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Top Takeaway Trends from the SmartBear State of Testing Survey: Cross-Browser Testing

September 11, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

Over 5,000 professionals in Software Development, QA, and Testing responded for the SmartBear 2017 State of Testing Survey to provide insightful feedback into how they organize their testing strategy and execute daily responsibilities.

Of special interest to the CrossBrowserTesting team were findings among browser testing, mobile device testing, parallel testing, and cloud testing, which we’re highlighting here.

Browser Testing

According to the State of Testing report, four out of five teams test on multiple browsers, but half only test on the latest versions.

It’s evident that the majority of testers know the importance of running tests on more than one browser. However, the fact that many don’t find the need to test on previous browser versions can hinder an otherwise thoughtful cross-browser testing strategy.

Older browsers are often the most problematic when it comes to rendering code. If browsers are not updated automatically and users don’t take the time to update, their browser is unaccounted for in testing, even if they’re just using an earlier version of Chrome.

Bugs can pop-up even with smallest browser update, sometimes in the decimal level versions. Of course, this becomes a bigger issue the older the browser is, which is why it’s in the best interest of testers to add more than one browser version to their browser testing arsenal.

Additionally, the largest percentage of respondents (27%) test on only three browsers. Again, although teams are seeing the value in testing more than one browser, it’s not quite enough. Considering that teams are only testing a few browsers in the latest version, this leaves a significant gap in a lot of organizations’ web testing approach.

Mobile device testing

Two-thirds of survey participants reported test on mobile devices, and 80 percent of respondents reported testing on more than one mobile device. Unsurprisingly, the most common mobile devices tested are Androids at 92 percent and iPhones at 85 percent.

The majority of testers — 60 percent — are only testing on two different devices. Fortunately, 64 percent of mobile UI testers do not exclusively test on the latest configuration of mobile devices, which means they are incorporating some good practices when thinking about web and browser testing.

Still, 36 percent of testers only focus on the most recent device iteration, which means they are often missing large segments of their user base. Though organizations are making a noble effort to incorporate mobile testing for an increasingly on-the-go consumer, there is plenty of room to expand mobile device testing.

Incorporating older iPhones, for example, accounts for users who have not upgraded to the most recent version. As we’ve pointed out in the past, the array of options on the Android market is ideal for consumers who like to tailor their choices, but it complicates the job at hand for developers, requiring testers to target more diverse platforms.

The issue of fragmentation causes more drastic differences in screen resolution and performance due to varying operating systems, models, and brands, which means that the more Android devices included in a mobile testing strategy, the broader the coverage will be.

Parallel and Cloud Testing

The survey showed that the majority of software teams are only running a few tests in parallel, or none at all.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of respondents are doing some parallel testing by running at least two UI tests in parallel, with the highest percentage of respondents (35%) saying they run two to five UI tests in parallel. The second highest response, however, was running no parallel tests at 23 percent. Though the majority of teams are parallel testing, they are evidently not running enough tests in parallel.

Those running parallel tests are also more likely to use a cloud service for testing than those who don’t do any parallel testing. Fifty-six percent (56%) of respondents who reported doing some parallel testing also reported running some tests in the cloud, while respondents who don’t do any parallel testing also don’t run any tests in the cloud.

Only 30 percent of organizations utilize a cloud service for testing, while 34 percent reported not running any tests in the cloud. This suggests that the total number of organizations utilizing both parallel and cloud testing hovers around 43 percent.

Where parallel testing allows test scripts to run concurrently on multiple browsers and devices through one environment, cloud services offer a great compliment, allowing testers on demand testing environments to run these parallel tests. Though it’s promising to see teams leveraging both parallel and cloud testing, it’s obvious the value of these methods have not yet been fully recognized, and there is ample opportunity to incorporate more of it in order to speed up testing times and increase quality.

Other Takeaways

In addition to the preceding topics, the State of Testing Survey covers trends in other areas including API testing, automation, and development, among others.

A few other takeaways we found interesting include:

Web applications are the most common type of application being tested at 85 percent, followed by APIs, desktop apps, and mobile web apps.
Agile is the dominant model for software development, but most teams that describe themselves as Agile are only releasing on a monthly basis. This is not ideally part of Agile best practices, which encourages frequent releases, and this response in the survey calls into question how teams define Agile.
Test automation is growing as a practice, but still, less than half of tests (44%) are automated on a daily basis.
The top challenges testers face with UI test automation include test stability, object identification and management, and test maintenance.

The trends reflected in the SmartBear State of Testing Survey reveal not only the processes, strategies, struggles of software teams today, but also imply the future of these trends and suggest ways to improve current procedures.

By understanding the full potential of software teams and tools among industry shifts, organizations can better prepare to meet the needs of a faster development and delivery cycle.

To explore the extent of SmartBear’s 2017 findings, you can read the full State of Testing report here.

