PWA Security Testing: The Complete Guide

Quick Summary: While Progressive Web Apps are fast, platform-agnostic, and require low space, security is a major challenge for them. A novel web-based architecture makes PWAs more susceptible to cyberattacks that can be prevented with proactive vulnerability assessment and mitigation. Security testing for PWAs sets foot in this realm and helps build a strong security posture.

Imagine your dev team created a successful PWA and launched it in production, but an unfortunate cybersecurity incident swept away the dreams. Could it have been avoided? While Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are sleek, fast, and user-friendly, they often harbor critical security vulnerabilities that can result in severe consequences if not addressed on time.

However, vulnerability management in progressive web apps can be a bit challenging because they are different from conventional web apps and use novel features like service workers. Besides, PWAs bridge the gaps between web apps and mobile apps, presenting a unique set of complex security vulnerabilities.

So, PWA security testing is not a cakewalk; it requires advanced scanning to precisely detect and resolve PWA-specific vulnerabilities. This blog provides a comprehensive guide to security testing for PWAs to help you build and deploy secure progressive web applications.

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Understanding the Unique Security Landscape of PWAs

Often, dev and security teams treat progressive web apps the same as ordinary web or mobile app when it comes to security. However, due to its unique architecture (web technologies + native-like features), the kinds of vulnerabilities encountered with PWAs are different.

Security testing of PWAs requires a novel strategy to evaluate them for potential vulnerabilities. So, in the case of PWA, specific security considerations are required that differ from pure native or web-based applications.

Key vulnerabilities found in progressive web apps:

• Service Worker Exploitation: It involves the exploitation of the service worker, which is the essential component of a PWA. Security concerns related to this exploitation include interception of sensitive data, cache manipulation, and data integrity issues.
• Misconfiguration: Manifest file misconfiguration is one of the key vulnerabilities that arise in PWAs. Improper configuration of this file can create hidden attack points that hackers may exploit for brand spoofing, phishing, and brand exploitation.
• Push Notification Vulnerabilities: Hackers can take advantage of the weaknesses in a PWA’s push notifications to launch phishing and social engineering attacks. Different techniques that hackers may use include cache poisoning, data injection, service worker hijacking, etc.
• Client-side Storage Insecurity: While PWAs offer a native-app-like experience, at the fundamental level, they inherit web app features as well as vulnerabilities, including client-side storage insecurity. Such vulnerabilities introduce many kinds of PWA security risks, including cross-site scripting (XSS), unencrypted storage, offline mode vulnerabilities, DOM-based XSS, compliance violations, and reputational damage.
• CORS and XSS: CORS misconfigurations and XSS are common vulnerabilities that, like traditional web apps also affect PWAs. These apps use APIs that use cross-origin requests. For example, your app hosted on app.example.com may want to request an API hosted on api.example.com; this is a cross-origin request (for different domains). Misconfigured CORS create a critical security vulnerability that allows a hacker to trick applications into initiating unintended and malicious cross-origin requests.
• CSP Misconfiguration: Another vulnerability in PWAs arises from misconfiguration or lack of Content Security Policy (CSP). This can significantly weaken your progressive web application’s security. CSP can cause various security issues, including cross-site scripting, clickjacking, data injection, packet sniffing, and more.
• Risk of Exploitation of Offline Data Synchronization: Data synchronization is another attack point in Progressive Web Apps that expose sensitive data. In PWAs, data is stored locally that can be accessed for offline use, and data synchronization is instrumental in handling it. Weaknesses in data synchronization and lack of encryption can cause loopholes that enable hackers to steal crucial data.

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The Complete Checklist of the PWA Security Testing Process

The following are the different steps to test progressive web applications.

Authentication and Authorization

User authentication and authorization checks are meant to detect vulnerabilities that could lead to unauthorized access or identity theft. This testing ensures that only legitimate users access the application using common authentication methods like token-based (JWT), OAuth, session-based, biometrics, etc.

Key areas that this testing should cover are session management, login mechanism, MFA-based authentication, and more. For authorization, the AppSec team needs to test role-based access control (RBAC), business logic bypass, IDOR (Insecure Direct Object Reference), and API access.

Input Validation and Sanitization

Hackers often exploit input elements such as forms and text fields that result in cross-site scripting, SQL injection, CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery), and other attacks. Input validation and sanitization testing are vital to secure PWAs, especially due to their dynamic and API-driven nature.

The input validation and sanitization testing involve checking server-side and client-side validation, testing encoding and escaping, as well as testing the sanitization of user-supplied inputs. This ensures that proper input validation is in place to secure progressive web applications.

HTTPS Enforcement

PWA security depends on exchanging data securely between the client and the server. Proper implementation of HTTPS protocol ensures the security. Hence, AppSec teams need to test and verify that all communications between the client-side PWA and the server are secure.

Proper configuration of SSL/TLS certification and implementation of HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Protocol) is vital to ensure PWA security. PWA security testing involves checking the proper enforcement of HTTPS to ensure secure communication.

API Security Testing

Modern applications, especially PWAs, are powered by APIs, and they are also the weakest link in the chain of components. Often, API security is undermined, and hackers know it well, so they target them to gain easy access to crucial data.

