Web application penetration testing from Core Sentinel finds the vulnerabilities that automated scanners miss — the broken access controls, business-logic flaws and chained exploits that lead to real breaches. Every test is performed manually by a senior, certified tester. No junior bench. No scan-and-send.
Your web application is your biggest attack surface
For most Australian businesses, the web application is the business — the customer portal, the booking system, the payment flow, the API behind your mobile app. It’s also the part of your environment most exposed to the internet, and the part attackers probe first. Broken access control remains the single most common serious finding in real-world testing, and it’s almost never something a scanner catches on its own.
A Core Sentinel web application penetration test is a deep, manual security assessment of your application — the way a skilled attacker would actually approach it. We don’t just run a tool and forward you the output. We learn how your application works, understand the logic behind it, and methodically test every assumption your developers made.
Senior-only testing — the difference you actually receive
Many firms win your business with senior consultants in the sales meeting, then quietly hand the real testing to juniors. We don’t. Every Core Sentinel engagement is performed by a senior, OSCE- and OSCP-certified tester with decades of hands-on experience. That’s the single biggest factor in the quality of what you receive — because finding the vulnerabilities that matter is a craft, not a checklist.
Automated scanners are good at finding known, surface-level issues. They are blind to the things that cause the worst breaches: a flaw in your checkout logic, an authorisation gap that lets one customer read another’s data, or three “low-risk” findings that chain together into full account takeover. Those take a human who understands your application.
How a chain becomes a breach
Real attacks rarely rely on a single bug. A minor information leak, combined with an insecure direct object reference (IDOR), combined with a server-side request forgery (SSRF) flaw, can escalate from “three separate medium findings” into complete compromise of the cloud account behind your application.
A scanner reports those as three unrelated, moderate issues. A senior tester recognises the path between them — and proves it with a working exploit chain, so you understand the true business risk, not a misleadingly low severity score.
What we test for
Our methodology is built on the OWASP Web Security Testing Guide (WSTG) and aligned to the latest OWASP Top 10 (2025) — including its current emphasis on broken access control, security misconfiguration and software supply-chain risk. Every engagement covers, at minimum:
- Broken access control & IDOR — can a user reach data or actions that aren’t theirs?
- Authentication & session management — login flows, password reset, multi-factor gaps, session handling and token security (including JWT abuse).
- Business logic flaws — abuse of your application’s actual workflows: bypassing payment, reusing one-time coupons, manipulating quantities or pricing, privilege escalation through intended features.
- Injection — SQL injection, command injection, server-side template injection (SSTI) and related classes.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
- Server-side request forgery (SSRF) and access to internal services and cloud metadata.
- Insecure deserialisation, mass assignment and race conditions — the subtle, high-impact flaws that only manual testing reliably surfaces.
- API security — the REST and GraphQL services behind modern applications, where access control and rate limiting are frequently missing.
- Security misconfiguration & information disclosure — error handling, exposed endpoints, leaked stack traces and framework details.
Advanced techniques, applied by hand
Where it adds value, we go well beyond the baseline. We perform passive and active reconnaissance to uncover forgotten admin panels, deprecated APIs and staging functionality left exposed. We fuzz every input with malformed data, edge-case Unicode and oversized values to surface error states that leak internal detail. We chain findings deliberately to demonstrate real impact rather than reporting them in isolation. And we test the parts of your application that automated tools simply cannot reach — everything behind authentication, inside complex multi-step workflows, and across the trust boundaries between your services.
What you receive
Our reports are written to be read — by your developers and your executives. Every finding includes a clear risk rating (CVSS v3.1), a plain-English explanation of the business impact, a working proof of concept, and a specific, prioritised remediation you can act on immediately. We map findings to the OWASP Top 10 and CWE, and we include the exploitation chains so the real risk is never understated.
Once you’ve remediated, we re-test to confirm your risk is genuinely closed. And when we’re satisfied the risks are closed, we provide a signed letter of attestation — ready for your clients, auditors and compliance needs (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and similar).
Who we work with
We test web applications for organisations across banking, finance, government, defence, health and education — sectors where security isn’t optional and the quality of testing genuinely matters. Whether you’re launching a new application, preparing for a compliance audit, or assuring a platform that’s central to your business, we tailor the engagement to your real risk.
Ready to find out what a scanner can’t?
Talk to a senior tester about your web application — no sales engineers, no junior hand-off. Get a quote or call 1300 859 443.
