Post Syndicated from Nate Crampton original https://blog.rapid7.com/2021/07/21/whats-new-in-insightappsec-q2-2021-in-review/

If there’s a theme to InsightAppSec and tCell updates and improvements in the second quarter, it would be “save time by building it into the process.” Building a more efficient process is key in further securing web applications.

Can you get it done faster from home? Or do you get to the win faster with an in-person team? Do those expensive express lanes work? Or are they just as clogged with traffic as the regular lanes? The world is constantly looking for faster, but the question to ask: is the “fast” also smart? Let’s take a look at InsightAppSec Q2 releases that we think will help you be both.

Identify. API. Scan by.

That last one was just to make the entire headline rhyme. However, the new features and functionality below can (mostly) be grouped into these 3 categories.

Simplifying access to complex apps

You can now get into modern applications faster with “Automated Login.” InsightAppSec enhanced the automated authentication process to go beyond simple HTML forms to include applications built with rich user interfaces. To achieve a more accurate and efficient login process into these applications, InsightAppSec interrogates the web application, using javascript to identify login pages, complete credential fields, trigger login action, and return a confidence score.

Plus streamline automated login with the new “Verify Credentials” feature. Save time and reduce configuration friction to the process by verifying you’ve entered the correct username and password during/early in the scan configuration.

Investing in API enhancements

New API features for both tCell and InsightAppSec create additional checks and balances as well as new avenues for integration with other systems in your environment.

• Configure policies via API in tCell: Exert greater control by enabling, disabling, or blocking various features via API. You can also reset, enable, or disable the defined Content Security Policy (CSP) for a specified application.

• Manage security programs via API within InsightAppSec: Manage customer-specific issues more efficiently and run search queries easier with newly included tag management.

Making scans smarter

Another scan upgrade you can now take advantage of within InsightAppSec? “Incremental Scanning.” Help your team to achieve more targeted testing and triaging (that’s a lot of alliteration) by scanning only the parts of an application that are new or have changed.    

There’s also a new way to help security admins help you. Now they can catch all subdomains with 1 addition to the allowlist. This is called a “Wildcard,” and an admin can now delegate scan configuration, no longer needing to specify each subdomain explicitly.

Honorable mentions

Find vulnerabilities faster with filters. Within InsightAppSec, you can enter specific criteria to speed up triaging and prioritization and:

• Create and save unique filters as well as leverage quick filters based on vulnerability statuses.

• Navigate throughout applications while maintaining search queries for the session.

• Quickly apply multiple search criteria — the more filters you add in the search bar, the more refined your results.

Now available at the Chrome web store, version 4.0 improves authentication into your web applications. It also:

• Gives you greater capabilities to determine whether a vulnerability is valid by replaying an attack.
• Enables tracking of user actions during authentication.
• Gives you the ability to import and reference a traffic file within an application by sending requests to the front-end application and back-end server.

Enduring improvements

As a quick reminder, now available is the latest release of InsightAppSec’s next-gen scan engine. You can now remove any content security policy defined in the header or response body by using the new “CrawlConfig” option. You’ll also find fresh CWE references for several modules. Plus discover the latest updates aimed at improving the quality and resilience of your tCell experience.

That’s it for our Q2 ‘21 AppSec release review. We hope you have a successful third quarter and a great season, wherever your business takes you. Until next time…