Testing APIs in the context of progressive web application security requires a comprehensive assessment of error handling, CORS configuration, rate limiting & throttling, security headers, and data validation. This assessment helps uncover critical vulnerabilities.

Testing Dependencies

Dependencies like third-party libraries, frameworks, and integrations are also among the critical attack points that hackers can exploit in PWAs. These dependencies are the reasons for supply chain attacks. Regular scanning and testing of dependencies help identify and resolve hidden loopholes that may become a critical risk to your PWA security.

Apart from this, open-source components are the most vulnerable points in progressive web applications. Testing these dependencies is pivotal to ensure PWA security.

In addition to these areas, PWA-specific security testing is also required for AppSec teams to identify weaknesses and secure the application.

Manifest File Testing

The manifest file is an essential PWA component, providing metadata to define how the application will look and behave on the device it is installed on. There are many security issues related to the manifest file, including app spoofing and brand impersonation.

Key areas that an AppSec team needs to test in the manifest files include misconfiguration of the scope field, vulnerabilities in start_url, insecure icons, display mode abuse, delivery of manifest files over insecure channels, and more.

Cache and Storage Security

AppSec teams need to test LocalStorage, IndexedDB, and cache API to uncover vulnerabilities and protect applications against cyber threats. These are essential components of a PWA that can become potential entry points when unsecured or unaddressed.

This feature enables PWAs to store data offline, allowing users to use the application even without a network connection. Testing caches (that Service Workers use) and APIs (like those connecting to IndexedDB, sessionStorage, and LocalStorage), is vital to assess PWA security.

Top 5 Tools for PWA Security Testing

As we have already seen, testing progressive web applications differs from traditional web-based or native apps. So, you cannot use conventional security testing or AppSec tools to test progressive web applications. It requires specialized tools with advanced features, which we have mentioned below. The following is a list of the top five PWA security testing tools.

1. ZeroThreat

ZeroThreat is a cloud-based DAST and automated pen testing tool that offers extensive security assessment for web apps and APIs. ZeroThreat smartly scans JavaScript-heavy applications with a next-gen crawler, including Progressive Web Apps and Single Page Applications (SPAs).

10X faster scanning, AI-powered remediation reports, zero false positives, and 98.9% accuracy make ZeroThreat stand out from other AppSec tools. It leverages out-of-band security testing to discover vulnerabilities that most tools cannot detect. It tests apps for 40,000+ vulnerabilities.

2. ZAP

ZAP or Zed Attack Proxy is also a powerful and open-source tool to detect vulnerabilities in web applications. AppSec teams can leverage this tool for both automated and manual security testing to uncover a wide range of vulnerabilities including OWASP top 10.

ZAP also offers proxy and script-based scanning to perform hacker-style attacks. Additionally, it offers active and passive scanning to detect vulnerabilities like broken authentication, SQL injection, XSS, and more.

3. Burp Suite

Burp Suite is a popular web application vulnerability scanner that offers both automated and manual testing. It works as a proxy between a browser and a server to intercept traffic and modify it to identify issues.

It offers a comprehensive suite of security testing tools - interceptor, comparer, repeater, decoder, sequencer, etc. With the pro version, you can perform active scanning to test and detect vulnerabilities in real time. Extensions are the unique features of Burp Suite that allow users to integrate additional features.

4. Nikto

Nikto is a command-based tool for vulnerability scanning. It automatically scans applications, including PWAs, and generates a detailed report highlighting the critical vulnerabilities discovered during the test. It is suitable to discover known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and outdated components.

It scans applications for 6000+ vulnerabilities and complements other tools to offer comprehensive security assessment. Nikto scans applications for a wide range of vulnerabilities and effectively discovers OWASP top 10 and other common weaknesses.

5. Acunetix

Acunetix is a commercial vulnerability scanner for web apps that identifies known and complex vulnerabilities precisely. It is a powerful tool that scans applications for 7000+ vulnerabilities and covers progressive web app security testing.

It is suitable for identifying vulnerabilities in complex web applications such as single-page applications and PWAs with a user-friendly interface. Acunetix offers automated and deep scanning to uncover critical security vulnerabilities.

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To Wrap Up

Progressive Web Apps are trending, and they offer faster, more efficient, and lightweight alternatives to mobile apps. However, security testing becomes a key challenge when it comes to building and launching PWAs.

Testing PWAs is a different ball game and requires more powerful AppSec tools. Choosing the right PWA security testing tool is the first step in ensuring data security and integrity. This will enable you to test your progressive web application thoroughly and uncover critical vulnerabilities accurately.

When it comes to PWA security testing, ZeroThreat stands out from the rest with its AI-powered capabilities and precise vulnerability detection features. It uncovers critical vulnerabilities beyond OWASP top 10 with pinpoint accuracy and offers detailed reports.

ZeroThreat simplifies AppSec with seamless CI/CD integration, faster scanning, and AI-powered remediation reports. It enables your team to detect and address every vulnerability efficiently before they get exploited by hackers. Give it a shot to know more.