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Application Security with ZAP

1. What are the three common stages of the Penetration Testing process and what tasks are performed at each one?

   • Explore: The tester attempts to learn about the system being tested. This includes trying to determine what software is in use, what endpoints exist, what patches are installed, etc. It also includes searching the site for hidden content, known vulnerabilities, and other indications of weakness.
   • Attack: The tester attempts to exploit the known or suspected vulnerabilities to prove they exist.
   • Report: The tester reports back the results of their testing, including the vulnerabilities, how they exploited them and how difficult the exploits were, and the severity of the exploitation.

2. Explain a “man-in-the-middle proxy” in non-technical terms.

   • A "man-in-the-middle proxy" is an application that sits between the user/tester's web browser and the website/web application. It intercepts traffic from the web application, analyzes it for malicious code and cleans it if any is found, before forwarding it on to the user.

3. What are the 2 spiders available for use in ZAP?

   • Traditional
   • AJAX

4. What situations are they best suited for?

   • Traditional: discovers links by examining the HTML in responses from the web application.
   • AJAX: For applications with AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), this spider explores the web application by invoking browsers which then follow the links that have been generated.

Source: Zap