, web session manipulation, and security and performance testing. These tools include Watcher, which observes browser interactions with a website, and x5s, which evaluates website vulnerabilities that arise from cross-site scripting bugs. Another tool, intruder21, allows fuzz testing of web applications, generating fuzzed payloads and launching them against a website.

Pros

• Good web debugging proxy
• Can automate SSL decryption
• Users can choose to either decrypt all processes, only browser traffic, only non-browser traffic or remote clients

Cons

• Not designed to be a pentest tool but helps to scan for vulnerabilities
• Probably most useful for those deploying the paid version on the .NET framework, as that comes with many automation features

Pricing upgrades: While Fiddler is free, Telerik can integrate a paid version into .NET applications.

3 Best Wireless Network Scanning Tools

Wireless network scanning tools test the security of wireless networks by cracking network passwords and testing the strength of encryption protocols. The top wireless network scanning platforms are Hashcat, Aircrack-ng, and wifite.

Hashcat

Hashcat provides advanced password recovery features and lets testers crack Wi-Fi passwords or password-protected documents such as ZIP files. It’s already included in Kali Linux, but users can install it as a package using the command sudo apt install hashcat.

Pros

• A typical hacker’s tool
• Not limited to brute-force attacks

Cons

• No GUI, but there are third-party integrations
• Requires relatively advanced technical knowledge

Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is the go-to tool for analyzing and cracking wireless networks. All of its various tools use a command-line interface and are set up for scripting. Aircrack-ng’s main focuses include checking Wi-Fi cards, replay attacks through packet injection, and packet capture and exporting data to text files for third-party processing.

Pros

• Good tool for 802.11 wireless local area networks (LANs) to sniff wireless packets, intercept them, and log traffic passing through
• Has been extended beyond Linux to include Windows, OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and eComStation 2

Cons

• Cannot monitor or conduct pentesting on non-wireless networks

wifite

Wifite is a wireless network auditor that deals with current or legacy attacks against WEP and WPA2. It can be used as an automated wireless attack tool.

Pros

• Good for retrieving the password of a wireless access point such as a router

Cons

• Mainly designed for use with pentesting distributions of Linux
• Wifite must be run as root by the suite of programs it uses
• Difficult to run downloaded scripts

Read more about the different types of network security solutions if your business needs additional help protecting your networks. 

3 Best Exploitation Tools

Exploitation tools can test everything from user susceptibility to phishing and spoofing to application and database security. BeEF, SQLmap, and SET are the most useful exploitation tools available.

BeEF

As many apps are web-based, adversaries use browser exploitation. The Browser Exploitation Framework (BeEF) makes classic tasks such as enumeration, phishing, or social engineering seamless. This software provides testers with a user-friendly GUI and practical client-side attack vectors to target different contexts and achieve various tasks, such as stealing credentials. BeEF also offers a user guide for anyone with utilization and development questions.

Pros

• Full of advanced features, such as fake password manager logins and redirects with iFrames
• Clever interface to visualize everything from the victim’s browser to the attacker’s logs
• Particularly convenient for demonstrations
• Provides prebuilt web pages for various traps such as fake login forms
• Provides a comprehensive network module, such as for host discovery

Cons

• Basic phishing modules will perform poorly with cybersecurity-aware employees

SQLmap

SQLmap is included in Kali Linux but can also be installed from its GitHub repository. It automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection flaws and database server takeovers. SQLmap provides advanced features, especially for search and enumeration.

Pros

• Can detect various types of SQL injections
• Supports an extensive range of databases

Cons

• No GUI; it’s CLI-only, but there are third-party integrations

SET

SET, or Social Engineer Toolkit, focuses on the human factor, as scanners won’t do social engineering pentests. Users can create payloads, phishing pages like Google login, and other web attacks.

Pros

• The sets of command lines, used in place of a GUI, have a nice format
• Comprehensive
• Straightforward but powerful

Cons

• Based on human mistakes, which is often the weakest link, but some attacks don’t need this step
• Unclear whether GUI is available

3 Best Sniffing Tools

Packet sniffers can analyze and intercept network traffic to steal data and passwords and launch man-in-the-middle attacks. When searching for a top sniffing tool, consider Ettercap, Tcpdump, and Wfuzz.

Ettercap

Ettercap is a packet sniffer that allows users to modify data on the fly and run man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. A common use is intercepting passwords with ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) poisoning or spoofing, which attackers place between the victim and router to divert traffic. Ettercap can be used with Kali Linux, or you can install it as stand-alone software on a pen-testing distribution using the command sudo apt install ettercap-common.

Pros

• A typical hacker’s tool
• Will put security systems such as EDR (endpoint detection and response) to the test
• GUI and command lines

Cons

• Users need to be already inside the network to run the attack
• The interface could be more polished
• Can be hard to learn and master

Tcpdump

Tcpdump is a powerful command-line packet analyzer developed by the same people who developed libpcap, a portable C/C++ library for network traffic capture. It prints out a description of the contents of packets on a network interface, preceded by a timestamp.

Pros

• Can save packet data to a file for later analysis
• Reads from a saved packet file rather than reading packets from a network interface
• Can read a list of saved packet files

Cons

• Command line only
• Can impact performance at times

Wfuzz

Wfuzz is helpful to run brute-force attacks on various elements such as directories, scripts, or forms. Like many other tools in our list, it can be found in Kali Linux, but users can run it with the command sudo apt install wfuzz.

Pros

• Accepts wordlists
• Allows customized configurations
• Documented

Cons

• Significantly slower than other options
• Requires more central processing unit (CPU) power and random access memory (RAM)

4 Best Network Scanning & Enumeration Tools

Network scanning and enumeration tools probe networks and traffic for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Nmap Free Security Scanner, Wireshark, Gobuster Directory Scanner, and Gobuster Directory Scanner are leading network scanning and enumeration tools.

Nmap Free Security Scanner

Nmap, included in Kali Linux and available via nmap.org, is a free package of command lines that can be run in a terminal to accomplish various tasks, such as discovering open ports and allowing users to detect vulnerabilities. This tool helps scan large networks fast.

Behind the scenes, Nmap uses raw IP packets to identify available hosts and services on the network. It aids ethical hackers by flagging the best areas to target in an attack.

Pros

• A comprehensive, free, and open-source solution
• Can be combined with a GUI such as Zenmap
• Full of advanced networking features
• Accepts custom scripts
• Can scale to scan huge networks but can also be deployed against single hosts

Cons

• Can be hard to configure and master, especially for those not familiar with Linux
• The extensive range of commands and options can be overwhelming
• Detection tools will likely spot and log Nmap scans
• Although Nmap is a scanner, it doesn’t probe for and penetrate vulnerabilities, although it does point out where weaknesses might lie

Wireshark

Wireshark is probably the most popular network protocol analyzer. It’s a packer scanner, or sniffer, that can be found in Kali Linux, but users can also install it as a stand-alone software or package on most operating systems. Wireshark is often used to pinpoint what is happening with the network and assess traffic for vulnerabilities in real-time. It highlights connection-level information and data packets’ characteristics, origin, and destination.

Pros

• Rich interface with lots of panels and removable tabs
• Can see the finest details
• Assesses traffic vulnerabilities in real time
• Can be used to assess wireless networks
• Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, and most other OSes
• Output can be exported to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text

Cons

• Harder to learn and master than other mappers
• Captures all requests on the network, so you have to know how to fine-tune it and use filters
• While it flags potential weaknesses, a pentesting tool is still required to exploit them

Gobuster Directory Scanner

Gobuster can be used with Kali Linux, but users can also install it as a package using the sudo apt install gobuster command. It can be used to enumerate hidden directories and files quickly. Many web apps use default directories and relatively easy-to-spot filenames. As a result, the tool can use brute-force techniques to discover them.

Pros

• Accepts wordlists and additional packages via the command sudo apt install seclists
• Can extract lots of information such as directories, subdomains, and virtual hosts
• Able to hide status and process such as with proxies and user agents
• Spots backup and configuration files
• Can save output results in files

Cons

• Some Gobuster modules have limited options
• Robust installations will likely make enumeration more difficult or perhaps block it

Amass

Amass is an open-source network mapper that’s particularly efficient for DNS (Domain Name System) and subdomain enumeration. It’s actively maintained and updated to keep up with the latest techniques and methodologies, and it has similar features as Nmap, even in the scripting language.

Pros 

• Backed by OWASP
• Good documentation
• Combines various reconnaissance and gathering techniques

Cons

• While the commands are straightforward, analyzing the data will be hard for beginners

Bottom Line: Open-Source Penetration Testing Tools

Penetration testing is a critically important practice for keeping networks safe from intruders. While there are some comprehensive paid offerings, many pentesting teams prefer the widely used open-source tools with which they’re already familiar. With a wide range of free and open-source tools to choose from, pentesters can accomplish comprehensive testing of their environments without breaking the bank.

If you’re looking for a full-featured, paid product, read our guide to the best business pentesting software next.

This updates a February 2022 article by Julien Maury.

Jenna Phipps contributed to this article.

The post 23 Top Open Source Penetration Testing Tools appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

What Is a Password Manager?

A password manager solves several problems related to the ocean of login credentials we require daily. These are the primary functions of a password manager (although most do much more):

• Generating secure passwords: A password manager generates truly random passwords. This addresses the problem of the “guessable” password. When we create our passwords, we do it by association to make them memorable — spouse’s, children’s, or pet’s names, street addresses, sports teams, etc. — with a jumble of numbers or symbols to make them less hackable. They’re quite obvious.
• Avoiding duplication: The same memory glitch that makes us create passwords by association makes us use the same password, or minor variations, for multiple accounts. If one password is cracked, all login credentials are exposed. Password managers create new random passwords for every account.
• Storing and associating passwords: There’s no point in generating dozens of cryptic passwords if we have to store them on a spreadsheet or (more likely) a mountain of sticky notes. Password managers keep track of the credentials they generate and the accounts and applications for which they were created.

How Password Managers Work?

There are three types of password managers: Online, offline (or locally installed), and token-based. The first two work in essentially the same way. Token-based systems are different.

Online and offline password managers create a separate database file called a vault. Passwords are stored in this discrete file, whether the manager generated them or you created them yourself. But before they are transferred to the vault, the password manager encrypts them, usually using impenetrable 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.

This makes the vault’s contents unreadable without the password manager, unlocking them using a master password. (Note that vaults can also contain information like credit card numbers and other details that are frequently used for transactions.)

The difference is the location of the vault. Online (or cloud-based) managers keep the vault on the provider’s server; offline systems store them on your device or a medium like a USB key or SD-RAM card. Each system has advantages and disadvantages.

Online Password Managers

The greatest advantage of an online password manager is accessibility. Passwords can be reached on any device, and anywhere there is Internet access (but make sure you’re using a virtual private network connection to protect the information in transit). There’s no need to synchronize or update devices separately.

On the other hand, if there’s no Internet access, you’re out of luck. The wide accessibility opens up vectors for attacks to steal your passwords, and you rely on the service provider to protect your passwords. There will (almost) inevitably be a contract or fee.

Offline Password Managers

Locally stored password management systems offer greater security since they’re not exposed to Internet attacks. There’s also enhanced privacy — you’re not sharing your accounts and passwords with a third-party provider. Free and open-source applications are available, and two-factor authentication, for example, using a hardware fingerprint scanner, is more reliable.

The most obvious downside: If you lose the device, you lose your passwords unless they are religiously backed up. All devices to access the accounts must be synchronized and updated, and you’re restricted to using those devices.

Token-Based Systems

These rely on an external device, like a USB key or passcard, to access passwords. The vault isn’t stored anywhere. Instead, in conjunction with an on-device application, the key generates the database with each use. It is perhaps the most secure of password management systems because you carry it. But a USB key is easier to lose than a device with a locally installed manager, and if you do, you’ve lost your passwords.

Many commercial password management solutions offer a hybrid of these categories.

7 Benefits of Having a Password Manager

More Secure Passwords

Password managers can generate truly random passwords immune from social engineering attacks. Since users don’t have to remember individual passwords and the accounts they’re associated with, complexity is not an issue, and users needn’t repeat passwords to make them easier to remember.

Seamless Access Across Devices

Access all accounts across all devices, especially with an online password manager. One master password or physical key is easier for a user to keep track of than dozens.

Centralized Access Management

An enterprise password management solution allows the IT department to consolidate team passwords in a single, manageable vault, make it easier to add or remove team members, manage access privileges, and enforce password policies, all from a single application.

Risk Management

Many password managers include features to prevent leakage of security information and alert IT management to compromised accounts. Some include monitoring subscriptions that track cracked credentials circulating on the Web.

Emergency Access

Privileged access management solutions can be configured for a “break glass in case of emergency” function. This is useful for development teams who may be called on to fix code they didn’t write by centrally reassigning privileges and tracking users.

Sharing Credentials

IT management can assign the same credentials to multiple accounts if, for example, several users need sporadic access to a single subscribed service.

Storing Accessory Information

Many password managers will allow additional information — credit card numbers, client lists, biographical information, etc. — to be securely stored in the vault alongside passwords, accessible and automatically usable with the same master password.

9 Steps in Getting Started With Your Password Manager

Setup instructions for password managers will vary from product to product. For the most part, though, it will involve the following steps:

Choose Your Password Manager

The biggest consideration will be the type of solution. If you prize convenience, accessibility, and usability on any device, you might opt for an online password manager. If it’s a solution for a team or an enterprise using specific devices or in an on-premise environment, a local solution might be better. A token-based solution could be the best approach if you’re willing to install dedicated hardware on user devices.

We explain other considerations here.

Choose a Subscription Plan

If you are opting for a provider offering an online or hybrid solution, select the appropriate subscription plan. The price and features will differ from single users to families and small teams, while for an enterprise solution, it will be based on the number of seats (users).

Create an Account

You’ll need to register your name and e-mail address at a minimum. Some other information may be required.

Create a Strong Master Password

You may have to access your password vault on different devices or from several locations. You can’t rely on sticky notes. The keywords here are “strong” and “memorable.” The next section has some tips for creating secure but easy-to-remember passwords.

Retrieve Your Emergency Key

Many password managers will provide a key to unlock your vault if you forget your password. Keep it in a safe place, and don’t share it.

Install the Software Components

Depending on the type and brand of solution, this could include a desktop app, an online app, a browser extension, or more components.

Add Existing Passwords

Follow the prompts to add your existing password store and the corresponding accounts to the vault.

Maintain Your Passwords

When you’re loading your existing passwords, evaluate their strength. If you’ve been using MyDogsName@12, change it as soon as you log into the app or service. Let the password manager generate a new, secure one. Experts are divided on whether you need to change passwords yearly or on another schedule, but it doesn’t hurt.

Back-Up Your Vault

Password managers should allow you to export your vault to a comma-separated values (CSV) file on a USB key or other external storage. Any database or text program can open it if something goes awry. Back up your vault when you add or change passwords.

Tips for Creating Secure Master Passwords

Your password manager is now taking care of all your passwords except your master password. That, you’ll generate yourself. Remember the keywords: “strong” and “memorable.” Ideally, it would be a 28-plus-letter string of truly random characters, but without a photographic memory, that’s a lot to ask.

Security firm Proton AG (which offers an open-source password manager that is free to individual users and includes VPN service) cites these characteristics of a secure password:

Length: At a minimum, a password should be 12 characters long, but 15 or more characters are recommended.

Randomness: Use a combination of letters, cases, numbers, and special characters in an unpredictable string.

Uniqueness: Have a separate password for each account.

But how do you remember it? One technique many use is to take a base word — say, “microscope” — and swap in numbers and symbols for letters while mixing case: “m1kR0sc0p37.” This is disastrously easy to crack. Hackers have a dedicated dictionary attack for just such passwords.

A safer mnemonic approach is a passphrase. Start with a string of five or more random words that don’t logically follow: Koolaid-rug-tortoise-drawer-towel. Separate them with a random series of numbers: 8730. Tweak the result by substituting symbols.

Kool@1d8rug7T()RTOISE3towel0 is not difficult to remember but virtually impossible to guess. (If you don’t feel creative, Proton will generate a passphrase for you.)

Frequent use immediately after choosing a master password will help ingrain both the password and the associated body memory.

Choosing the Right Password Manager

The perfect password manager for everyone doesn’t exist. Consider the following when choosing a solution:

Online, offline, or token-based: As mentioned above, your priorities will impact which class of solution you use. Online systems make cross-device use more seamless. Offline or local management systems must be installed on all of a user’s devices, but are often available as open source software; they are free, but will require a well-versed IT staff to maintain. Token-based systems are best at obscuring your vault, but might require dedicated hardware.

Pricing: Most providers charge a subscription fee. It will likely be tiered according to the number and type of user. Some managers are free to individual users. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not as secure as paid offerings.

Key recovery: Choose a solution that best suits your organization’s password recovery policy. Options include locally stored emergency keys and e-mail recovery addresses.

Compatibility: Your solution has to work on all devices using the enterprise or home network. This is not an issue with online offerings, but could be a problem with entirely local solutions.

Additional features: Password generators are a must-have. Other features can also be useful: auto-fill for forms, storage of sensitive information like client lists and telephone numbers, VPNs, and tools that identify suspect websites, among other useful additional features.

Multifactor authentication: For enhanced security, perhaps a password isn’t enough. Two-factor authentication typically entails something the user knows (a password) and something a user has — a passcard, a fingerprint, or a face for recognition.

Top Password Managers of 2024

We’ve reviewed the top enterprise password managers, individually and head-to-head, elsewhere in the TechAdvice online universe. Check out our evaluations by clicking on the links below. We’ve also linked directly to the company websites.

• 1Password: Best overall password manager.

