Task Details
Task 1: Web Application Analysis using OWASP ZAP
The primary goal of this task was to analyze web application communications and identify potential security weaknesses within an authorized environment.
Configuration & Crawling: Configured OWASP ZAP to monitor browser-to-application traffic and used spidering/crawling functionality to index available pages, parameters, and resources.
Traffic Inspection: Intercepted and reviewed HTTP request/response flows, inspecting headers, status codes, cookies, and parameters.
Vulnerability Assessment: Executed security scans to generate alert reports and identify areas for security hardening.
Task 2: Network Traffic Capture using Wireshark
This task involved monitoring packet flow across various network protocols to understand traffic behavior and identify anomalies.
Packet Capture: Initiated packet captures on the active network interface during live network communication.
Protocol & Endpoint Analysis: Examined traffic across multiple protocols, including TCP, UDP, DNS, HTTP, and ICMP, while mapping source and destination IP addresses and port numbers.
Filtering & Diagnostics: Applied Wireshark display filters to isolate specific connections and analyze overall network traffic patterns.
Specific Uses of OWASP ZAP Detailed in the Report
Vulnerability Scanning: Detecting common security flaws across web application endpoints.
Traffic Interception: Intercepting HTTP/HTTPS traffic to inspect requests and responses in real time.
Spidering/Crawling: Automatically discovering links, forms, and pages within the site structure.
Passive Security Scanning: Analyzing traffic passively to identify potential risks without sending aggressive payloads.
Active Security Scanning: Sending targeted payloads in authorized environments to test exploitability (e.g., XSS, SQL Injection).
HTTP Method & Response Inspection: Reviewing methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), headers, cookies, and status codes.
Request Modification: Altering request parameters prior to server transmission to observe backend responses under modified inputs.