How Much Does a Software Bug Cost?

August 8, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

Test early and test often — that’s what everyone says will help you avoid the high cost of deploying a software bug. But a bug might not seem like a big deal without a dollar sign attributed to it. Why invest in testing if you can just fix your mistake after?

While there’s no set cost you can ascribe to a software bug found after the product release because it’s highly dependant on the organization’s size, customers, employees, and debugging resources, we can look at a few statistics and examples that show just how damaging it can be.

Starting with the big picture, software failures cost the worldwide economy $1.1 trillion in 2016. These failures were found at 363 companies, affected 4.4 billion customers, and caused more than 315 years of lost time. Most of these incidents were avoidable, but the software was simply pushed to production without proper QA.

Those may be stunning numbers, but you could still be thinking it doesn’t mean much to your specific organization, so let’s look at it on a smaller scale.

IBM found that the cost to fix an error found after product release was 4 to 5 times higher than if it’s uncovered during the design phase, and up to 100 more expensive than if it’s identified in the maintenance phase.

The costs go up as the bug moves through the SDLC. For example, IBM estimates that if a bug costs $100 to fix in Gathering Requirements phase, it would be $1,500 in QA testing phase, and $10,000 once in Production

And software bug expenses aren’t just related to the impact on internal operations. When a company announces a software failure, they lose an average of $2.3 B of shareholder value just on the first day.

The fact of the matter is that a software bug can affect everything from indirect costs like customer loyalty and brand reputation to more direct losses in business revenue and wasted time.

Companies Who Learned the Hard Way

You might think a software bug can only be so bad, or that any bug big enough to cause significant financial distress will be a complex mathematical error. In reality, some of the most detrimental bugs had minor mistakes that developers just didn’t catch because they weren’t used to putting the software through proper testing.

The following are companies who suffered monumental losses — some that almost put them out of business — due to easy errors, new software, or a bad line of code.

NASA – The Mars Climate Orbiter was a robotic space probe that NASA Launched in 1998 to study the climate and atmosphere of Mars. All was well until communication got cut-off a year into the mission when the Orbiter got lost in space. When dealing with spacecraft engineering, there’s a lot that could go wrong — it’s literally rocket science. However, the error could have been an easy fix if caught on time. The $125 million spacecraft presumably orbited too close to Mars’ surface and disintegrated because the engineering team failed to convert their measurements from U.S. units to metric. However, that’s not the only time a programming blunder destroyed a NASA rocket.

Knight Capital Group – As one of the biggest American financial services firms, Knight had a lot to lose, and in 2012 they lost $440 million of it. All it took was thirty minutes to drop 75 percent of their shares after an automated set of orders was sent out all at once to nearly 150 stocks instead of over a period of days like it was supposed to. The function, known as “power peg,” made stocks move up and down, lowering the stock price of all the affected companies. The loss was almost four times the company’s profit and would have put them into bankruptcy if a group of investors hadn’t come to the rescue.

AT&T – In January of 1990, AT&T failed to meet the basic needs of their customers as thousands attempted to call their friends, family, and airports. Long distance calling was down for nine hours, and customers sparked outrage after experiencing a total of 75 million missed phone calls and 200,000 lost airline reservations. Initially, AT&T thought they were being hacked, but the issue was due to a software bug. AT&T had just recently “updated” code, but the change of speed ended up being detrimental to a system that couldn’t keep up. AT&T lost an estimated $60 million from long distances charges that didn’t go through after being down less than a full day in an error that was the result of one line of buggy code.

EDS Child Support – In 2004, a computer system managed to overpay 1.9 million people, underpay 700,000, accumulate $7 billion in uncollected child support, backlog 239,000 cases, and get 36,000 new cases “stuck” in the system. This happened after a software company introduced a complex new IT system to the UK’s Child Support Agency. Meanwhile, the Department for Work and Pensions was restructuring their entire agency. The software was incompatible as the systems clashed, and as a result, the oversight cost taxpayers $1 billion.

Apple – For many consumers, Apple can do no wrong, but when they replaced Google Maps with Apple Maps on iOS 6 in 2012, they managed to put a pause on customer’s endless adoration. The update was nothing more than a product of corporate politics — Apple no longer wanted to be tied to Google’s application, so they made their own version. However, in Apple’s haste to release the latest and greatest map app, they made some unforgivable lapses in navigation warranting the #ios6apocalypse hashtag. Just a few of the many Apple Maps fails include erased cities, buildings disappearing, flattened landmarks, duplicated islands, warped graphics, and false location data. While an exact financial loss was never attributed to this lack of judgment, it made customers question whether Apple prioritized their needs over their money as they considered switching to the very competitor Apple was trying to combat.

An Argument for Agile and Continuous Testing

As technology evolves, so do our development methodologies and knowledge of testing practices. Getting stuck in the old age of software development means that crucial processes go ignored.