• Bitwarden: Best for self-hosting requirements.

• LastPass: Best for core and enterprise features.

• RoboForm: Best for affordable business pricing.

• Keeper: Best government solution.

• NordPass: Best for quick implementation.

FAQs

Is It a Good Idea to Use a Password Manager?

There are many benefits to using a password manager. Complex, truly random passwords immune to social engineering hacks can be generated. Users need only remember a single password (or retain a single token). Password managers work across accounts and devices. IT management can retain centralized control without having access to individual passwords.

The biggest downside of a password manager is that it is a single point of failure. Master passwords can be forgotten. Tokens and end-user devices can be lost, stolen, or broken. A single successful hack betrays all of a vault’s password secrets. Installing the manager on several devices is inconvenient if it’s not an entirely online solution. Weigh the pros against the cons.

Can Password Managers See Your Passwords?

Reputable password management providers use a “zero-knowledge” system. Passwords are encrypted on your device before being transferred to your vault. The standard is 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption. The vault’s contents can’t be read without the separately stored encryption key.

What Is the Easiest Password Manager to Use?

The easiest-to-use password manager might be the one that’s already in your Internet browser. Google’s Chrome browser integrates Google Password Manager (GPM) with no installation, no setup, and no fee. GPM prompts you with the option to use its randomly generated password and automatically fills in the appropriate windows. The password is stored with your Google account, making your e-mail login your master password.

On the downside, people tend to stay logged in to e-mail on their devices, making the device a master password if someone else gains control. No group management features exist, so GPM is best for individual users — provided Chrome is their browser.

Where Is The Safest Place To Keep Passwords?

There are a few schools of thought on the safest place to store your password vault. In an enterprise solution, a hardened server accessible only through a virtual private network offers safety, security, and easily enforced backup. In a token-based solution, the vault doesn’t even exist until paired with its device and software — but losing or damaging a token is easier than a server.

Can a Password Manager Be Hacked?

Anything can be hacked. Password management solutions are no exception. They can be hacked both locally and remotely. Most of the time, it is the user rather than the manager that is being hacked, whether by social engineering, phishing, keylogging exploits, device theft, or poor password hygiene (for example, not setting the password manager to lock out if a device is unused for a while).

Remote attacks rely on poor design (inadequate encryption) or software vulnerabilities. Reputable providers will be vigilant about patching these vulnerabilities, but their products are under increased hacker scrutiny because of their widespread use.

That said, a quality password manager is more secure than none. Only one element in an overall security regime protects your enterprise or device system.

Bottom Line: Password Managers Improve Security & Accessibility

Passwords are an integral element of any IT security regimen. Good password hygiene — complex passwords, uniqueness, secure storage — and the sheer volume of passwords needed demand a system to manage them.

There are many solutions available for your particular password management needs. You can start your search with our evaluations of the top offerings for 2024, or drill down deeper with one of our product-specific and head-to-head reviews.

The post How to Use A Password Manager: Setup, Benefits & Best Practices in 2024 appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

To assist you in selecting the best DevSecOps tools for your needs, I’ve categorized and evaluated a broad range of application security testing tools, including static application security testing (SAST), dynamic and interactive analysis testing (DAST and IAST), software composition analysis (SCA), runtime application self protection (RASP), and automated testing tools.

Here are the 15 best DevSecOps tools:

Top Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools

• Checkmarx: Best next-generation SAST engine
• SonarQube: Best for extended code analysis and scanning
• Snyk Code: Best developer-focused SAST tool

Top Dynamic/Interactive Application Security Testing (DAST/IAST) Tools

• GitLab: Best for AI-powered workflows throughout the SDLC
• Contrast Security: Best for real-time insights and quick remediation
• Invicti Security: Best for combined dynamic and true interactive scanning

Top Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) Tools

• Dynatrace: Best for real-time attack detection and blocking
• Fortify: Best for third-party apps risk protections
• Imperva RASP: Best for detecting and neutralizing zero-day attacks

Top Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools

• Black Duck SCA: Best for software supply chain risks management
• Veracode SCA: Best for open source policy and governance automation
• Mend.io (formerly WhiteSource): Best for effective usage analysis technology

Top DevSecOps Automated Testing Tools

• OWASP ZAP: Best for automated penetration testing
• Red Hat Ansible Automation: Best for unified automation solutions
• ThreatModeler: Best for mobile and IoT app design threat modeling

Top DevSecOps Tools Comparison

This table compares each solution’s common DevSecOps features offerings and their pricing.

	Vulnerability Scanning	Security Policy Enforcement	Compliance Management	Container Security	Monthly cost
Checkmarx					Contact sales
SonarQube					$14+ per user
Snyk Code					$25+ per user
GitLab					$29+ per user
Contrast Security					Contact sales
Invicti Security					Contact sales
Dynatrace					$1.60+ per GiB
Fortify					Contact sales
Imperva RASP					Contact sales
Black Duck SCA					$525+ per member
Veracode SCA					Contact sales
Mend.io					$720+ per 25 developers
OWASP ZAP					Free
Red Hat Ansible Automation					Contact sales
ThreatModeler					Contact sales

=Yes =No/Unclear 

Top Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools

SAST tools check software source code for security flaws. They examine the codebase, enforce security policies, and detect potential risks early in the development process. SAST solutions automate code analysis, allowing developers to proactively resolve vulnerabilities, promote secure coding habits, and improve overall program security. If you’re looking for a dependable SAST tool, check out Checkmarx, Snyk, or SonarQube.

Checkmarx – Best Next-Generation SAST Engine

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Checkmarx is a next-generation SAST tool that performs quick, accurate security checks with up to 90% faster results and 80% fewer false positives. It incorporates security into the entire software development lifecycle, including containers, IaC, custom code, and open-source components, making it optimal for thorough AppSec testing in both on-premises (CxSAST) and cloud-native (Checkmarx One) scenarios.

Visit Checkmarx

Pros

• Extensive language support
• Automatically recommends fixes
• Identifies diverse types of vulnerabilities

Cons

• No free trial
• Some scans take longer duration
• Users repost tool integration difficulties

Pricing

• Contact for quote: CxSAST (on-premises) and Checkmarx One (enterprise cloud-native platform) available
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I selected Checkmarx because it excels in detecting dynamic vulnerabilities, identifying optimal solutions, and leveraging AI for personalized searches. Its easy connection with code repositories and comprehensive language support guarantee robust security in various kinds of software development environments.

Key Features

• Dynamic vulnerability detection: Identifies the most essential findings and high-risk vulnerabilities in mission-critical applications.
• Optimal fix identification: Determines the optimal area to correct code, allowing many vulnerabilities to be addressed with a single modification for maximum impact.
• AI-powered query builder: Uses generative AI to improve SAST tuning and result accuracy by generating and customizing queries without prior knowledge.
• Uncompiled code scanning: Scans code directly from repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, Azure, and Bitbucket while smoothly integrating into the SDLC.
• Extensive language and framework support: Supports over 35 languages and 80 frameworks for multi-platform development, including both new and legacy languages.

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Alternatives

Checkmarx provides practically accurate security scans but lacks upfront pricing. If you’re looking for a free SAST tool, consider SonarQube.

SonarQube – Best for Extended Code Analysis & Scanning

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SonarQube’s deeper SAST functionality makes it particularly good at extended code analysis and scanning. It tracks data flow in and out of third-party libraries in a novel way, revealing previously unknown security flaws. This functionality improves on its existing SAST engine by providing complete visibility into the inner workings of popular libraries, ensuring unprecedented code analysis for robust application security and a fortified codebase.

Visit SonarQube

Pros

• Extensive language support
• Generates test coverage reports
• Offers many plugins to interact with

Cons

• Needs insights for project libraries
• Steep learning curve
• Users cite UI needs improvement

Pricing

• Open source community edition: Free download available
• Developer edition: $160+ per year, for a max analysis of 100,000 lines of code (LOC)
• Enterprise edition: $21,000+ per year, for a maximum analysis of 1M LOC
• Free trial: 14 days

Why I Picked It

Because of its accessibility and adaptability, I chose SonarQube as one of the top SAST tools. SonarQube Community Edition and SonarCloud are free for open-source projects. Its seamless integration with leading DevOps platforms make it a great tool for code quality and security.

Key Features

• Deeply hidden security issue detection: Identifies hidden vulnerabilities within code, especially those caused by interactions with third-party libraries.
• Secure development acceleration: Enables faster and more secure development cycles by identifying and addressing any security vulnerabilities early in the process.
• Risk mitigation: Reduces the chance of security breaches by proactively identifying and fixing vulnerabilities.
• Automated code scanning: Simplifies the process of scanning code for security flaws in order to improve productivity and dependability.
• Code security and compliance: Detects and reports on security vulnerabilities and compliance violations to ensure conformity to standards and laws.

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Alternatives

SonarQube provides complete static analysis and code quality management across the software development lifecycle. However, if you’re looking for a developer-focused tool that offers real-time security testing, and actionable insights, try Snyk.

Snyk – Best Developer-Focused SAST Tool

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Snyk distinguishes itself as a developer-focused SAST tool with real-time testing features, ensuring code security during development. Its user-friendly interface delivers actionable results and corrective guidance for developers, powered by industry-leading security intelligence that minimizes coding delays. Snyk streamlines security without disturbing productivity by integrating seamlessly across multiple languages and platforms, allowing for speedy vulnerability response.

Visit Snyk

Pros

• 14+ languages and frameworks
• Offers free version with extensive features
• Separates and categorizes issues

Cons

• False positives
• Paid plans can be costly
• Customizing policies needs improvement

Pricing

• Free version: Available for individual developers and small teams for up to 100 tests
• Team: $25+ per month, per product, for up to 10 contributing developers
• Contact for quote: Enterprise plan available
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose Snyk as one of the top SAST solutions because of its customized plans for developers and security teams. Its knowledge base, supplemented by machine learning, provides cutting-edge security. Snyk easily incorporates security into daily workflows through features such as prioritizing top code risks, an integrated IDE, in-workflow testing, and CI/CD security gates.

Key Features

• Continuous scanning across the SDLC: Ensures ongoing security assessments from development to deployment.
• Real-time custom code scanning: Detects vulnerabilities in custom code and allows for immediate adjustments.
• Deepcode AI Engine: Provides developer-friendly fix suggestions in the integrated development environment (IDE).
• Dev-first integrations (IDE, CLI, Repo): Integrates seamlessly into developers’ workflows through a range of tools.
• Automated fixes: Enables automated issue remediation within the IDE through Deepcode AI Fix. 

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Alternatives

While Snyk focuses on security, Checkmarx frequently performs more comprehensive vulnerability scans. Furthermore, Checkmarx may provide extended assistance for compliance standards and integration with enterprise systems.

Top Dynamic/Interactive App Security Testing (DAST/IAST) Tools

DAST functions as a black-box testing approach, examining applications in real time and often implemented later in the CI pipeline. It’s effective for regression prevention, regardless of programming languages. IAST combines SAST and DAST, providing real-time feedback on vulnerabilities and facilitating rapid remediation within workflows. Gitlab, Contrast Security, and Invicti Security are some of the best DAST/IAST tools available.

GitLab – Best for AI-Powered Workflows Throughout the SDLC

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GitLab is an ideal solution for AI-powered processes throughout the SDLC by improving communication among development, security, and operations teams. Through GitLab duo, an AI assistant, users have more control over which devices or users can use its AI-powered workflow capabilities. GitLab also offers a unified platform that integrates the best AI model for each use case from identifying the code to fixing security vulnerabilities.

Visit GitLab

Pros

• Enables collaboration between many developers
• Offers code review
• Easy tracking of changes

Cons

• Users report complexity in integration
• Lengthy support response time
• Interface can be overwhelming for new users

Pricing

• Free version: Supports up to 5 users
• Premium: $29+ per user, per month
• Contact for quote: Ultimate plan for enterprises available
• Free trial: 30 days

Why I Picked It

I chose GitLab as a dependable DAST tool because of its extensive documentation and complete security testing features. GitLab ensures that runtime vulnerabilities are fully identified and mitigated by incorporating DAST alongside other basic security tests such as secret detection and SAST. Its versatile automation options make scanning more efficient in CI/CD pipelines or on demand.

Key Features

• DAST proxy-based analyzer: Scans typical apps using simple HTML, which can run automatically or on demand.
• DAST browser-based analyzer: Scans JavaScript-heavy applications, particularly single-page web apps, for vulnerabilities.
• DAST API analyzer: Scans web APIs and supports technologies such as GraphQL, REST, and SOAP.
• Architectural pattern analyzer: Follows secure application architectural patterns, configurable in CI templates, and runs scans in Docker containers.
• DAST report artifact: Creates a report to determine found vulnerabilities by comparing scan results between source and target branches.

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Alternatives

Although GitLab provides excellent scanning capabilities, Invicti Security provides a more extensive vulnerability assessment and real-time threat detection for web apps.

Contrast Security – Best for Real-Time Insights & Quick Remediation

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Contrast Security provides real-time insights and rapid fixes through its IAST solution that continuously discovers and prioritizes vulnerabilities, guiding developers through risk reduction with accuracy and efficiency. Contrast Assess, an IAST-style DAST tool, offers real-time feedback and faster remediation, overcoming typical DAST weaknesses by extensively analyzing code behavior to identify particular vulnerabilities.

Visit Contrast Security

Pros

• Stable monitoring and detecting capabilities
• Identifies alerts and vulnerabilities
• Good user interface

Cons

• Scalability issues
• Needs to support wider set of technologies
• Out-of-the-box reporting could be improved

Pricing

• Free version: Full access to CodeSec’s: Serverless, SCA & Scan features for 1 user
• Contact for quote: Other products available
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I considered Contrast Security as one of the top tools, as its IAST solution has been recognized for securing every line of code while continuously detecting and prioritizing vulnerabilities with industry-leading accuracy, efficiency, scalability, and coverage. It incorporates security into all tests, delivers exact results with additional context, and enables quick vulnerability repairs, hence promoting agile and scalable application development.

Key Features

• Secure line of code: Makes use of cutting-edge IAST technology to continuously detect, prioritize, and guide developers through the risk-reduction process.
• Live architecture and flow view: Uses Contrast agent insights to create detailed visualizations of application components, code trees, and data flow.
• Developer remediation guidance: Provides specific, code-level information, detailing vulnerabilities in depth so that developers can readily resolve issues. 
• Application attack intelligence: Provides developers with attack surface mapping, route and URL intelligence, and the ability to measure testing effectiveness.
• Visualization for threat modeling: Automatically creates diagrams of main architectural components to assist developers in resolving vulnerabilities.

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Alternatives

Contrast Security provides an excellent IAST tool that allows for real-time insights and swift corrections. However, if you’re looking for a comprehensive combination of DAST and IAST capabilities, Invicti may be a better fit.

Invicti Security – Best for Combined Dynamic & Interactive Scanning

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Invicti, formerly NetSparker, combines dynamic (DAST) and true interactive (IAST) scanning to provide greater vulnerability coverage, accuracy, and insight. The IAST sensor collaborates with the DAST scanner to identify additional vulnerabilities, eliminate false positives, and pinpoint specific locations for speedier repairs. This integration provides complete application security while saving teams time and increasing efficiency.

Visit Invicti

Pros

• Users cite satisfactory customer service
• User-friendly interface
• Customizable scanning to reduce scan time

Cons

• Integration is limited to popular systems
• Lack of transparent pricing
• Restricts the amount of website URLs to scan

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Custom plans available
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I selected Invicti because of its ability to include security automation into each SDLC process. It enables thorough app scanning, improved vulnerability discovery, and quick resolution with less manual work. Invicti effortlessly integrates security into development and delivers ongoing protection, with a comprehensive, automated approach to year-round security.

Key Features

• IAST sensor: Improves backend visibility by identifying unlinked and hidden files, as well as mapping all web application files and routes.
• Comprehensive API testing: Imports API definition files and links to test all REST, SOAP, and GraphQL APIs, providing full coverage.
• Prevent vulnerabilities: Identifies and resolves misconfigured local configuration files, sends best practice recommendations, and enhances security posture.
• Proof-based scanning: Verifies vulnerabilities, reduces false positives, and allows for automated problem assignment without manual verification.
• Faster vulnerability fixes: Pinpoints the specific location of vulnerabilities, including file names and line numbers.

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Alternatives

While Invicti specializes in web application security testing (AST), GitLab excels at providing a complete DevOps solution for software development and deployment processes, such as version control, collaboration, and automation.

Top Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) Tools

Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) software improves DevSecOps by scanning programs in real time for vulnerabilities and threats. RASP tools, which are integrated into the runtime environment, detect and automatically prevent harmful behavior based on application architecture and data flow insights. Explore Dynatrace, Fortify, and Imperva RASP tools for continuous protection and reliable security without requiring human oversight.

Dynatrace Application Security – Best for Real-Time Attack Detection & Blocking

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Dynatrace RASP protects cloud-native apps at runtime through intelligent automation. It identifies and prevents real-time attacks like SQL injections, lowering risk and enabling faster innovation. Dynatrace’s AI-assisted prioritization and automated vulnerability management improve DevSecOps efficiency. Its Security Analytics function reduces log investigation costs while improving proactive security measures.

Visit Dynatrace

Pros

• 24/7 monitoring
• Supports wide-range of app monitoring tools
• Offers performance insights

Cons

• Needs better navigation menu
• Needs more flexibility in customizing dashboard
• Per-hour pricing could cause confusion

Pricing

• Runtime application protection: $0.00225 per GiB, per hour
• Contact for quote: Custom plans and add ons available
• Free trial: 15 days
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose Dynatrace as one of the top RASP solutions due to its complete approach to application security. Dynatrace’s features include full-stack monitoring, vulnerability evaluation, and host coverage analysis, which provide detailed visibility and prioritization of vulnerabilities. This allows for efficient detection and remediation that can improve your overall application security.

