Software Development Cross Solution - Index of - Free

grey box testing
Grey-box testing gets you
CLOSER to the code
Black-box testing works great for a lot of applications, but
there are situations where you need more. Sometimes you
just can’t get the results out of a system easily without looking
inside, at least a little. This is particularly true with a lot of
web applications, where the web interface just moves data
around in a database. You’ve got to deal with the database
code as well as the web interface itself.
Grey-box testing is like black-box testing...but you can peek
When doing grey box testing, you’re generally looking for the same things as black
box testing, but you can dig around a little to make sure the system works as it’s
supposed to below the surface. Use grey box testing for things like:
240 Chapter 7
Verifying auditing and logging. When important data (or money) is
on the line, there’s usually a lot of auditing and logging going on inside a
system. This information isn’t usually available through the normal user
interface, either. You might need to use a log viewing tool or auditing
report, or maybe just query some database tables directly.
Data destined for other systems. If you’re building a system that
sends information to another system at a later time (say an order for 50
copies of Head First Software Development), you should check the output
format and data you’re sending to the other systems...and that means
looking underneath what’s exposed by the system.
System-added information. It’s common for applications to
create checksums or hashes of data to make sure things are stored
correctly (or securely). You should hand-check these. Make sure systemgenerated
timestamps are being created in the right time zone and
stored with the right data.
Scraps left laying around. It’s so easy as a developer to miss doing
cleanup after a system is done with data. This can be a security risk as well
as a resource leak. Make sure data is really deleted if it’s supposed to be,
and make sure it isn’t deleted if it’s not. Check that the system isn’t leaking
memory while it’s running. Look for things that might leave scraps of
files or registry entries after they should have been cleaned up. Verify that
uninstalling your application leaves the system clean.
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Grey-box testing
But be careful of
logging confidential
information to
unsecured places,
you won’t make
the right sorts of
friends that way...