Web application penetration testing involves performing a simulated attack on a web app to determine weaknesses that hackers can exploit. The testing process uses emulations of real-world attacks to identify hidden attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), or cross-site request forgery (CSRF). What is the worst that could happen if you don’t continuously test your web application for vulnerabilities?

Vulnerability scanning refers to the process of evaluating applications, APIs they consume, systems, networks, and cloud environments to identify and pinpoint vulnerabilities within your organization’s digital infrastructure. It involves using automated tools trained to scan for known CVEs, misconfigurations, and potential attack vectors. That said, vulnerability scanning today is more than just ticking checkboxes.

A small entrepreneur-led digital marketing agency was having a regular morning with client calls, design presentations, and ad discussions. Suddenly, every team member was locked out of their accounts and couldn’t access their e-mails, cloud folders, or even the company bank account – their data had been taken hostage digitally. This isn’t just a cautionary tale.

Since 2018, Astra has been at the forefront of proactive cybersecurity. Trusted by over 800 global organizations in 70+ countries, we’ve conducted over 3,000 pentests and reported 2 million+ vulnerabilities. Combining automation with nearly half a century of collective human expertise makes Astra security more intuitive, accessible, and effective. Last year, our AI-powered pentest platform uncovered nearly 5,500 vulnerabilities per day.

Today, cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting data but about protecting operations, reputation, and trust. Unfortunately, many organizations continue to operate under the false assumption that their security posture is strong because they’ve checked off compliance boxes—only to be blindsided when a breach occurs.

Most enterprise security teams spend hundreds of hours annually filling security questionnaires and sharing compliance documents with customers. A trust center cuts this down to near zero by putting everything in one place. The concept isn’t new – organizations have long maintained security documentation. However, recent data breaches, stricter regulations, and cloud adoption have transformed an essential requirement into a business driver.

Every second, organizations face an evolving battlefield in cybersecurity. APIs and cloud environments—the backbone of modern businesses—are prime targets for attackers exploiting overlooked vulnerabilities. A single breach can now cost organizations an average of $4.88 million. For businesses, this means heightened risks across critical systems, compounded by the struggle to identify vulnerabilities quickly enough.

On September 19th, 2024, a critical vulnerability (CVE-2024-40748) was discovered in Joomla version 5.1.4, exposing their website to stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Stored cross-site scripting (second-order or persistent XSS) arises when an application receives data from an untrusted source and unsafely includes it within its later HTTP responses. This could lead to attackers injecting malicious scripts into the website, which would be executed whenever a user visits a specific page.

The researchers from Astra’s security team, on November 6, 2024, found a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in InstantCMS, a free and open-source CMS that allows you to build websites. The vulnerability was identified in the photo album page’s photo upload function.

On 29 July 2024, the researchers at Astra identified a critical vulnerability in UnifiedTransform, a popular school management software. CVE-2024-53573 is an improper access control vulnerability in an admin endpoint, leading to an account takeover.