Key Features

• Runtime vulnerability analytics: Automatically discovers vulnerabilities that require prompt attention by evaluating data access pathways and production execution.
• Runtime application protection: Uses code-level insights and transaction analysis to detect and prevent attacks on programs in real time.
• Efficient security investigations: Facilitates Grail data ingestion utilizing DQL queries to improve the efficiency and precision of security investigations.
• Vulnerability prioritization: Provides a prioritized picture of vulnerabilities across applications and cloud stacks to help optimize repair efforts.
• DevSecOps lifecycle coverage: Monitors container security throughout the DevSecOps lifecycle to ensure complete protection.

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Alternatives

While Dynatrace is a solid tool for performance monitoring, Fortify outperforms it by providing comprehensive code analysis and vulnerability detection without the need to run the program.

Fortify Application Defender – Best for Third-Party Apps Risk Protection

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Fortify by OpenText improves third-party app risk prevention by seamlessly incorporating security measures into the DevSecOps workflow. This integration guarantees that security standards are implemented throughout the dev process, from basic code creation to deployment. Fortify’s integration of security into the DevSecOps pipeline enables enterprises to proactively discover and address security vulnerabilities in third-party apps.

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Pros

• Deep vulnerability analysis
• Quick neutralization of threats
• Efficiently streamlines the SDLC

Cons

• Users cite occasional network interruptions
• Lacks transparent pricing
• Difficult navigation in UI

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Custom plans available
• Free trial: Available by request
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose this RASP tool mostly because of its quick and effective threat neutralizing capabilities. The tool responds to current threats with exceptional speed and efficacy, making it a top choice in the market. Its ability to quickly implement resolutions distinguishes it, ensuring strong protection against developing security threats.

Key Features

• Scalable code security: Allows for complete security protections for large-scale codebases, offering strong vulnerability protection.
• DevSecOps: Works flawlessly with DevOps pipelines, offering quick and seamless security without sacrificing development pace or quality.
• SDLC: Improves security across the whole software development lifecycle, from code creation to deployment.
• Cloud-native apps support: Provides customized security solutions for cloud-native apps, assisting enterprises at every stage of their cloud security transformation journey.
• Secure supply chain: Ensures software supply chain security, allowing enterprises to deploy secure apps by thoroughly inspecting all components and dependencies.

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Alternatives

While Fortify Application Defender is adept at application security testing, Imperva RASP excels at runtime protection and real-time attack detection that removes threats from the application environment.

Imperva RASP – Best for Detecting & Neutralizing Zero-Day Attacks

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Imperva RASP works by embedding security protections directly into the application runtime environment. This integration permits real-time monitoring of application behavior and traffic. Imperva RASP can detect and neutralize zero-day threats by analyzing requests and responses in real time. This technique offers proactive protection, shielding applications from developing threats.

Visit Imperva

Pros

• Complements with WAF
• Offers visibility into runtime attacks
• Uses contextual awareness for threat detection

Cons

• Steep learning curve in using the tool
• Lacks transparent pricing
• Mac platform support availability is unclear

Pricing

• Contact for quotes: Custom plans available
• Free trial: Contact for length
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose Imperva because its Runtime Protection (RASP) integrates smoothly into the application while delivering real-time security against both known and unknown threats. With Imperva, users can protect their data by neutralizing zero-day attacks, identifying undiscovered threats, and improving security intelligence, all while maintaining performance.

Key Features

• Application risk reduction: Protects applications from vulnerabilities, allowing teams to concentrate on business logic without being exposed to exploitation threats.
• Adaptable security: Offers internal security that can be adjusted to accommodate changing workloads and circumstances.
• Language theoretic security (LANGSEC): Detects and neutralizes both known and zero-day attacks to assure application security while preserving performance.
• RASP attack detection: Detects and stops assaults in real time, offering rapid protection against zero-day threats and the top 10 OWASP vulnerabilities.
• Protection against zero-day attacks: Provides out-of-the-box accuracy that does not require tuning to protect apps from zero-day threats.

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Alternatives

Imperva RASP focuses on runtime protection and real-time attack detection, whereas Dynatrace provides full application security solutions combined with intelligent automation.

Top Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools

Software composition analysis (SCA) uses specialized tools integrated into the dev process to protect code security, quality, and compliance. SCA creates a software bill of materials (SBOM) and compares it to databases to identify vulnerabilities and compliance concerns. Some of the most popular SCA tools on the market include Black Duck SCA, Veracode, and Mend.io (formerly WhiteSource).

Black Duck SCA – Best for Software Supply Chain Risks Management

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Synopsys’ Black Duck software composition analysis is suitable for risk management in the software supply chain. It provides comprehensive dependency analysis, binary analysis, codeprint analysis, and snippet analysis to identify open-source dependencies in various software types. This allows teams to address security, quality, and license issues prior to software deployment, align with industry standards, and gain supply chain visibility.

Visit Synopsys Black Duck

Pros

• Prioritization based on severity
• Fast inventory scans
• Automatic scanning

Cons

• Expensive for small businesses
• Scattered documentation
• Lacks robust governance capabilities

Pricing

• Security edition: $525+ per member, per month
• Contact for quote: Supply chain edition available

Why I Picked It

I selected this SCA tool for its broad features. It provides strong vulnerability management and compliance tools, including limitless scans and quick open-source dependency analysis. The ability to export SBOMs in SPDX and CycloneDX formats, together with Black Duck Security Advisories, gives vital insights and guidance for ensuring security across the SDLC.

Key Features

• Dependency analysis: Identifies direct and transitive dependencies declared by package managers, providing a full understanding of program dependencies.
• Binary analysis: Discovers dependencies in post-build artifacts such as firmware and container images without requiring access to source code, resulting in improved visibility. 
• Codeprint analysis: Detects dependencies in source files and directories, including those not specified by package managers, for more precise dependency identification.
• Snippet analysis: Matches code snippets to their original open-source projects, allowing AI coding tools to accurately identify dependencies.
• Risk assessment and prioritization: Enables the evaluation of dependencies for associated hazards, which guides prioritizing and remedial actions.

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Alternatives

Black Duck includes some training materials and documentation; however, Veracode’s more structured and thorough training offerings are widely regarded to be better for assisting developers in improving their security procedures.

Veracode SCA – Best for Open Source Policy & Governance Automation

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Veracode is a cloud solution provider that combines SCA with powerful open source policy and governance automation. This capability gives enterprises control over their software supply chain. Teams can effortlessly enforce regulations, manage risks, and assure compliance throughout the development process. This holistic method improves security posture while streamlining open source management to increase productivity and effectiveness.

Visit Veracode

Pros

• Continuously scans at every dev phase
• Responsive customer support
• Integrates with any CI/CD tools

Cons

• Users report occasional slow web interface
• Lengthy scan time
• Needs alert features for new issues

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Custom plans available
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

Forrester listed Veracode as one of the strong performers in SCA. Veracode provides outstanding SBOM support, developer training, and automated pull requests. These capabilities provide better control over third-party code, faster remediation, increased policy compliance, and efficient vulnerability management across the application delivery lifecycle.

Key Features

• Dependency graphs: Finds direct and indirect weaknesses in the execution route and prioritizes them.
• Auto-pull requests: Uses automatic requests for code changes to fetch and apply the best code fix.
• Software bill of materials (SBOM): Creates an inventory of open-source components in CycloneDX format.
• Automated policy enforcement: Creates code quality gates with bespoke policy management.
• Reporting and analytics: Obtains cross-risk analytics, vulnerability and legal risk findings, peer benchmarking, and auditable mitigation procedures.

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Alternatives

While Veracode provides risk prioritization features, you may also explore Mend.io/WhiteSource’s specialized Effective Usage Analysis and automated risk prioritization that take a more targeted approach to risk reduction.

Mend.io (Formerly WhiteSource) – Best for Effective Usage Analysis Technology

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Mend.io, formerly WhiteSource, is a pioneer in open source code management, and its flagship software composition analysis (SCA) solution provides clients with visibility into key risks through databases of open source components, licensing, and vulnerabilities. This tool provides a reliable Effective Usage Analysis, which prioritizes and identifies active vulnerabilities in your code. This reduces cleanup efforts while accelerating fixes.

Visit Mend.io / WhiteSource

Pros

• All licenses in one centralized place
• Offers a free cloud-based service
• Integrates well with Azure pipelines

Cons

• Costly for small businesses
• False positives
• Dashboard navigation needs improvement

Pricing

• Free: Offers open source vulnerabilities management available
• Mend SCA: $18,000+ per year, for 25 developers
• Contact for quote: Custom plans and add-ons available
• Free trial: Contact for length
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose WhiteSource as one of the best SCA solutions because it reduces risk and effort across all teams—management, legal, security, operations, developers, and QA. WhiteSource, now Mend.io, is a robust platform that supports a variety of situations. It prioritizes significant vulnerabilities, eliminates false positives, and automates remediation, promoting a DevSecOps mentality and effective teamwork.

Key Features

• Effective usage analysis: Automatically prioritizes and reduces remediation work, allowing teams to address key problems much more quickly.
• Comprehensive vulnerability data: Compiles data from hundreds of sources, including NVD, security advisories, and open-source project issue trackers.
• Accuracy: Uses a patent-pending algorithm to identify vulnerabilities to the precise components they affect, ensuring zero false positives.
• Real-time alerts: Components and vulnerability databases are updated numerous times per day, providing quick information for prioritizing and addressing problems.
• Reporting and auditing: Provides pre-built reports for research and development, security, legal, management, compliance, and due diligence.

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Alternatives

While Mend.io/WhiteSource includes security features for seamless DevOps integration processes, you may also explore Black Duck, as they offer an extensive expertise for enterprises looking to streamline their dev processes.

Top DevSecOps Automated Testing Tools

DevSecOps automated testing tools simplify development by including security checks throughout the SDLC. These tools automate security evaluations, discover vulnerabilities, and detect bad code in the early stages, resulting in speedier failure recovery and significant cost savings. Some of the most popular automated testing tools are OWASP, Red Hat Ansible, and ThreatModeler.

OWASP ZAP – Best for Automated Penetration Testing

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The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is an established player in cybersecurity for its threat research and contributions to the open-source community. OWASP offers ZAP, a versatile proxy tool that does automated penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, and code reviews on web applications. With automated pentesting, the tools simulate the behaviors of a malicious external attacker, fully exploring web apps for vulnerabilities.

Visit OWASP ZAP

Pros

• Community-supported open-source project
• Free for personal and commercial use
• Zap Marketplace offers free add-on tools

Cons

• Steep learning curve for new users
• Complex documentation
• Outdated UI

Pricing

• Free: ZAP version 2.15.0 available for direct download
• Free: ZAP Add-ons via ZAP Marketplace

Why I Picked It

I selected OWASP ZAP mainly because, as an open-source technology, it promotes community participation and transparency. It provides comprehensive vulnerability detection with active and passive scanning capabilities, as well as smooth DevOps integrations. Additionally, engaging with community-driven innovation tools like what they offer reduces costs and increases reliability.

Key Features

• Automated scanning for web app vulnerabilities: Detects and analyzes security flaws in web apps using active and passive scanning methods.
• Port and database risk scanning: Scans open ports and database setups for vulnerabilities, focusing on SQL injection concerns.
• Seamless DevOps integrations: Enables easy integration into DevOps workflows and management of the proxy app via the REST API interface.
• Threat generation and mitigation engine: Generates and handles potential security risks, hence improving threat management and application security.
• Threat modeling methodology support: Provides features compatible with various threat modeling approaches, including CIA, LINDDUN, and STRIDE.

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Alternatives

OWASP is useful for application security, including tools such as ZAP for penetration testing and Threat Dragon for threat modeling, but you may check out Red Hat Ansible for an enterprise-grade automation solution that streamlines and scales IT management.

Red Hat Ansible Automation – Best for Unified Automation Solutions

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Red Hat Ansible Automation simplifies IT operations with unified automation solutions. Ansible, an open-source automation engine, reduces manual activities, improving consistency, dependability, and scalability. Ansible enables DevOps pipelines for server provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment, assuring efficient and error-free operations across your IT infrastructure.

Visit Red Hat Ansible Automation

Pros

• Automation feature streamlines operations
• Maintains compliance adherence
• Accelerates app delivery

Cons

• Requires higher-level skills to use
• Limited real-time monitoring
• Needs to add more modules

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Standard and premium plans available
• Free trial: 60 days
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I selected Red Hat Ansible Automation because of its strategic scalability. Unlike siloed scripts, the Ansible Automation Platform provides a subscription-based solution for building, managing, and growing automation playbooks throughout the company. With a strong community and container-based architecture, it ensures consistency and efficiency in automated activities across several teams and settings.

Key Features

• Unified automation solution: Addresses many automation requirements efficiently with a single corporate solution, resulting in optimized operations across several use cases.
• Automation creation: Uses specialized developer tools to develop automation more effectively, resulting in faster Ansible Playbook creation and deployment.
• Security enhancement: Includes enforcing consistent security rules and configurations to protect against threats through automated monitoring and response.
• ITOps optimization: Uses Event-Driven Ansible to automate processes based on rules, increasing efficiency and scalability.
• AI foundation: Standardizes ITOps with trusted automation processes, facilitating AI adoption using Ansible Playbooks and Rulebooks.

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Alternatives

Red Hat Ansible is ideal for overall IT automation, but ThreatModeler is a solid option for AI-driven threat modeling.

ThreatModeler – Best for Mobile & IoT App Design Threat Modeling

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ThreatModeler’s newest v7.0 release focuses on mobile and IoT app threat modeling. It uses an Intelligent Threat Engine to detect threats across cloud, mobile, and IoT platforms. The new version includes the ThreatModeler Wingman AI Assistant, real-time collaboration, and enterprise-grade tools to simplify threat modeling in complicated contexts. Its user-friendly interface enables sophisticated, org-specific modeling to aid in DevSecOps automation.

Visit ThreatModeler

Pros

• Suits a fast-paced IT environment
• Integrates well with IDEs and CI/CD pipelines
• Compatible with Agile development

Cons

• Lacks transparent pricing
• Few community and user reviews
• Needs more extensive documentation

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Standard and custom plans available
• Free trial: Contact for length
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Why I Picked It

I chose ThreatModeler because of its comprehensive approach to DevSecOps automation. ThreatModeler’s suite, which includes CloudModeler and IaC-Assist, allows users to efficiently secure IT systems and apps. Its one-click threat modeling streamlines design, deployment, and administration, assuring secure and compliant systems from development to deployment, resulting in cost savings and increased regulatory compliance.

Key Features

• Mobile and IoT app design threat modeling: Offers specific threat modeling skills to ensure full security coverage for mobile and IoT apps.
• ThreatModeler WingMan: Integrates machine learning and AI into its toolbox, simplifying diagramming through probabilistic modeling dynamics.
• Real-time security posture analysis: Enables cross-organization collaboration for complete risk analysis and security posture evaluation.
• Enterprise readiness: Provides highly flexible, adaptable, and scalable capabilities designed for multi-tier, international DevSecOps environments.
• DevSecOps workflow collaboration: Combines project management, safe software development, and active security auditing processes in real time.

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Alternatives

ThreatModeler is useful for comprehensive mobile and IoT app threat modeling; however, if you want an extensive collection of free DevSecOps tools, try OWASP.

How to Choose the Best DevSecOps Tools for Your Business

When assessing DevSecOps technologies, evaluate their security capabilities, scalability, integration, ease of use, and cost effectiveness. Also check for the tool’s compliance and the availability of community resources. The tool you choose should cater to the unique needs of your company, especially considering the growing complexity of cyber threats and increased regulatory scrutiny of software applications.

• Comprehensive security coverage: Look for tools that provide a wide range of security capabilities to cover all phases of the software development lifecycle.
• Scalability and flexibility: Make sure the tools can grow with your firm and adapt to changing security requirements.
• Integration capabilities: Choose tools that work easily with your current development and deployment operations.
• Ease of use and adoption: Pick user-friendly tools that your staff can easily implement without considerable training.
• Cost-effectiveness: Examine the pricing structure and license alternatives to ensure they’re within your budget and deliver value for money.
• Regulatory compliance: Make sure the tools help you meet the regulatory and industry standards that are relevant to your business.
• Community support and documentation: Take into account the availability of community resources to help with installation and problem solving.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How Does DevSecOps Work?

DevSecOps incorporates security into every stage of the CI/CD pipeline, providing reliable protection throughout the development process. It consists of six stages: plan, code, build, test, release, and deployment. Security is built into each level, with automated tools for continuous testing and verification, secure coding techniques, thorough vulnerability assessments, and safe deployment.

What’s the Difference Between DevOps & DevSecOps?

DevOps focuses on breaking down boundaries between development and operations teams in order to enhance deployment frequency while preserving stability and quality. DevSecOps goes beyond this by incorporating security into all stages, making security a shared responsibility. While DevOps focuses on speed and quality, DevSecOps adds rigorous security measures that require the use of extra security tools.

What Are the Benefits of Using DevSecOps Tools?

DevSecOps tools prioritize security during development, thus lowering post-release security expenses and maintaining compliance with privacy standards such as HIPAA and GDPR. They encourage cross-team cooperation, break down silos, and employ automation to save development time. DevSecOps also improves software resilience to risks, making it more cost-effective, scalable, and adaptable for long-term rewards.

Bottom Line: Integrate Holistic Security to SDLC with DevSecOps Tools

DevSecOps tools effortlessly incorporate security into the software development lifecycle, strengthening applications without slowing down development. The market now offers a variety of choices, including static and dynamic testing, container security, and API management. Leverage free trials or open source solutions that allow for testing in operational workflows to help you make more informed decisions for increased efficiency and security.

To enhance the security of your DevOps workflows, check out our complete guide to container security. There you’ll learn how container security can provide comprehensive protection and also discover the components, best practices, benefits, and risks involved.

The post 15 Best DevSecOps Tools for Seamless Security in 2024 appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Here are the six best Active Directory security tools:

• Tenable Identity Exposure: Best overall Active Directory security tool
• Varonis Data Security Platform: Best for integrated data discovery
• CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection: Best for integrated EDR
• SolarWinds ARM: Best for integrated Active Directory operations
• Netwrix Auditor: Best for compliance reporting for data access
• Semperis Directory Services Protector: Best for free tool options

Top Active Directory Security Tools Comparison

The following table provides a quick overview of the top six tools across four important AD security functions and pricing.

	Audit Accounts & Privileges	Attack Path Discovery	Real-Time Protection	AD Backup & Recovery	Pricing
Tenable Identity Exposure					Contact for quote
Varonis Data Security Platform					Contact for quote
CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection					$24.71+/ month/ endpoint for 1,000 licenses
SolarWinds ARM					$2,083+
Netwrix Auditor					Contact for quote
Semperis Directory Services Protector					Contact for quote

Although some Active Directory tools may score highly in one category or another, I found that Tenable Identity Exposure offers the best overall value. Learn more below how each solution fared in terms of pricing, features, and primary use cases, or jump down to see how I evaluated the products.

Tenable Identity Exposure – Best Overall AD Security Tool

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Overall Rating: 4.4/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.8/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 4.6/5
• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Price and value: 3.6/5
• Support availability: 3.4/5

Tenable Identity Exposure earns the highest score overall and the top score for audits and hardening features. The tool uses an intuitive GUI to clearly expose vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, attack paths, and groups policy object (GPO) issues through an interactive topology. The AD and Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) protection tool also tops ease of use with flexible software-as-a-service (SaaS), local, or even Tenable One platform deployment options.

Visit Tenable

Pros

• Doesn’t use installed agents
• Checks for password strength and other issues
• One tool and one dashboard for all AD needs

Cons

• No pricing transparency
• Doesn’t automatically block attacks
• Doesn’t perform AD backup and recovery

Pricing

• Tenable Identity Exposure: Licensed per user, contact for quote
• Tenable One: Licensed per asset, contact sales for pricing
• Customer support: Standard, Advanced, Premier, and Elite; contact sales for price
• Free trial: 7 days for Tenable One, available for Identity Exposure, but no term listed
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Key Features

• Full-range protection: Provides investigation and real time threat detection capabilities in addition to auditing and monitoring capabilities.
• Attack path visualization: Displays potential attack paths and actual AD change history through intuitive graphic displays for faster comprehension, analysis, and action.
• Alert integration: Connects to security information and event monitoring (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) tools.
• Interactive topology: Uses a color-coded and interactive graphic topology to display user and group access to illuminate exposures and risky relationships.
• Threat detection: Implements a robust range of indicators of exposure (IoE) and indicators of attack (IoA) to provide alerts prioritized by asset criticality.

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Alternatives

Tenable Identity Exposure provides a full spectrum of Active Directory defense, but depends upon SOAR for automated response to attacks. For similar capabilities and fully automated defense, consider Varonis for Active Directory.

Varonis Data Security Platform – Best for Integrated Data Discovery

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Overall Rating: 4.3/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.7/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 4.6/5
• Ease of use: 4.2/5
• Price and value: 3.5/5
• Support availability: 3.2/5

The cloud-native Varonis for Active Directory not only provides a full range of identity threat detection and response (ITDR) features; the platform also finds, classifies, and labels sensitive data to define the most critical assets to protect. In addition to protecting identity, Varonis integrates advanced user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) capabilities and data protection capabilities to provide holistic user and data tracking, monitoring, and protection.

Visit Varonis

Pros

• No agent required for installation
• Provides APIs for SIEM and other integrations
• Includes least privilege automation

Cons

• Only available as a SaaS solution
• Doesn’t check password strength or compromise
• No pricing transparency

Pricing

• Varonis Data Security Platform: Licensed per user, contact for quote
• Customer support: Standard business hours or premium 24/7 support levels
• Free trial: 30 days
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Key Features

• Analyzed data: Discovers and classifies data types across local and cloud resources to detect sensitive data locations, access, and users.
• Automated actions: Enables pre-set alerts and actions to automatically react and block various AD attacks, such as: Kerberoasting, DCSync or DCShadow.
• Extensive Logs: Tracks all changes performed in AD with who, what, and when details and alerts on changes outside of change control windows and other critical issues.
• Live updates: Constantly adds threat models to the SaaS tool based on active threats observed to protect all customers against the latest attacks.
• Prioritized alerts: Ranks users, assets, and threat models to enable efficient analysis of alerts based on threat levels to priority assets and protected data.

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Alternatives

The Varonis Data Security Platform provides powerful capabilities, but only as a SaaS provider that tracks and receives all access information. For similar capabilities and options for a fully-on-site installation, consider Tenable Identity Exposure.

CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection – Best for Integrated EDR

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Overall Rating: 4.1/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.7/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 3.4/5
• Price and value: 3.7/5
• Support availability: 2.9/5

The CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection provides good auditing and stellar AD threat detection and active protection. Some customers will purchase the tool separately, but many will opt to add Identity Protection through existing endpoint detection and response (EDR) or extended detection and response (XDR) agents. Once combined, Crowdstrike provides unified endpoint and ITDR protection.

Visit CrowdStrike

Pros

• Monitors AD, Entra AD, Okta, and more.
• AI-enhanced attack detection
• Offers free identity security risk review

Cons

• Only available as SaaS
• Requires an installed agent
• Attack path analysis may require other licenses

Pricing

• Falcon Identity Protection: $61+ per user, some connectors extra
• Customer support: Standard, Express, Essential, and Elite support levels available
• Free trial: 15 days
• Free demo: Tuesdays or on-demand

Key Features

• Dynamic MFA: Enforces multi-factor authentication (MFA) conditionally depending upon risk factors such as asset value and potential compromise.
• Guided onboarding: Provides premium support customers with onboarding webinars, kick-off calls, and up to 90 days of support for installation, configuration, and integration.
• Password protection: Inspects password hashes for strength and potential compromise; compromised passwords can be automatically reset.
• Real-time alerts: Dynamically detects changes and potential compromise of AD and the endpoint to send rapid alerts for automatic action or prompt investigation.
• Unified action: Enables coordinated endpoint and AD actions to quickly detect lateral movement and block access to both identity resources as well as the endpoint device.

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Alternatives

CrowdStrike’s integrated network security solution might be less attractive for customers that use non-CrowdStrike solutions for endpoint protection. For a local-installation option without endpoint security conflicts, consider Semperis Directory Services Protector.

SolarWinds ARM – Best for Integrated AD Operations

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Overall Rating: 4.1/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.6/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 3.9/5
• Ease of use: 3.8/5
• Price and value: 4.0/5
• Support availability: 3.6/5

SolarWind Access Rights Manager (ARM) combines Active Directory auditing and AD operations. This allows IT teams to save time by automating password reset and delegating rights management to group managers. The tool also scored highest for both support availability and price and licensing information, thanks to clear pricing, 24/7 phone support, onboarding support options, and robust self-help documentation.

Visit SolarWinds

Pros

• Can fully provision or deprovision users.
• Role-specific templates
• Clear pricing options and an extended free trial

Cons

• Weak threat detection capabilities
• Reports don’t support investigation well
• No real-time alerts on changes

Pricing

• SolarWinds Access Rights Manager: $2,083+ depending upon purchase option (perpetual license + annual maintenance, annual subscription, multi-year sub, etc.)
• SolarWinds ARM Audit Edition: Includes permissions analysis, auditing, monitoring, risk analysis overview, and Windows distributed file systems scans
• SolarWinds ARM Full Edition: Adds risk management, user provisioning, delegation of access rights management, self-service permissions, and remediation options
• Purchase options: Perpetual license with annual maintenance, subscription
• Customer support: Premium support is available, contact sales for more information
• Free trial: 30 days
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Key Features

• Accelerated management: Combines operations and security auditing for faster, more accurate management of user provisioning, password resets, and access control.
• Expanded support: Extends typical AD and Entra AD support to include access provisioning and auditing for EMC, SAP, Sharepoint, OneDrive, and more.
• Reduced bandwidth: Reduces network bandwidth requirements through optional ARM collectors installed in geographically remote locations.
• Robust reporting: Provides customizable report templates for a variety of AD change, security risk, and compliance reports (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.).
• Self-service portal: Eliminates management overhead with a web-based self-service permissions portal so users can request access rights directly.

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Alternatives

SolarWinds provides an effective blend of AD operations and auditing, but lacks threat detection and forensic investigation features. For a more full-range, on-site tool with robust compliance reporting capabilities, consider Netwrix Auditor.

Netwrix Auditor – Best for Compliance Reporting

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Overall Rating: 4/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.7/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 5.0/5
• Ease of use: 3.2/5
• Price and value: 2.9/5
• Support availability: 2.5/5

Netwrix Auditor anchors the Netwrix suite of AD tools and provides the templated and customizable reports. Automated report options and on-demand customization will satisfy broad compliance requirements by documenting user access to regulated data in detail and as needed. These tools combine to earn the top score for monitoring, response and recovery features to provide strong overall security for AD as well.

Visit Netwrix

Pros

• All data stays local
• Optional AD backup and recovery tool
• Real-time alerts and

Cons

• Requires multiple licenses to fully secure AD
• Unclear licensing and pricing requirements
• Requires multiple dashboards to operate

Pricing

• Free Auditor Community Edition: One AD domain, most features and limited support
• Auditor Business Essentials: Full support, more features, 250 users, contact for quote
• Auditor Enterprise Advanced: Full audit features, contact for quote
• GroupID: Formerly Imanami GroupID, contact for quote
• Threat Manager: Formerly StealthDEFEND, contact for quote
• Recovery of Active Directory: Formerly StealthRECOVER, contact for quote
• Customer support: All paid customers enjoy the same level of tech support
• Free trial: 20 days 
• Free demo: Contact Netwrix for a one-to-one demo or launch the in-browser demo

Key Features

• Robust compliance: Provides customizable report templates for extensive compliance standards such as HIPAA, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS v3.2, FERPA, SOX, and more.
• Anomaly detection: Creates benchmark activity profiles, provides adjusted risk profiles, and issues alerts based on anomalous user behavior.
• Broad automation: Schedule compliance reports to send automatically, enable user self-service, and trigger automated remediation tasks based on events.
• Integrated operations: Automates password reset, enables delegation of rights management, and takes operations burdens off of the help desk team.
• Wide support: Extends capabilities beyond AD to encompass access monitoring for Microsoft 365, Exchange, Sharepoint, NetApp, SQL Server, VMware, and more.

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Alternatives

While a robust network security solution for AD protection, some buyers will balk at the number of tools to purchase and operations teams may prefer a single management console. For a consolidated security and operations tool, consider SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM).

Semperis Directory Services Protector – Best for Free Tool Options

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Overall Rating: 4/5

• Audit and harden features: 4.8/5
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features: 4.9/5
• Ease of use: 3.5/5
• Price and value: 2.0/5
• Support availability: 3.4/5

Semperis Directory Services Protector (DSP) delivers the core of the Semperis Identity Resilience Platform complimented by two powerful free tools: Purple Knight and Forest Druid. Many teams start with Purple Knights user auditing or Forest Druid’s attack path mapping for initial security and then graduate to DSP or other Semperis modules as needs and sophistication grow. The light free software requires no integration and has low system requirements. 

Visit Semperis

Pros

• Many components run without installation
• 24/7 phone support for paid customers
• Real-time notifications

Cons

• Uses many tools and dashboards to protect AD
• Opaque pricing and licensing options
• Doesn’t check for weak or breached passwords

Pricing

• Purple Knight: Free AD assessment tool
• Forest Druid: Free AD forest attack patch discovery tool
• Contact for quote: Directory Service Protector, Active Directory Forest Recovery (ADFR), Disaster Recovery for Entra Tenant, Migrator for Active Directory
• Customer support: All paid customers enjoy the same level of tech support.
• Free trial: Doesn’t offer a free trial, has free tools
• Free demo: Contact to schedule

Key Features

• Assisted investigation: Enables forensic and incident investigation of AD changes and potential attacks with detailed records and even optional investigation consulting.
• Free tools: Provide even the smallest business with resources to perform AD assessments (Purple Knight) or inspect AD forests (Forest Druid).
• Fully local: Software installs on local servers to assess data and store information locally, with no shared data sent back to Sempris or cloud servers.
• Interactive discovery: Offers fully interactive attack path discovery through Forest Druid with a graphically intuitive mapping of user and group access.
• Resilient recovery: Backs up AD and Entra data and configurations for faster recovery from small and large changes, including complete failure.

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Alternatives

Semperis focuses on providing modular on-site flexibility, but some organizations prefer to outsource the infrastructure and management of AD security. Such organizations may prefer to consider an integrated SaaS provider, such as CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection.

Top 5 Features of Active Directory Security

The top five features of Active Directory security harden, monitor, and enable quick reactions to attacks through examination of connections, integrating with existing security infrastructure, change monitoring, rapid alerts, and inspection of user and group permissions.

AD Forest Inspection

AD Forest inspection examines the connections between assets (data, devices, etc.), users (individuals, system functions, APIs, etc.), and groups (authorization categories). The examination focuses on Tier0 assets that can directly control the most secure levels of Active Directory and checks for excessive permissions and dangerous attack paths.

Alert & Log Integration

Security professionals require alerts and logs from AD security to integrate with existing SIEM, SOAR, and other network security tools. The sheer volume of information coming from security infrastructure will quickly overwhelm a team if they need to implement, learn, and monitor separate processes just for Active Directory.

AD Changes Auditing

AD security tools monitor and record details related to changes to active directory and permit change auditing to verify authenticity. All tools need to record changes, better tools enable roll-back of unauthorized changes, and the best tools can automatically detect and reverse unapproved changes.

Real-Time Alerts

Real-time alerts enable security teams to capture information on potential threats promptly and react quickly. In an environment of continuous attacks, security teams can no longer wait to check log files individually and require systems to identify, prioritize, and rapidly bring potential threats to the forefront.

User & Group Access Auditing

User and group access auditing inspects access rights for individuals and the user group classifications used to manage group permissions. AD provides manual functionality, but effective AD security tools enable users to quickly expose potentially dangerous issues such as excessive administrator rights, weak passwords, non-expiring passwords, and continuing access for terminated employees.

How I Evaluated the Best Active Directory Security Tools

The evaluation of the AD security tools weighed five different criteria, with the most emphasis placed on overall features. Each category contained a number of sub-criteria with their own weights that helped produce a five-point rating for each category and in total. After determining the top six tools based on their overall score, I considered the tools’ pros, cons, and features to identify strong use cases for each solution.

Evaluation Criteria

To evaluate the tools, I focused primarily on the breadth of features needed for active directory security. Next, I considered usability, support availability, and price and licensing information.

• Audit and harden features (30%): Assesses tool capabilities to check accounts for vulnerabilities, identify attack paths, harden security, and manage rights effectively.
  • Criterion winner: Tenable Identity Exposure
• Monitoring, response, and recovery features (30%): Examines tool capabilities to monitor changes, issue alerts, aid investigations, and provide compliance reports.
  • Criterion winner: Netwrix Auditor
• Ease of use (15%): Considers the number of installations, dashboards, and agents to provide AD security, other identities managed (Okta, 365, etc.), and installation options.
  • Criterion winner: Tenable Identity Exposure
• Price and licensing info (15%): Bases evaluations on price and licensing information transparency, the number of licenses required, and free tools and trials available.
  • Criterion winner: SolarWinds Access Rights Manager
• Support availability (10%): Considers the different support options for everyday use and initial installation, support hours, and premium support options.
  • Criterion winner: SolarWinds Access Rights Manager

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How Are AD Security Tools Helpful?

AD security tools help manage Active Directory more intuitively, rapidly, and comprehensively to tighten control over the critical functions that AD delivers. They also analyze existing identities for potential issues, track changes for signs of malicious activity, and provide alerts for any detected attacks.

What Is the Difference Between AD Security & ITDR?

AD security secures the lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) functions delivered by AD and similar tools. Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) expands the scope to include integration with MFA, SOAR, identity and access management (IAM), privilege access management (PAM), and other tools for a more comprehensive overview and integration into the security stack.

How Does AD Security Satisfy Compliance Requirements?

AD security adds controls to protect the access management required by all major cybersecurity compliance standards. AD security tool reports should directly provide information that proves user activity and data access fall within specific compliance requirements to avoid additional efforts to meet regular compliance requirements.

Bottom Line: AD Security Provides Fundamental Protection

Active directory stores access permissions and authorization throughout a network and literally defines who holds the keys to the kingdom. Make sure to implement effective AD security to provide this critical component with the protection and monitoring necessary to provide a foundation for the rest of an organization’s security stack. Start by selecting the most promising option and experience a demo or try out the free version.

This article explains how to secure AD against future attacks, but to determine if past attacks have been successful, read about how to tell if Active Directory is compromised. 

The post Top 6 Active Directory Security Tools for Auditing, Monitoring & Protection appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Here are the six best open-source vulnerability scanners:

• Nmap: Best device scanner overall
• OpenVAS: Best device scanner for user experience
• ZAP: Best web and app scanner overall 
• OSV-Scanner: Best web and app scanner for library dependency
• CloudSploit: Best specialty scanner for cloud and containers
• sqlmap: Best specialty scanner for databases

Top Open-Source Vulnerability Scanner Software Comparison

The table below briefly compares the top six tools and provides the overall rating in comparison with the other vulnerability scanning tools (aka vulnscanners) on the list, the types of assets scanned, and the availability of premium support or commercial versions of the tool.

	Overall Rating	Device Scanning	Website & Application Scanning	Specialty	Paid Support Option
Nmap	4.4			Port scanning
OpenVAS	4.3
ZAP	4.6
OSV-Scanner	4.0			Library dependency
CloudSploit	3.9	Cloud and container only		Cloud and container
sqlmap	3.8		Databases only	Databases

Although we used a single scale to evaluate all open-source vulnerability scanners, they can’t be used interchangeably. For example, the best device scanning tool, Nmap, can only perform very limited application scanning, and the best web and app scanning tool, ZAP, can’t scan devices for vulnerabilities. Explore the detailed reviews of each tool for more context and read our rating methodology below.

Nmap – Best Device Scanner Overall

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Overall Rating

4.4/5

Open-source value

4.5/5

Core scanning features

4.2/5

Ease of use

4.7/5

User support

3.8/5

Nmap scores the highest for core scanning features and highest overall for device scanners thanks to the huge number of devices it can scan. The list well exceeds traditional network security port scans to include cloud infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), and even some website applications. Hackers also frequently use the tool, so security pros often use Nmap even if they already own commercial tools to ensure they capture the hacker’s perspective.

Pros

• Performs host discovery for networks
• Can determine or predict operating systems
• Included in most Linux distributions

Cons

• No formal customer support option
• Best results require experience or programming
• Not all options are available in the GUI version

Pricing

The open-source Nmap tool may be downloaded and used for free. An OEM license starts at $59,980 per year to build Nmap into commercial vulnerability scanning software or hardware. Cloud-hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) Nmap scanners aren’t affiliated with the Nmap tool.

Key Features

• Deep scanning: Interrogates open ports quickly to analyze protocols, applications, and operating systems based on available TCP and UDP services.
• Industry favorite: Enjoys a large user base of active security professionals and hackers; also included in most network and cybersecurity certification programs.
• Programmer-friendly: Uses command line controls to automate vulnerability scans or to export results into ticketing systems or security tools.
• Scripting library: Includes a growing library of 500 scripts for enhanced network discovery and vulnerability assessment developed by the Nmap community.
• System agnostic: Scans based on port responses to protocol requests so it works on all computers, IoT, websites, cloud systems, and networking equipment with open ports.

Gallery

Alternative

Nmap provides powerful network security scanning, but users without programming experience or seeking a better user interface may prefer to start with OpenVAS.

OpenVAS – Best Device Scanner for User Experience

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Overall Rating

4.3/5

Open-source value

4.9/5

Core scanning features

4.1/5

Ease of use

4.3/5

User support

4.8/5

OpenVAS places first for user support primarily thanks to an effective graphic user interface (GUI) and an option for premium customer support. Yet it also enjoys a large community of industry users, inclusion in cybersecurity certification training, and built-in compliance reports. Greenbone maintains a strong threat feed and the scanning capabilities for the tool originally forked off of Nessus, now a closed-source commercial product by Tenable.

Pros

• Web-based management console
• Also available as a cloud-hosted scanner
• Actively maintained by Greenbone

Cons

• Can be overwhelming for beginners
• Many concurrent scans can crash the program
• Advanced scans require premium version

Pricing

Greenbone continues to offer the open-sourced Community Edition OpenVAS free to all users. Those that need more advanced vulnerability scanning features (scans for network equipment, IoT, etc.) and professional support can upgrade to the Enterprise Edition.

Key Features

• Constant improvement: Updates threat feeds nearly daily with sourced as well as researched vulnerabilities; product updates and features also regularly provided.
• Enterprise options: Provides a robust free version with even more capabilities and features available in the Enterprise version that also provides customer support.
• Extensive device scans: Scans endpoints, servers, and cloud deployments for common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs); paid version scans even more devices.
• Industry standard: Delivers a widely used solution tested extensively by security pros, supported by a large community, and taught in many different certification courses.
• Vulnerability insights: Explains each vulnerability with additional context for vulnerability remediation or how attackers might exploit an exposed flaw.

Gallery

Alternative

Greenbone’s OpenVAS provides a strong user experience but charges extra to perform vulnerability scans on many common devices such as networking equipment. For a full-powered and free device scanner, consider Nmap.

ZAP – Best Web & App Scanner Overall

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Overall Rating

4.6/5

Open-source value

5/5

Core scanning features

3.9/5

Ease of use

4.8/5

User support

4.4/5

Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) scores the highest overall for all open-source vuln scanners and provides the highest rated open-source value and ease of use of the tools tested. Pre-installed on Kali Linux, ZAP places itself between the tester’s browser and the web application to intercept requests to act as a “proxy.” This tests applications by modifying contents, forwarding packets, and other user behavior simulations in a comprehensive and robust fashion.

Pros

• Available for major OS and Docker
• Both GUI and command-line interfaces
• Manual and automated exploration

Cons

• Requires additional plugins for some features
• Requires some expertise to use
• Can produce more false positives

Pricing

ZAP may be used for free, and the development team offers Bronze ($10,000 per year) and Silver ($20,000 per year) premium support packages for direct support via email or video with faster response times.

Key Features

• Common curriculum: Regularly included in DevSecOps and security certification as the primary training tool for scanning websites and applications.
• Comprehensive scanning: Performs highly rated Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), particularly for cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, and also performs uncommon tests such as fuzzing.
• DevSecOps integration: Provides API and docker integration for quick starts and integrates with DevSecOp tools for automated ticketing to development teams.
• Full-time development: Deploys two full-time developers thanks to the support of the Crash Override Open Source Fellowship (ZAP is no longer affiliated with OWASP).
• Hacker favorite: Used often by penetration testers and hackers, applying ZAP provides an excellent idea of what vulnerabilities adversaries might locate.

Gallery

Alternative

The extensive ZAP capabilities scan for detected vulnerabilities in compiled code, but to locate open-source library dependencies, consider OSV-Scanner instead.

OSV-Scanner – Best Web & App Scanner for Library Dependency

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Overall Rating

4/5

Open-source value

4.7/5

Core scanning features

3.8/5

Ease of use

3.4/5

User support

3.7/5

OSV-Scanner delivers specialty software composition analysis (SCA) that scans static software for open-source programming code vulnerabilities to secure the open-source software bill-of-materials (SBOM). It was developed initially by Google, and the rapid development of additional features and growing number of included languages speed the adoption of the tool and enhance its industry reputation.

Pros

• Condensed results save resolution time
• Can ignore vulnerabilities by ID number
• Still actively developed by Google

Cons

• May lag single language open-source SCA tools
• Only reviews open-source library vulnerabilities
• Too new to include in certification education

Pricing

Google launched OSV-Scanner in 2021 and made the tool both free and open-source as a resource for the developer community.

Key Features

• Continuous development: Extends the list of supported programming languages regularly: C/C++, Dart, Elixir, Go, Java, Javascript, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, and Rust.
• Expansive sources: Pulls vulnerabilities from a huge number of sources, including Debian, Linux, Maven, npm, NuGet, OSS-Fuzz, Packagist, PyPl, and RubyGems.
• Flexible deployment: Allows API, scriptable, and GitHub integrated calls to allow automation and integration with DevSecOp tools and processes.
• Machine-readable reports: Stores information about affected versions in JSON, a machine-readable format to integrate with developer packages.
• Thorough scans: Examines directories, software bill of materials (SBOMs), lockfiles, Debian-based docker images, or software running within Docker containers.

Gallery

Alternative

While powerful, OSV-Sanner only provides specialty SCA scanning. For broader DAST analysis capabilities from a website and application vulnerability scanner, consider ZAP.

CloudSploit – Best Specialty Scanner for Cloud & Containers

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Overall Rating

3.9/5

Open-source value

4.1/5

Core scanning features

3.8/5

Ease of use

3.9/5

User support

3/5

Aqua acquired and continues to maintain the open-sourced cloud-infrastructure scanning engine CloudSploit so that users can download, modify, and enjoy the benefits of the specialty tool. CloudSploit scans can be performed on-demand or configured to run continuously and feed alerts to security and DevOp teams. This tool examines cloud and container deployments not only for known vulnerabilities but also for common misconfiguration issues.

Pros

• Uses RESTful interface for APIs
• Each API call is separately trackable
• Part of a portfolio of open-source security tools

Cons

• Some features only available with paid version
• Narrowly specialized tool; must be used with others
• Focuses on public cloud infrastructure

Pricing

CloudSploit provides free, open-source scanning and enjoys regular updates and features from Aqua. Aqua also offers additional scanning features with robust customer support through their Aqua Wave and Aqua Enterprise products.

Key Features

• Continuous auditing: Scans AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and other environments continuously to alert on changes to cloud infrastructure.
• Integrated messaging: Sends real-time alerts and results via developer and security favorite tools such as Slack, Splunk, OpsGenie, Amazon SNS, and email.
• Powerful APIs: Calls APIs from the command line, scripts, or build systems (Jenkins, CircleCL, AWS CodeBuild, etc.) with specific permissions granted by read/write controls.
• Proactive notifications: Alerts on introduced vulnerabilities as they occur such as changed security groups, new SSH keys, deactivated MFA, deleted logs, and more.
• Wide cloud support: Includes severities for plugins for the major public cloud platforms: Alibaba, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, GitHub, and Oracle.

Gallery

Alternative

CloudSploit examines cloud environments deeply for a variety of risks, but for broader infrastructure scanning that also encompasses local environments, consider Nmap.

sqlmap – Best Specialty Scanner for Databases

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Overall Rating

3.8/5

Open-source value

4.1/5

Core scanning features

3.8/5

Ease of use

3.2/5

User support

3.9/5

The sqlmap tool qualifies for a position on this list, with an extremely focused but capable database vulnerability scanning tool. Although limited in scope, database testing tends to be a critical component in ecommerce, card payments, and other financial services that require heavy compliance and security testing. This tool requires programming and database experience to use, but provides powerful capabilities to test for common database problems.

Pros

• Can run on any Python interpreters
• Searches specific database names and tables
• Can exclude false positives from future scans

Cons

• Command-line tool with no graphic user interface
• Very specialized tool for specific vulnerabilities
• Requires database expertise to use effectively

Pricing

The sqlmap tool is open-source and free to use.

Key Features

• Direct connections: Attaches directly to the database for testing via DBMS credentials, IP address, port, and database name.
• Programmable testing: Enables callable (code or GitHub) integration, execution of arbitrary commands, retrieval of standard outputs, and reporting.
• SQLi specialist: Performs six types of SQL injection types: boolean-based blind, time-based blind, error-based, UNION query-based, stacked queries, and out-of-band.
• Password support: Automatically recognizes and uses password hashes for testing with permitted access and also can perform password cracking.
• Widely compatible: Supports 35+ database management systems including MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP MaxDB, Access, Redshift, Apache Ignite, and more.

Gallery

Alternative

While very effective, sqlmap requires Python and database programming skills to use. For a broader tool with a graphical user interface, consider ZAP instead.

Top 5 Features of Open-Source Vulnerability Scanners

While very different in purpose, all open-source tools share the same features in common: asset scanning specialties, quality vulnerability scans, code available to the public, a community of professional users, and up-to-date databases of vulnerabilities.

Asset Specialization

All vuln scanners focus on specific categories of assets, such as devices, websites, and applications. Even specialty scanners tend to focus on a specific subset of these broader categories. For example, sqlmap focuses on a very specific set of tests for a sub-category of applications: databases.

Effective Vulnerability Scanning

Effective vulnerability scanners must perform rigorous scans and produce usable reports to obtain industry acceptance. Open-source scanners may be free, but their scanning capabilities must also remain top notch for industry professionals to continue their use.

Open-Source Code

To qualify as an open-source tool, the source code for the tool must be publicly published and available for review. To make this list, I incorporated the frequency and the type of updates into the scoring, so open-source tools no longer updated failed to qualify. Open-source tools may not always be free, but these top tools also all offer at least a free version.

Professional User Community

Open-source tools typically lack formal product support and instead rely upon a broad community of professionals to provide mutual product support. The top tools also benefit from inclusion in cybersecurity or hacking certification or other industry training that spreads knowledge about the tool and increases the user base.

Updated Vulnerability Database

To deliver effective scans, vuln scanners must tap into a quality vulnerability database with an updated threat feed or vulnerability list. Open-source scanners tap into public databases with constant updates and these winners often incorporate multiple public sources for improved libraries of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other issues.

How I Evaluated the Best Open-Source Vulnerability Scanners

In my examination of open-source vulnerability scanners, I compared them across four categories composed of additional subcriteria related to each category. The weighted scores then generated scores out of five points for each tool and the top six tools overall made the final cut. These tools were then classified into their specific scanning categories for direct comparison: device scanning, web and app scanning, and specialty scanning.

Evaluation Criteria

In the evaluation, I weighted the open-source value the highest to favor the most regularly updated tools. The core scanning features also received heavy weight so updates and capabilities delivered 70% of the score. I also considered and evaluated ease of use and user support, but with much less weight considering the do-it-yourself nature of open-source tools.

• Open-source value (40%): Considers the frequency of code updates, vulnerability updates, if updates add features or just fixes, and the perceived quality of the scan.
  • Criterion winner: ZAP
• Core scanning features (30%): Compares scanning capabilities across asset types, applications, programming languages, containers, etc.
  • Criterion winner: Nmap
• Ease of use (20%): Looks at the technical level required, vulnerability management integrations, installation requirements, and the expected rates for false positives.
  • Criterion winner: ZAP
• User support (10%): Examines the support available through certification training, community forums, and professional peers as well as reporting and automation.
  • Criterion winner: OpenVAS

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Are the Benefits of Using Open-Source Vulnerability Scanners?

Open-source vulnerability scanners are generally free to use and quick to download, deploy, and use. Furthermore, they tend to be used by hackers and provide an attacker’s point of view.

Are Open-Source Vulnerability Scanners as Effective as Proprietary Ones?

Open-source tools provide most of the capabilities of proprietary tools, but proprietary tools add proprietary vulnerability research, additional features, additional integration options with vulnerability management tools, and more full-service support.

Who Shouldn’t Use an Open-Source Vulnerability Scanner?

Time-pressured or less technical teams should use commercial vulnerability scanning tools or  vulnerability-management-as-a-service (VMaaS) to save time or for additional help since open-source tools require technical expertise and more time to use them effectively.

Can Penetration Testing Tools Be Used for Vulnerability Scans?

Penetration testing tools such as Wireshark, Metasploit, or Aircrack-Ng can be used to conduct vulnerability scans, but these tools lack the extensive vulnerability libraries, reporting, and ticketing tool integration of a vulnerability scanning tool.

Bottom Line: Vulnerability Scans Start & Verify Security Processes

Open-source tools extend vulnerability scanning capabilities to budget-strained organizations and allow teams of all sizes to test assets and controls for vulnerabilities. To pick the best option, first consider the types of assets to scan and then compare the capabilities of the best open-source and commercially available tools and acquire the best fit. Yet even the best tool can use backup, so always consider at least one open-source alternative as a second option.

Still, knowledge of vulnerabilities only kick-starts the security process. Many vulnerabilities need verification through penetration testing, fixes need to be developed for issues beyond patch management, and then vulnerability scans must be repeated to test the fixes. Be sure to implement the full vulnerability management and remediation cycle to minimize risk exposure.

To further explore security processes to prevent attacks, read more about the differences between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing.

The post 6 Top Open-Source Vulnerability Scanners & Tools appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Here are our top six selections for the best SSO solutions:

• Okta: Best overall SSO solution for a mix of pricing and features
• OneLogin: Best solution for sandboxing and DevSecOps teams
• Microsoft Entra ID: Best SSO option for Windows environments
• JumpCloud: Best product for Linux users and multi-platform teams
• Ping Identity: Best for a mix of identity orchestration and access policies
• CyberArk: Best SSO solution for native user behavior analytics

Top Single Sign-On Solutions Compared

Below, we’ve given an overview of our top six picks and a few of their features, like privileged access management and templates for identity workflows, as well as pricing.

	Active Directory Integration	Privilege Access Management	Workflow Templates	30-Day Free Trial
Okta
OneLogin
Microsoft Entra ID
JumpCloud
Ping Identity
CyberArk

Okta

Best Overall SSO Solution for Pricing & Features

Overall Rating: 4.6/5

• Core features: 4.8/5
• Integrations: 5/5
• Advanced features: 5/5
• Usability and administration: 3.3/5
• Pricing: 5/5
• Customer support: 4.4/5

Okta is a well-established IAM and SSO provider offering a slew of identity management features, including temporary access and device assurance policies. Consider Okta if your business uses a lot of applications; because Okta offers thousands of prebuilt app connectors, it’s one of the best SSO solutions for protecting large software ecosystems. Okta also has a transparent pricing structure, allowing teams to pick and choose the features they need.

Okta is a fantastic IAM and single sign-on product for many businesses, but it may be too expensive for very small businesses. Consider OneLogin if you’re looking for a less expensive bundled feature set. 

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• SSO: $2 per user per month
• MFA: $3 per user per month
• Lifecycle Management: $4 per user per month
• Workflows: $4+ per user per month up to 50 flows
• Annual contract minimum: $1,500
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Identity governance: Admins can approve users’ application access requests and view compliance-minded reports.
• Privileged access: Develop custom approval processes and integrate with Okta’s Access Request features.
• Device assurance policies: Create and manage policies to allow or deny specific devices based on criteria like applied patches.
• No-code custom branding: Customize your login pages so they fit your organization’s overall brand.

OneLogin

Best Solution for Sandboxing & DevSecOps Teams

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

• Core features: 5/5
• Integrations: 4.8/5
• Advanced features: 2.9/5
• Usability and administration: 4.5/5
• Pricing: 5/5
• Customer support: 4.4/5

OneLogin is an enterprise-grade IAM platform for both workforces and customers, offering MFA, advanced directory features, and mobile identity management. OneLogin is particularly suited to developer teams, with a command line tool, an API, and sandboxing that allow teams to test identity processes while they’re still in development. Consider OneLogin for your DevSecOps teams if they want to closely configure your company’s IAM processes.

OneLogin doesn’t have some features like temporary access and drag-and-drop workflows, so if your team needs those features, consider Okta instead. Like OneLogin, it also offers a developer program and sandboxing.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Advanced plan: $4+ per user per month when bundled
• Professional plan: $8+ per user per month when bundled
• SMB pricing: Specialized pricing options available for businesses under 50 employees
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Sandboxing: Teams can test their IAM configurations before pushing final changes to end users.
• OneLogin Access: Sync access to your cloud and on-premises apps using OneLogin’s unified access management product.
• Onboarding and offboarding: Manage your user identity lifecycles, including deactivating their access to company apps.
• Smart Hooks: This product allows teams to customize their own identity workflows with serverless code.

Microsoft Entra ID

Best SSO Option for Windows Environments

Overall Rating: 4.3/5

• Core features: 4.8/5
• Integrations: 4.7/5
• Advanced features: 4.3/5
• Usability and administration: 4.4/5
• Pricing: 5/5
• Customer support: 1.6/5

Microsoft Entra ID is an identity governance and management platform that’s particularly suited to existing Windows organizations. It natively integrates with other Microsoft products like Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, sharing information between the products so customers can sync their security data and reduce excessive cloud permissions. Key features to highlight include passwordless authentication, lifecycle management, and custom session length.

Microsoft isn’t as transparent about its customer support availability as some of the other vendors on this list. If you’re looking for multiple support channels, consider CyberArk — it also has drag-and-drop identity workflow options, like Entra ID.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Free plan: Offers some partial IAM features
• Entra ID P1: $6 per user per month
• Entra ID P2: $9 per user per month
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Passwordless authentication: Use texts, keys, or biometrics to log into your business applications.
• Conditional access: Factors like location and session risk help Entra ID decide whether to allow application access.
• Privileged identity management: Limit application usage with just-in-time access and just enough access.
• User management: All employees have an interface that allows them to manage their own accounts, applications, and groups.

JumpCloud

Best Product for Linux Users & Multi-Platform Teams

Overall Rating: 4.2/5

• Core features: 4.3/5
• Integrations: 4.3/5
• Advanced features: 3.5/5
• Usability and administration: 3.3/5
• Pricing: 5/5
• Customer support: 4.9/5

JumpCloud is an SSO vendor with plenty of core identity and access management features and multiple customer support channels, including phone and email. As the only vendor on our list that supports Linux devices, it’s ideal for businesses that use all three major operating systems — JumpCloud can be installed on macOS and Windows too. JumpCloud also supports multiple mobile devices; consider it for teams that rely heavily on mobile and are frequently on the go.

JumpCloud doesn’t offer drag-and-drop workflows, so if that’s important to your security team, consider CyberArk — it also offers mobile device management features. But keep in mind that none of the other options on our list support Linux devices.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• SSO: $11 per user per month, billed annually
• Core Directory: $13 per user per month, billed annually
• Platform: $19 per user per month, billed annually
• Platform Prime: $24 per user per month, billed annually
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Patch management: Teams can automate patching procedures for Windows, macOS, Ubuntu Linux, and web browsers.
• HRIS integrations: JumpCloud offers multiple HR software connectors, including Paylocity and BambooHR.
• Lifecycle management: Perform employee onboarding and onboarding and manage all remote users.
• Custom session length: Change your organization’s user session length based on your security requirements.

Ping Identity

Best for a Mix of Identity Orchestration & Access Policies

Overall Rating: 4.1/5

• Core features: 4.8/5
• Integrations: 4.3/5
• Advanced features: 3.3/5
• Usability and administration: 3.7/5
• Pricing: 3.8/5
• Customer support: 4.4/5

Ping Identity is an identity orchestration, SSO, and access management product for businesses of all sizes. Its key features include drag-and-drop identity management workflows, passwordless authentication, and customizable branding. Consider Ping if you want to deeply customize your business’s identity processes — its drag-and-drop configurations give both experienced and junior employees plenty of room to tailor workflows based on company needs.

Ping is a great choice for easy-to-use identity workflows, but it lacks privileged access management features. Consider CyberArk if your business needs both identity orchestration and privilege access management capabilities.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Essential: $20,000+ per year
• Plus: $40,000+ per year
• Premium: Custom pricing
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Identity orchestration: Use drag-and-drop to create identity workflows customized to your business’s needs.
• Passwordless sign-on: Businesses can use other authentication methods, like biometrics, to reduce password risks.
• Custom branding: Use Ping’s branding options to customize your team’s registration and verification pages.
• Conditional access: Through an integration with Azure Active Directory, grant conditional access to users.

CyberArk

Best SSO Solution for Native User Behavioral Analytics

Overall Rating: 3.8/5

• Core features: 4.2/5
• Integrations: 4.3/5
• Advanced features: 4.8/5
• Usability and administration: 2.6/5
• Pricing: 2/5
• Customer support: 4.9/5

CyberArk is an identity and SSO provider that offers no-code, drag-and-drop identity workflows for teams of any experience level. It’s a strong choice for businesses looking for a clear identity visualization product. Another area where CyberArk really shines is in its behavioral analytics product: It offers detailed reports for compliance and AI-based log assessments, and it’s a useful resource for security teams that want to perform advanced analytics.

While CyberArk has fantastic identity orchestration features, it lacks transparent pricing, so if you’re looking for a platform with analytics and more transparent pricing, consider Okta. It offers orchestration, security analytics, and detailed pricing information.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Contact for quote: Custom pricing available
• Free trial: 30 days

Key Features

• Privilege access management: Manage policies that enforce security for all your privilege access accounts.
• Custom user sessions: Admins can adjust the length of an SSO session for increased or decreased security.
• Custom branding: CyberArk has multiple customization options, including background images and colors.
• User provisioning: Automated lifecycle management features include provisioning accounts and flagging unmanaged accounts.

Top 5 Features of Single Sign-On Solutions

SSO solutions often fall under identity and access management platforms, like many of the options in this guide, and have many similar feature sets. When shopping for SSO or IAM tools, look for capabilities like prebuilt integrations, user provisioning, branding and workflow customization, and usage reports.

Integrations

One of the top benefits of SSO products is their integration with a variety of business software, including CRM and sales platforms, project management tools, HR apps, and other cybersecurity products. The more apps an SSO solution supports, the better, and teams should look for SSO tools that support the majority or all of their business apps, whether through pre-built integrations or APIs. Broad app coverage helps protect the wider business network.

User Provisioning

User provisioning processes help teams more easily onboard new employees or third parties into an SSO product. In some larger IAM products, like many on this list, user provisioning falls under identity lifecycle management. Lifecycle management oversees the entire user identity process, from initial account activation to deprovisioning when the employee leaves the company.

Custom Branding

Ideally, single sign-on solutions should have custom branding options so businesses can add their own logos and styles to the main SSO page. This is particularly helpful for managed service providers or organizations offering SSO to their customers — their login pages will be specific to their business and look more professional.

Easy-to-Use Identity Workflows

SSO products should also have customizable workflows so security and IT teams can design identity lifecycles that work best for their business. Workflows are simply the recipes that designate how an IAM process works — for example, only allowing an admin to log into an IT management application during certain hours. One common usability feature is drag-and-drop functionality, so teams without coding experience can still design workflows.

Reporting

SSO products should offer usage reports so IT and security leaders can monitor overall identity and access trends, as well as any concerning anomalies. Reports can include factors like number of logins in a given period of time, average session length, or current credential status. Reporting is also important for presenting clear, straightforward information to business leaders who don’t know as much about cybersecurity patterns.

How We Evaluated the Best Single Sign-On Solutions

To select the best SSO solutions, we created a product rubric that analyzed software using six major categories. Each category had a specific weight and included subcriteria with their own weighting. Each SSO product’s total score was determined by how many subcriteria it met. The six products that scored highest on our rubric made the final list. The final scores and our broader product research helped us determine the use cases for our top options.

Evaluation Criteria

In our main six categories, we first evaluated core features, such as MFA, workflows, and mobile functionality. Then we looked at integrations, including prebuilt CRM, service desk, and cybersecurity connectors, and advanced features like temporary access. Usability and administration included criteria like documentation and vendor encryption. Lastly, we looked at availability of pricing plans and customer support channels.

• Core features (25%): We evaluated key features like MFA, workflow templates, and user provisioning.
  • Criterion winner: OneLogin
• Integrations (20%): We rated products based on number of integrations, specific connector options, and Active Directory integrations.
  • Criterion winner: Okta
• Advanced features (15%): Our selections for advanced features included passwordless authentication and temporary SSO access.
  • Criterion winner: Okta
• Usability and administration (15%): We scored products based on functionality like support for mobile devices and different operating systems.
  • Criterion winner: OneLogin
• Pricing (15%): We looked at pricing plan availability and transparency, billing options, and free product trials.
  • Criterion winner: Multiple winners 
• Customer support (10%): We considered factors like phone and email support and demo availability.
  • Criterion winner: Multiple winners

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How Does SSO Work?

Single sign-on solutions use authentication tokens to verify a valid user session. If a user registers with an SSO or IAM solution, any application connected to the SSO product will recognize the user’s token. If the user has already logged in and their session is still active, the requested application will clear their authentication token and they can enter. If they haven’t logged in or their session is no longer active, the browser will prompt them to log in again.

Why Is SSO Needed?

SSO reduces the number of account passwords that business owners need to remember and allows them to easily log into multiple applications for only a set amount of time. Short session lengths reduce the opportunity for an attacker to hack a user account and do significant damage.

Other features adjacent to SSO, like identity lifecycle management and privilege access management, help businesses closely manage their users’ accounts and permissions. This reduces opportunities for threat actors, whether internal or external, to take advantage of sensitive applications they shouldn’t be accessing. It also increases business visibility of the ways and times users are accessing apps so they can more easily detect anomalies.

Is SSO a Security Risk?

Overall, SSO is designed to improve business security by streamlining application passwords and requiring knowledge that only the user should have or know. But in rare cases, if a threat actor breaches an SSO account, they’ll have access to all the user’s connected applications, not just one or two. SSO does pose risks, as any software solutions do, but its benefits outweigh potential security drawbacks. Just make sure you pair SSO with other security measures.

Bottom Line: SSO Is One Part of a Strong IAM Strategy

Single sign-on and other products within the broader IAM category help businesses manage large numbers of users and their ability to access applications and data. The more employees and applications you have, the more critical SSO is. While it’s a useful tool for reducing password sprawl and security issues, it’s most beneficial when used with a range of IAM features, like privileged access and identity lifecycle management.

Next, check out our buyer’s guide for identity and access management tools to learn more about IAM.

The post 6 Best Single Sign-On (SSO) Providers & Solutions in 2024 appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

The understanding of different encryption types will often be confused by the many possible, inconsistent, and confusing ways that “encryption type” can be used. To minimize confusion, this article explains and classifies encryption types, explores what encryption will be best for which situation, and discusses how to effectively use encryption through the following topics:

For a more basic overview of encryption, consider reading: What Is Encryption? Definition, How it Works, & Examples.

Classifications of Encryption Types

To avoid confusion, let’s examine the different ways ‘type’ can be applied to encryption and how we will cover them in this article:

• Encryption category types will explain the overarching and basic categories of classification for encryption, including the two most important: symmetric and asymmetric encryption.
• Encryption algorithm types will provide an overview of the mathematical algorithms used to encrypt data (AES, RSA, etc.), their significance, and their pros and cons.
• Encryption tool types will discuss the major classifications of encryption tools available for use by an organization.

Although each is a ‘type’ of encryption, some sources mix these together, which can be confusing for those trying to understand encryption. We provide the additional distinctions to help better explain how encryption works and to better illustrate the tool to use for specific use cases.

Encryption Category Types

An encryption category type provides an overarching classification that encompasses multiple encryption algorithms or tool types. These conceptual buckets provide definitions that help to define the inherent weaknesses and strengths of families of algorithms and tools.

The two most important encryption categories are symmetric and asymmetric encryption. These critical encryption concepts encompass the vast majority of encryption algorithms and tools currently in wide use and can be used in combination for secure communication.

Other important categories of encryption categories include:

• Homomorphic encryption, which continues to rise in importance with the processing of sensitive and regulated data.
• Block ciphers process plain text in fixed-sized chunks for encryption.
• Format-preserving encryption (FPE) used to create encrypted fields with specific formatting and length requirements for databases.
• Stream ciphers process data as it passes through the algorithm and is used in communication.

We will also briefly discuss hashing, which is often associated with encryption but is not actually a type of encryption.

Symmetric Cryptography: Best for Speed

Symmetric cryptography uses the same concept as shared keys for a house — one or more individuals use an identical key to unlock the lock for access. Symmetric encryption works much the same way — to encrypt and decrypt messages with a single, shared key.

Users can establish a symmetric key to share private messages through a secure channel, like a password manager. Unfortunately, while symmetric encryption is a faster method, it is also less secure because sharing the key exposes it to theft.

Phishing and social engineering are common ways threat actors can obtain a symmetric key, but cryptanalysis and brute force attempts can also break symmetric key ciphers. Symmetric encryption is often used for drive encryption, WiFi encryption, and other use cases where speed performance is paramount and a password can be safely shared.

Modern algorithms use variable input, variable key lengths, and multiple rounds to compensate for symmetric key weaknesses.

Asymmetric Cryptography: Best for Sharing

Asymmetric cryptography works more like providing a code to unlock a small panel in an otherwise locked door for deliveries. The shared public key of asymmetric cryptology can encrypt documents, but decryption requires the use of a private key that is not intended to be shared.

Although more complicated and expensive to implement, asymmetric encryption ensures secure communications over distributed networks without exposing the encryption keys to theft. Asymmetric encryption does not use multiple rounds for encryption but instead uses variable-length, large sized prime numbers.

The larger key sizes and prime number calculations can take much longer to process than symmetric encryption; however, asymmetric algorithm public keys can be published to enable much more secure sharing of encrypted files.

The asymmetry of the algorithm enables either of the keys to encrypt the data, but that same key cannot be used for decryption. Typical examples of use include:

• Sender encrypts data with recipient’s public key; recipient decrypts data with their private key.
• Sender encrypts data with their own private key to verify the source of a document and re-encrypts the data with the recipient’s public key for security; the recipient uses their private key to access the message and uses the sender’s public key to decrypt the message.

Symmetric + Asymmetric Encryption

Software developers and organizations increasingly use both symmetric and asymmetric encryption methods to give users speed and security in communication. A common example is the standard Transfer Layer Security (TLS) protocol used to enable secure website browsing.

Also known as hybrid encryption, the bundle of the two methods usually starts with a handshake between users through asymmetric cryptography to establish security. Within the asymmetric connection, parties then securely share symmetric algorithms keys to enable faster processing of messages.

Homomorphic Encryption

Homomorphic encryption allows for a set of limited operations on ciphertext without decrypting the message. Homomorphic models include:

• Partial homomorphic encryption (PHE) for algorithms that can perform a single operation on encrypted data.
• Somewhat homomorphic encryption (SHE) for algorithms capable of performing two operations on encrypted data.
• Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) for algorithms capable of the broadest range of operations on encrypted data.

Google, IBM, and Microsoft continue to explore FHE capabilities to process specific data while maintaining its secrecy and have released open-source encryption libraries. However, these techniques lack widespread adoption or incorporation into commercial tools.

Block Ciphers

Encryption algorithms operate on chunks of data to render them unreadable without a proper decryption key. Block cipher encryption uses fixed-sized blocks of data such as 128 or 64 bit blocks. Many symmetric algorithms are block ciphers; asymmetric algorithms use different key lengths, so technically they are not block ciphers because there is a variable block length between the public and private keys.

When the plaintext to be encrypted is shorter than the block length, the data is padded by the algorithm to reach the block length before encryption. Data longer than the block length will be broken into smaller blocks prior to encryption and also padded if the smaller blocks fall below the block size.

A weakness of block ciphers is that encryption of identical, full-sized plaintext blocks can yield identical encrypted blocks, which can enable brute force detection of keys. Algorithms avoid this issue by using multiple passes of different block sizes or by applying variable-input-length algorithms to the data before it is processed by the encryption algorithm.

Format-Preserving Encryption (FPE)

The category of format-preserving encryption addresses the storage of encrypted data in legacy databases with strictly defined formats and field lengths. These databases cannot tolerate variances caused by many encryption algorithms that intentionally add padding to short encryption to obscure the length of the original data or convert both letters and numbers into hexadecimal code.

For example, the Social Security number “111-11-1111” might be encoded into the plaintext numeric code of “049049 049049 049049 049049 049,” which cannot be used in a database with a limit of 9 characters. Format preserving algorithms will instead transform the number into a 9-character numeric string so that the database utility will be preserved.

Format-preserving encryption can use existing encryption algorithms, such as AES (see below). However, programmers typically incorporate specially designed algorithms so specialized that we will not cover them in more detail in this article, such as the Thorp Shuffle, Variable Input Length (VIL) Ciphers, and the Hasty Pudding Cipher.

Streaming Ciphers

When sending data through a high-speed router or switch, the full size of the data will be unknown. Storing the data until it reaches a specific block size can cause unacceptable delays for processing and transmission.

Streaming ciphers solve the problem by using a key to encrypt data one bit at a time. Streaming ciphers are symmetric algorithms that use a secret key to feed a random number generator. Asymmetric keys cannot usually be used for streaming encryption because the block sizes cannot be known. The wired equivalent privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi protected access (WPA) algorithms incorporate streaming ciphers to encode Wi-fi data transmissions.

Not Really Encryption: Hashing

Although associated with the verification of the integrity of a file, hashing algorithms such as the 128-bit message digest algorithm (MD-5) or the eight 32-bit-word secure hash algorithm (SHA-256) do not change the data of a file. Instead, the algorithm analyzes the bits of the contents to create a single number that represents the contents.

An added space or deleted letter will create a completely different hash value for a file, so hash values will often be used to verify that a file has not been altered during a copying or transmission process. However, since hashing algorithms leave the data in plaintext, hashing does not defend the data against unauthorized access.

Encryption Algorithm Types

Encryption algorithms are defined by the specific math formulas and the process required to perform an encryption transformation. While cryptologists develop many different algorithms, this article will focus on the main encryption algorithms adopted for use in IT data encryption:

• DES
• 3DES
• Blowfish
• Twofish
• DHM
• RSA
• AES
• ECC
• Post-quantum

DES: The Data Encryption Standard

The need for a government-wide standard to encrypt sensitive information became evident as early as 1973. The U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST) made a public request for potential ciphers.

IBM and lead cryptographer Horst Feistel soon proposed a symmetric-key block cipher algorithm that became called the Data Encryption Standard (DES). By the 1990s, DES received wide criticism for its vulnerability to brute force attacks and its short key size.

• Significance: First US national encryption standard
• Pros: Fast, easy to use
• Cons: Vulnerable to brute force attacks as early as the 1990s
• Used for: Obsolete, replaced by TDES

TDES: The Triple Data Encryption Standard

Triple DES (TDES), or 3-DES, improves upon the original DES encryption algorithm with three stages of encryption using three different keys:

• Stage 1: Key 1 used to encrypt plaintext data.
• Stage 2: Key 2 used to decrypt the encrypted data from step 1 to create a new document (does not reproduce original document; it will not be readable in this form).
• Stage 3: Key 3 used to re-crypt the data from step 2 to produce another encrypted document.

The symmetric block cipher TDES provides a dramatic improvement in strength over DES, but TDES has since been replaced by AES (see below). New applications no longer use TDES, but TDES-encrypted data can be found in legacy environments and Microsoft only retired 3DES from use within Office 365 in 2019.

• Significance: Replaced DES
• Pros: Much stronger than DES
• Cons: Remains vulnerable to brute force attacks, quantum attacks
• Used for: Obsolete, replaced by AES, however, legacy use remains for ATM pins, UNIX passwords, older payment systems

Blowfish

Bruce Schneier developed the symmetric block cipher Blowfish to replace the DES in 1993. The Blowfish encryption algorithm was released to the public without a required license and is known for its flexibility, speed, and resilience compared to other older encryption standards.

The algorithm uses 64-bit block sizes and encrypts them individually over 16 rounds using a key length between 32 and 448 bits. Each round consists of four actions that further scramble the data for encryption processing. This standard is not recommended to be used on files greater than 4 GB due to its small block size.

• Significance: Early open-source encryption tool, replaced by Twofish
• Pros: Fast, fairly secure, free
• Cons: Vulnerable to brute force and quantum attacks, slow for key changes
• Used for: Still in use for password management; file and disk encryption; older Secure Shell (SSH) protocol tools (OpenSSH, PuTTY, etc.); and is embedded in Linux and OpenBSD operating systems

Twofish

Twofish offers a next generation version of Blowfish developed in 1998 that uses keys between 128 and 256 bits long, block sizes between 128 and 256 bits, and 16 rounds of encryption. While more complex than Blowfish, the symmetric block cipher encryption is optimized for 32 bit CPUs, which enables better performance.

As with Blowfish, Twofish has also been made available in the public domain, allowing free use and incorporation of the algorithm into applications. While competitive with AES in speed on generic hardware, AES can be significantly faster using AES hardware acceleration.

• Significance: Replaced Blowfish, but remains smaller in adoption
• Pros: Stronger encryption than Blowfish, fast performance
• Cons: Not as fast as AES with hardware accelerators, theoretically vulnerable to quantum brute force attacks
• Used for: File and folder encryption

DHM: Diffie-Hellman-Merkle Introduces Key Exchange

Shortly after the release of DES, three computer scientists – Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, and Ralph Merkle – published their research on public-private key cryptography in 1976. Their Diffie-Hellman-Merkle (DHM) key exchange pioneered asymmetric encryption and supported much longer key lengths of 2,048 to 4,096 bits.

• Significance: First asymmetric encryption algorithm published
• Pros: More secure for sharing information than symmetric algorithms
• Cons: Not widely adopted, more resource intensive, vulnerable to brute force attack
• Used for: Not widely adopted

RSA Encryption

A year after DHM’s release, three cryptographers – Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman – developed the asymmetric RSA public-key cryptosystem. The three innovators and MIT patented the RSA algorithm, a proprietary system available through RSA Security until its public release in 2000. The RSA algorithm remains the most popular public key cryptographic system today and introduced the concept of digital signatures for authentication outside of academia.

RSA depends on multiplying two very large randomized prime numbers to create a third, even larger prime number. While it’s very difficult for most computers to factor these prime numbers quickly, the algorithm has been found vulnerable to quantum computing attacks and tends to be a slow algorithm to implement. The algorithm is now in the public domain and RSA calculators websites can be used to examine how the process works.

• Significance: First commercially available public key, asymmetric algorithm
• Pros: Enables secure sharing
• Cons: Slow to implement, vulnerable to brute force attacks (especially quantum-powered)
• Used for: Secure messaging, payments, small encrypted files

AES: The Advanced Encryption Standard

In 1997, the NIST renewed its call to the public cryptography community for the successor to DES. Two Dutch cryptographers – Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen – submitted the eventual pick known as Rijndael. By 2001, the NIST dubbed it the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and officially replaced the use of DES. AES offered larger and different key sizes with a family of ciphers to choose from and remains one of the most popular standards over 20 years later. AES encrypts data over 10-14 rounds in block sizes of 128 bits and with key sizes between 128 and 256 bits.

While both DES and AES use symmetric block ciphers, AES uses a substitution-permutation network wherein plaintext goes through multiple rounds of substitution (S-box) and permutation (P-box) before finalizing the ciphertext block. Similarly, a client or application can decrypt the AES message by reversing these S-box and P-box transformations.

Most organizations use one of the AES algorithms for file encryption, full-disk encryption, application encryption, wifi transmission encryption, virtual public network (VPN) encryption, and encrypted protocols such as transport layer security (TLS).

• Significance: Most widely adopted symmetric, block cipher algorithm
• Pros: More secure than legacy encryption, faster than asymmetric options
• Cons: Vulnerable to key theft and brute force attacks
• Used for: Protocols, VPN, full-disk encryption, Wi-Fi transmission encryption

ECC: Elliptic-Curve Cryptography

Professors at the University of Washington and Columbia University independently published research in 1985 on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), but it didn’t come into widespread implementation until the mid-2000s. Like RSA, ECC is an asymmetric encryption algorithm, but instead of using prime numbers, it uses elliptic curves to generate public and private keys.

The use of elliptic curves enables equivalent security with smaller key sizes than RSA, which enables faster execution of the encryption and decryption algorithms. ECC has proven to be a popular alternative choice to RSA but has also been found to be vulnerable to threats such as twist-security and side-channel attacks.

• Significance: Popular asymmetric encryption alternative to RSA
• Pros: Faster than RSA and uses smaller key sizes, more secure for sharing than symmetric encryption algorithms
• Cons: Vulnerable to twist-security, side-channel, and quantum-powered attacks
• Used for: Email encryption, cryptocurrency digital signatures, internet communication protocols

What Is Next? Post-Quantum Cryptography

Based on quantum mechanics rather than mathematical operations, quantum computers can utilize Shor’s algorithm to find prime factors much more rapidly than traditional computers. This allows an attacker with access to a large enough quantum computer to break asymmetric standards like DHM, RSA, and ECC by determining an organization’s private key from the public key.

Although not commonly available, the development of quantum computers is seen as a near future certainty. Data stolen today may be securely encrypted using today’s standards and uncrackable for the next 5-10 years. However, if the attacker who stole the information gains access to affordable quantum computing resources in the future, the encryption may easily be broken.

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) describes research, algorithms, and vendors developed to address quantum attacks and secure the next generation of IT environments and data. The NIST and the US National Security Agency (NSA) started to release algorithms and resources in 2022 against quantum threats.

Still, research remains in early stages, so initial standards remain in draft form and a full mitigation architecture for federal agencies isn’t expected until the 2030s. Currently, the four recognized algorithms include:

• CRYSTALS-Kyber (FIPS 203) defines an algorithm incorporated into an asymmetric key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) standard designed to allow for quantum-resistant sharing of secure keys over public channels.
• CRYSTALS-Dilithium (FIPS 204) defines an algorithm incorporated into a standard to create quantum-resistant digital signature schemes to verify sources and identities.
• SPHINCS+ (FIPS 205) defines an algorithm incorporated into a stateless hash-based, quantum-resistant digital signature standard to verify sources and identities.
• FALCON (FIPS pending) will define an algorithm and a digital signature standard based on fast-fourier lattices.

Encryption Tool Types

Information technology uses encryption to protect data at rest and data in transit in many different ways. The broadest applications of encryption include:

• Encrypted data transmission protocols
• Full disk encryption
• File encryption
• Email encryption
• Application Embedded Encryption
• Digital certificates

While these are the solutions most often purchased and deployed, encryption can also be found incorporated into security solutions such as cloud access security brokers (CASB), next-generation firewalls (NGFW), password managers, virtual private networks (VPN), and web application firewalls (WAF).

Encrypted Data Transmission Protocols

Many fundamental protocols incorporate encryption into their programming to provide universal protection invisible to most users. Major protocols include:

• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) enables the authentication of email senders by hosting a public key for an encrypted block of text in sent emails.
• Internet protocol security (IPSec) provides encryption at the IP packet level and creates a secure tunnel for packets belonging to multiple users and hosts.
• Kerberos provides single sign-on and user authentication against a central authentication and key distribution server by distributing authenticated tickets for securing and supporting authentication on a local area network.
• Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) provides a framework for doubly-encrypted transmission of data using an encrypted tunnel between devices.
• Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME) upgrades email security.
• Secure Shell (SSH) secures remote terminals and provides support for single sign-on and secure tunneling for TCP streams.
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) adds encryption, server authentication, and client authentication to communication between devices and applications and enables HTTPS connections.

Full Disk Encryption

To protect data at rest, an entire hard drive can be encapsulated within an encrypted container. This feature can be included in firmware, in operating systems, or as a feature in open-source, shareware, or commercial applications.

Full-disk encryption protects against the theft of the device or hard drive when they are powered down by rendering the contents of the device unreadable without the security key. However, these applications typically use symmetric encryption and are vulnerable to stolen keys. Additionally, full-disk encryption does not protect against data theft from the device when the device is powered on and the data is unencrypted for use.

File Encryption

File encryption protects data at rest while the device is powered on and the data is otherwise available for use. Encryption is applied on either a folder or individual file basis and decryption is applied as needed when the information is required.

File encryption tends to require more user interaction and is more difficult to apply on a universal basis than full disk encryption. File encryption can add strong security, but it remains vulnerable to stolen passwords and can be more vulnerable to lost passwords than full disk encryption, which may have an admin password established by IT.

Email Encryption

Email encryption places email content in encrypted containers for safe transmission using unencrypted email protocols. Email encryption options exist within major email tools, but many organizations choose to deploy additional tools with more robust options for deployment or encryption.

Application Embedded Encryption

Applications such as databases, websites, and other programs can incorporate encryption within the programming to protect data. Databases offer the most varied types of encryption for fields, columns, or entire database storage instances. Other types of encryption can detect and encrypt specific data types, such as credit card numbers and Social Security numbers, throughout the application.

Digital Certificates

Digital certificates provide publicly published keys that can be used to verify identity or to encrypt and decrypt information. Certificates must be maintained with current information and replaced before they expire.

How to Choose an Encryption Type or Algorithm

When selecting encryption types, enterprises should first consider their security requirements based upon the organization’s risk. Risk defines the most important data in the organization from a financial, operational, and regulatory perspective, which aids in determining where and how encryption can protect that data.

Effective risk analysis requires effective classification of data, an accurate inventory of data locations, and an effective picture of how the most important data flows through the organization. The risk analysis will determine the security needs, and then a range of encryption solutions should be considered, not just the type of tool that is most commonly used or the most convenient to apply.

The top features of a commercial tool (other than cost) to consider include:

• Centralized policy management
• Speed of the tool
• Key management and automation
• Support for hardware-based cryptographic acceleration
• Ability to report for compliance
• Monitoring, logging, and auditing capabilities
• Operating system (OS) support
• Installation and configuration processes
• Impact on operations and user experience
• Encryption algorithm options
• Legacy encryption support

Unfortunately, encryption can result in loss of functionality, decreased performance, and even lost data, depending upon factors such as:

• User error
• Memory and hard drive requirements vs. available resources
• Required changes to infrastructure 
• Required changes to devices  

Solutions that require extensive changes to the infrastructure and end user devices should generally be used only when other options cannot meet the enterprise’s security needs. After selecting a tool, an organization may have the option to select from multiple available security algorithms. They should consider whether this algorithm is current or obsolete, is validated or untested, and suits the use case.

In addition to tool and algorithm considerations, an organization should also consider the way in which the encryption can be obtained and the economic consequences:

• Direct tool purchase offers the potential for one-time pricing and professional customer support but can become obsolete or may be narrowly focused.
• Open-source software will generally be free but will lack professional customer support, require the most resources to implement, may become obsolete, and will usually be narrowly focused on how it can be used.
• Add-on encryption is often a service provided by specific vendors for specific use cases, such as a cloud provider’s cloud storage encryption added to protect cloud resources.
• Encryption as a service offers a broad range of encryption options, will be continuously updated, and requires the least effort to manage; however, this option involves giving up control of company secrets to an outside party.

The selection of a tool can be a collaborative and iterative process. Affected users should be involved in testing encryption tools and deployment can be rolled out in stages to avoid disruptions and data loss. As with security, encryption should be applied in layers appropriate for the use: database, local file, email, or entire drives.

Bottom Line: Encryption Adds a Strong Layer to a Security Stack

Encryption may be required by compliance standards and customers expect important data will be encrypted for protection and to guard against theft. However, encryption alone will not fully protect valuable data. Encryption provides a very strong layer of defense, but it should complement a full security stack of solutions and services to protect servers, endpoints, network connections, applications, and more.

To read more about encryption, consider:

• Tokenization vs Encryption: Pros and Cons
• Disk vs File Encryption: Which Is Best For You?

This article was originally written by Sam Ingalls and published on May 26, 2022. It was updated by Chad Kime on December 7, 2023.

The post Types of Encryption, Methods & Use Cases appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Also known as allowlisting, denylisting, and tracklisting, respectively, these cybersecurity principles apply broadly throughout information technology (IT) and can help manage a wide range of threats across assets and sources.

We will explore the pros, cons, and use cases for each technique, in brief in the chart below and then in greater depth.

What is Whitelisting?

Whitelisting, or allowlisting, uses the fundamental principles of “zero trust” to deny access by default and only allows explicitly permitted sources to access an asset. Whitelisting can be applied to any asset (network, endpoint, application, etc.) to permit specific access to any type of source (users, devices, applications, IP addresses, etc.).

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published a Guide to Application Whitelisting that recommends using two of the following attributes together to define an application for whitelisting:

• File Path allows all applications to execute within a specific file path or directory, which is a broad attribute that can’t prevent malicious software from executing within the correct path.
• File Name allows a particular naming convention to execute but does not check for renamed malicious files or malware-infected files.
• File Size checks for the file size only, and can easily allow malware of the appropriate file size to execute.
• Digital Signature can be a unique value for an application, but may become obsolete as patches and updates are applied.
• Cryptographic Hash enables the most unique and least spoofable value for whitelisting, but will be invalidated by any patching and updates applied to the software.

These guidelines apply specifically to applications, but the methods help to illustrate considerations that apply to whitelisting in general: How to define the allowed source sufficiently to be recognized uniquely, but not so narrowly that slight changes deny access.

Advantages of Whitelisting

Whitelisting very effectively blocks untrusted sources and provides superior protection against malware and attacks. Whitelisting restricts access strictly to already known and trusted sources such as existing and approved apps, users, websites, and IP addresses.

Comparing against a whitelist will be computationally efficient compared to the full analysis of a source. Using whitelists also reduces the possibility of a false positive analysis that incorrectly declares a malicious source to be safe.

A hidden benefit (and challenge) is that whitelisting forces the enforcement of basic asset and user tracking. Assets and users that are not included in the whitelist will be rejected, which will automatically deny rogue devices, unauthorized software, and unauthorized users.

Disadvantages of Whitelisting

Whitelisting can be labor-intensive and time-consuming to maintain. Every new user, device, application, or IP address will be initially denied until the team maintaining the whitelists can add the information to every relevant whitelist.

Delays in adding resources to whitelists will slow productivity and make the security team a potential bottleneck unless the whitelisting can be linked to resources such as identity and access management (IAM), privileged access management (PAM), Network Access Control (NAC), Active Directory groups, etc. To counteract such delays, organizations need to be proactive with onboarding and adding resources so that the teams adding resources to whitelists will be notified in a timely manner or self-service options can be made available.

Whitelisting Use Cases

Whitelisting should be used whenever the access can be well-defined, such as for internal resources. Examples of effective whitelisting use cases include:

• Email address whitelisting to ensure proper email delivery from trusted senders in an email security program
• IP address whitelisting on a firewall for branch offices
• Web address whitelisting on a server to reduce the potential outside connections for a vulnerable asset
• Device MAC Address whitelisting to allow access to corporate devices on a network
• Application whitelisting for corporate applications to access an internal database
• User whitelisting for an internal corporate application

What is Blacklisting?

Blacklisting, or denylisting, is a security measure that blocks known malicious users, IP addresses, web sites, machines, or programs from accessing an organization’s resources. Many security solutions will build in a blacklist as part of an anti-malware or an attack-blocking security feature and an organization can manually add to some lists. Blacklisting does not satisfy the principles of zero trust because the default condition for access will be to generally allow access unless blacklisted.

Advantages of Blacklisting

Blacklisting proactively blocks malicious sources and can be accomplished without great technical effort. Similarly to whitelisting, blacklisting effectively blocks untrustworthy sources and reduces the danger of false negatives in which a legitimate source is incorrectly declared to be malicious.

Disadvantages of Blacklisting

For manual blacklists, the process is simple, but labor intensive. As with an infinitely large game of whack-a-mole, malicious actors can easily change IP addresses, URLs, machines, and users to constantly add to the list of items to add to a blacklist. For example, every day over 450,000 new potentially malicious or unwanted applications are registered by the AV-TEST Institute.

Many commercial tools (next generation firewalls, secure web gateways, antivirus, endpoint detection and response, etc.) will automatically update blacklists. However, there will naturally be a delay between the launch of a malicious campaign (malware, malicious IP, malicious spam url, etc.), the detection of the malicious component, and its addition to a blacklist.

However, once a device, URL, or IP address is blocked, it will become difficult to remove it. A potential customer placed on the blacklist because of a previous (and since removed) botnet infection will find it difficult to use the blacklisted domain or device to contact the organization to be removed from the blacklist.

Lastly, unknown threats cannot be stopped by a blacklist. Blacklists require a threat to be identified distinctly in order to be added.

Blacklisting Use Cases

Blacklisting will often be the solution of choice when the potential access sources cannot be easily defined, such as for public resources. Examples of effective blacklisting use cases include:

• Email address blacklisting of known spam or malware-sending email addresses in an email security program
• IP address blacklisting of the source of malicious attacks in a firewall
• Web address blacklisting of pornography websites on a DNS server
• Device MAC Address blacklisting of known-malicious devices such as known botnets
• Application blacklisting such as malware signatures in an antivirus program
• User blacklisting of user that violated community rules in a discussion forum

What is Greylisting

Greylisting, or tracklisting, is equivalent to a less-stringent blacklist. Greylisted items are temporarily blocked until they can be further analyzed and confirmed to be either safe or dangerous. Tools can automatically quarantine users, email addresses, IP addresses, and other items until it is determined if they should be moved to a whitelist or a blacklist.

Advantages of Greylisting

Greylists provide temporary protection against potential threats until they can be analyzed. Commercial tools that use greylisting will typically recognize new sources or unusual activity on existing sources and perform automatic actions to add the source to a greylist pending further investigation.

Similar to blacklisting and whitelisting, greylisting can block untrusted sources and reduce false negatives in threat detection that might otherwise allow malicious sources incorrect levels of access. Greylisting can be used more aggressively than blacklisting since formal processes for review can be established and executed to evaluate greylist sources regularly.

Disadvantages of Greylisting

Although tools can automatically add sources to a greylist, IT staff must often manually review quarantine lists for categorization. This can be labor-intensive and introduce time delays for legitimate sources.

As with blacklisting, a near-infinite number of new sources can attempt to access company resources and be added to a greylist, including many legitimate sources that may simply be new. Greylists can more effectively stop unknown threats than a blacklist, but will introduce more false positives (adding legitimate sources to the greylist) because it will generally be applied more aggressively than a blacklist.

Greylisting Use Cases

Greylists, similar to blacklists, will be most effectively applied to public resources when the list of potential access sources cannot be easily defined. Greylists should be used instead of blacklists to quickly quarantine suspicious sources for future review.

Many tool providers use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) algorithms to detect anomalies and new sources to automatically add them to a greylist. Examples of effective greylisting include:

• Email address greylisting of potential spam resources (most common usage)
• IP address greylisting of suspicious packets passing through a firewall
• Web address greylisting of URLs with recent creation dates (often an indicator of malware sources) on a secure web gateway
• Device MAC Address greylisting of devices for an internal network that don’t meet patch update requirements and pushing those devices into a DMZ network pending remediation
• Application greylisting for unknown applications on a company computer that just connected to the network
• User greylisting of self-enrolled users pending internal approval for access to an application or network

Whitelisting vs. Blacklisting vs Greylisting? Use Them All

Blacklisting, whitelisting, and greylisting all perform specific functions with specific pros and cons. However, all three protect against malware or malicious access and thus generally reduce vulnerabilities and the risks from outside threats.

However, none of these solutions are foolproof.  Malicious devices can use stolen whitelisted user credentials, malicious users can compromise whitelisted devices, and attackers can spoof whitelisted resources to cause damage.

Similarly, some users, IP addresses, or devices added to a blacklist may be temporarily compromised, such as a computer infected with a botnet used to generate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Once the botnet infection is removed, the device will return to being a legitimate user unworthy of a blacklist.

Despite potential weaknesses, each technique independently improves security, and becomes even more powerful when used in combination with each other. Examples of lists used in combination include:

• Blacklist known malware domains on firewalls protecting a network, greylist unknown devices, and whitelist known, trusted users and machines to access a network management console
• A secure web gateway may offer a whitelist for known-good devices, a blacklist for known-malicious URLs, and a greylist for suspicious users, devices, and URLs

A combined approach reduces the likelihood that a single mistake on any one list will lead to significant damage either to the organization (from malicious attacks) or to operations (from inappropriately denied access).

To determine the optimal mix for an organization, the managing security team must determine:

• How many resources can be deployed to maintaining lists or evaluating quarantined sources?
• How strict or flexible should access be to specific resources?
• What are acceptable risks?
• How will these techniques complement and improve the security stack?

Alternative Terms

Although whitelisting, blacklisting and greylisting remain industry standard terms, many users, vendors, and organizations now push to use less-loaded terms. The colors of white, black, and gray link uncomfortably to racial prejudice and will probably be phased out within a few years.

Many vendors, such as VMware, have already made the transition, so professionals need to be familiar with all variations so they can locate the appropriate options within their security tools:

• Whitelist: allowlist, allow-list, permitted-list, approved-list
• Blacklist: denylist, deny-list, blocked-list, disapproved-list
• Greylist (or graylist): track list, inspect list, quarantine list

Bottom Line: All Listing Techniques Strengthen a Security Stack

Whitelisting, blacklisting, and greylisting all play important roles in protecting data and assets. However, they each also have limitations so these techniques cannot be relied upon independently. To be truly effective, an organization must incorporate listing strategies into their security stack in a way that reduces their risk without overly taxing their resources.

Read next:

• Network Protection: How to Secure a Network
• 8 Best Vulnerability Scanner Tools & Software for 2023

This article was originally written by John Iwouzor on August 26, 2021. It was updated and rewritten by Chad Kime on November 3, 2023.

The post Whitelisting vs Blacklisting: How Are They Different? appeared first on eSecurity Planet.

Containers are unique computing environments that lend many different advantages to users, but their design can also introduce new kinds of security vulnerabilities and challenges. With dedicated container security tools and processes, your organization can ensure that containers stay up and running and continue to protect the applications and data they host with minimal disruption.

10 Components of Container Security

When you’re first setting up containerized applications and infrastructure, it’s important to consider each component of the containerized environment through the lens of cybersecurity. The 10 components listed below not only cover the main components of containerized network architecture but also the container security tools that are most important for this type of network setup.

1. Container network security

A container network is an interconnected, typically virtualized network that is developed between an organization’s different containers. Examples of container networking and virtualization tools include VMWare NSX and HAProxy. Container networking tools help organizations manage communication, interoperability, and scalability while still maintaining control over how individual containers interact with each other.

2. Container runtime security

A container runtime is a type of software that runs containers on the host operating system(s). Examples of container runtime platforms include Docker Engine, containerd, and runC. Container runtime security tools help administrators manage policies, configuration drift and abnormal network traffic, attempted privilege escalations, user access controls, cross-container communications, and container monitoring and logging once a container is up and running.

3. Container registry security

A container registry is a storage repository or catalog for container images that can be pushed or pulled into your running containers through their connection to container orchestration platforms. Some common examples of container registries include Docker Hub, Azure Container Registry, and Amazon ECR. Container registry security tools help users manage image-level security, adjust user privileges, scan images for vulnerabilities, audit image libraries to identify outdated or problematic images, and mitigate supply chain risks.

4. Container orchestration security

A container orchestration tool is what automates and enables the quick deployment and scalability of containers. The best-known example of a container orchestration solution is Kubernetes. Tools that support container orchestration security help users maintain container isolation, manage third-party components, and harden both container runtimes and orchestration platforms while scaling up their container deployment activity.

5. Container image security

Container images are files that contain a microcosmic collection of what’s needed to set up a new container, including container runtimes, registries, configuration settings and specifications, the host operating system kernel, and other information about what can and can’t run on that container. Container image security solutions help users regularly scan image packages and dependencies for vulnerabilities; in many cases, container image security is managed by container registry security solutions.

6. Access controls and user privileges

Identity and access management (IAM) solutions are frequently used to designate specific user privileges in containerized applications and environments. Much of user access management can be handled manually or without tools, but especially as you begin to scale up your container network and differentiate how each container operates, it’s a good idea to invest in tools that support automated credentials and directory management.

7. Container-level segmentation

A number of container and workload segmentation tools are available to manage container isolation and limit lateral movement in cloud environments. These segmentation or microsegmentation tools help to manage zero trust and user access controls with identity verification, enforce application and workload-specific policies, and provide a consistently updated map of where applications live and how they’re being used.

8. Vulnerability scanning and management

Container vulnerability scanning frequently involves looking at the entire container image and then analyzing how workloads, runtimes, orchestration platforms, and other factors may make the overall image more vulnerable to security threats. Beyond simply scanning for vulnerabilities, many container security tools also help to automate the patching process.

9. Container monitoring and logging

Container monitoring and logging tools track the activities and behaviors of microservices, applications, and other components of a containerized environment, reporting any unusual behaviors to your organization’s security administrators. For best results, look for container monitoring tools with event and log correlation, code instrumentation, easy configurability, and compatibility with multiple data sources and types. Most container monitoring and logging tools are affordable, and many are open-source solutions.

10. Container encryption and secure storage

With container encryption, the entire container’s information and operations are hidden from plain sight rather than just individual files or datasets. Container-level encryption is a helpful way to balance secure storage and accessibility, because authorized users can decrypt the container and then access all relevant information in that container from there (though many organizations opt to include additional layers of file and data encryption). Container encryption solutions are best for protecting against backdoors, creating hidden containers, and securely managing cross-platform container security.

See the Top Container Security Solutions

Best Practices on How to Secure Containers

Securing containers requires a combination of traditional cybersecurity strategies and dedicated container security practices. Below, we’ve gathered some quick tips for how to secure your containerized environment:

• Don’t neglect broader cloud and network security tools and strategies in your container security management efforts.
• Stay up-to-date with patches and application upgrades across all containers and container components.
• Take advantage of built-in, configurable security tools in container environments; many already have security capabilities that simply need to be set up.
• Ensure your security teams have application-level visibility and regularly use threat monitoring, logging, and vulnerability scanning tools across each application and container.
• Automate your security scans and other tooling wherever possible.
• Use only vetted container images from trusted sources.
• Set up access controls and usage policies that are specific to each application, platform, and container.
• Regularly audit your containers, alongside your entire network.

Read more on this topic in our Container Security Best Practices Guide.

Benefits of Container Security

Containers make it possible to run granular network operations, and for teams that think strategically about container security, that freedom to customize extends to the cybersecurity tools they use and decisions they make. Learn about some of the specific benefits of container security below:

• Security through segmentation and isolation: Containerized applications and business workflows are purposefully isolated from other containers; containers do a great job of enabling lightweight and efficient computing, and through their isolation, they also help to prevent the spread of security incidents from one application to another, essentially decreasing your organization’s attack surface.
• Consistent builds, immutability, and secure scalability: Once initial container environments are set up for an organization, it becomes much easier to replicate that infrastructure and its security features as computing requirements grow or change. As long as your team establishes strong security tools and procedures from the start, those best practices will transfer to all future containers you build.
• Strategic structure for DevSecOps teams: The tools and best practices associated with container security are optimally designed for DevSecOps. By implementing container security best practices, organizations can ensure developers, security teams, and operations teams all have a hand in and invest time in managing cybersecurity while developing and using containerized applications.
• Container-specific user permissions: Containers operate like miniature networks, making it possible for network administrators to set up container-specific, clustered user permissions. User permissions and capabilities can be confined to specific applications and containers, which limits the possibility of user credentials being stolen and used in an unauthorized fashion across multiple containers.
• Focused environments for continuous security monitoring: Containers are typically given dedicated tools and resources for continuous security monitoring. A focused approach to continuous security monitoring makes it easier to detect threats and anomalous behaviors before they spread to other parts of the network or worsen.
• Configurability for compliance and security audits: Containers are highly configurable and customizable environments, which makes them ideal for complex policy and compliance management requirements. For example, if a specific policy or regulation only applies to one of your departments or projects, the appropriate security rules and settings can be applied solely to that container.
• Simpler security process automation: A number of third-party plugins, extensions, and tools are available to automate security management for containers. Automated tooling options include registry scanners, compliance auditing tools, container firewalls, container workload and host monitoring tools, and alerts and notifications.
• Efficient deployment and rollback: Because containers are both isolated and lightweight, it is easy to set them up and roll them back quickly. This is advantageous in many ways but particularly for cybersecurity because containers that have been impacted by a breach or other suspicious activity can quickly be rolled back to stop the spread to other containers.

Container Security Risks

Container infrastructure involves many different components that are simultaneously running independently and interconnectedly, so it’s no wonder there are several different weak spots for cybersecurity vulnerabilities to creep in, often without network administrators and security teams noticing. When working in a containerized environment, it’s important to be aware of the following security risks:

• Limited visibility: The isolated and segmented nature of containers produces many positive cybersecurity effects, but it has one major cybersecurity drawback: limited visibility for your cybersecurity team. Unless your cybersecurity team uses purpose-built container security, threat monitoring, and dashboarding tools, it will be incredibly difficult for them to do quick security spot checks of your entire network since it’s divided into separate containers with different rules, permissions, and operations.
• Container image vulnerabilities: Container images, especially those from untrusted or unfamiliar third-party sources, may be outdated, unpatched, and/or include malware, spyware, and various vulnerabilities that put your containerized environment at risk. There’s also the risk of image poisoning, or the act in which hackers use backdoors to bring malicious container images into your existing environment without user knowledge.
• User error in container configuration: Even if just one container, application, orchestration platform, or other component of your network is misconfigured, new security vulnerabilities and issues can impact your containers; containerized components rely heavily on each other and can suffer major consequences if another component is misconfigured and left vulnerable.
• Kernel vulnerabilities: Regardless of the hardware or software you use to build out your network, your operating system cannot run without a kernel. Both the host operating system and all hosted containers rely on this core kernel, so if an attack or vulnerability successfully reaches the kernel, it could then impact the rest of the containerized environment.
• Orchestration platform vulnerabilities: Orchestration platforms have their own cybersecurity risks that can affect the containers they manage in a distributed environment. Orchestration-specific cybersecurity risks include outdated patches, API exposures, misconfigurations, and the general complexities that come with managing security for multiple microservices.
• Inconsistent patching and retuning efforts: Containers and all of their components need to be regularly audited and updated in order to maintain security. Individual applications, container images, and container orchestration platforms can all introduce new vulnerabilities into the network if they are not regularly reviewed and patched as new issues are discovered and updates are delivered.
• Loose user access privileges and policies: Containers make it possible for organizations to set up highly segmented user access controls and privileges, but many organizations do not take advantage of this capability. The loose approach most take to managing container access privileges can lead employees and attackers alike to manipulate containers and hosts through Docker APIs, escalate container privileges, leak data, or introduce unapproved container images.
• Third-party exposure: In many cases, third parties have some kind of access to the applications you host in containers, or they may be the owners of applications, libraries, or dependencies that are running in your containers. It can be incredibly difficult to monitor and regulate third-party behavior in your organization’s containers without the proper tools and procedures in place.

Bottom Line: The Importance of Container Security

A growing number of businesses handle computing and daily operations in containerized environments. However, many businesses are not considering the breadth and depth of the container security tools and practices they need before getting started. Bad actors have picked up on this flaw in businesses’ security plans and are targeting containerized environments now more than ever before.

To truly protect the modern attack surface, it’s necessary to incorporate container-specific security tools and best practices into your cybersecurity strategy. Although containers already have some native security benefits, they also pose some additional risks, especially in the ways they limit your cybersecurity team’s ability to view the entire attack surface at a glance. Adding purpose-built container security to your cybersecurity efforts will give your team the peace of mind and support they need to manage vulnerabilities and threats in containerized environments.

Next: See the Top Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

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