For example, while a Waterfall methodology used to be the go-to back in the day, high functioning software teams have realized that following Agile practices better support changes made throughout development. Agile’s incremental approach allows more feedback, flexibility, and of course, testing so that every time a feature, fix, or function is added or changed in code, it’s checked for bugs.

Since teams have adopted Agile and Continuous Integration, software is higher quality after a product release because bugs and inconsistencies are caught earlier and fixed easier. In turn, organizations have found that this helps avoid preventable bugs, save time and money, and retain their customers’ trust.

How to Prevent Your Next Software Bug

While we can’t expect to test everything and go our entire lives deploying a product that’s 100% error free, we can make strides to safeguard software as best we can. Many of the worst bugs that we encounter are simple mistakes that could have been caught with a more thorough quality analysis.

The moral of the story is to test your software. If you don’t, it’ll cost you.

Tools and Techniques To Encourage Productivity for Remote Testers and Devs

July 6, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

One major takeaway from the 2017 Stack Overflow survey was that many people who have jobs in QA and Development appreciate flexibility and the ability to work remotely.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise since many software-oriented organizations have teams that work in different offices, cities, countries, and continents. However, when no one is working in the same space and may even be spread out among different time zones, it can raise challenges with communication.

As teams begin to adopt Agile methodologies, Continuous Integration, and DevOps, this aspect of collaboration between individuals as well of different departments becomes increasingly important to a company’s overall success.

Ways Companies Can Help Remote Employees

Look for skills during hiring – Remote working is not a native skill to every employee. In fact, it takes the right kind of person to be successful doing their job remotely every day. You need to find someone who is motivated, disciplined, focused, and communicative, or working remote may be more of a distraction than a perk.

Have daily standups – These can be as simple as having everyone post their top task in Slack when they start every morning, but it’ll help you keep track of what everyone’s working on while helping your workers to prioritize their daily responsibilities.

Hold weekly video conferences – Having a video call with the entire team helps keep everyone on the same page to discuss accomplishments, challenges, completed tasks, and upcoming projects. It’s a good idea to check in at the beginning or end of the week to determine team goals and see where everyone stands.

Check-in with individuals – As importantly, it’s crucial to speak to team members individually to clarify expectations and requirements for their tasks. While you don’t have the advantage of stopping by their desk to chat and discuss projects, there are many tools (as we’ll discuss later) that assure you have no excuse not to initiate conversation with your team members.

Celebrate achievements – As a manager, it’s important not just to communicate with your team when you’re asking them to do something, but also to recognize accomplishments. Calling people out whether it be in a Slack chat or video conference for things they’re doing well will keep them motivated and driven to contribute to the big picture.

Trust your team – If you hired someone you trust and have seen their good work, trust that they’re managing their time well as a remote employee. Don’t breathe down their neck by abusing tools, watching activity, or constantly checking in for no reason, but trust that by giving them the independence, freedom, and flexibility that they’re in the position that allows them to do their job most successfully.

Ways Remote Workers Can Stay Productive

Work remote, remotely – Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you have to work at home. In fact, staying in the same spot all day will probably make it harder for you to be productive and stay focused. Instead, it’s a good idea to have a few spots you can travel to (with Wi-Fi, of course) like a park, coffee shop, library, or shared workspace where you can get your job done.

Keep consistent hours – One of the great things about working the remote is being able to more or less make your own schedule. Not a morning person? Start the day at 11 a.m. instead of 9. Have to pick your kids up from school in the afternoon? Great, just make sure that you’re keeping your hours consistent and communicating them with your co-workers so they can know when to expect you online.

Update your team – You don’t have to save your thoughts for stand-up. If you’re accomplishing throughout the day or coming across challenges, share it with the team throughout the day and keep the lines of communication open.

Reach out to management – Similarly, don’t just wait for your boss to tell you what to do over a video chat. If you’re working remote, you have to have autocracy for your own productivity. If you need clarification on an assignment or are looking for more work, keep your manager in the loop.

Be part of casual conversation – It’s nice not to be continuously distracted by co-workers throughout the day, but social interaction is an important way to stay happy with your work, bond with colleagues, and give yourself breaks throughout the day. You don’t just have converse over technical topics; make sure to keep light conversation throughout the day. If you see a funny video, post it. If you read an interesting article, share it. There’s plenty of ways to keep a friendly office environment without being there in person.

Don’t overwork yourself – When you’re working from home, you’re not leaving your desk at the end of the day. Sometimes this can make it hard to stop working, but it’s important to remember you’re going to be much more productive working hard for a full day than overworking yourself to go over time. Additionally, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re getting up from your screen and giving yourself breaks throughout the day.

Tools for Remote Collaboration

Sketchboard – Sketchboard is a virtual whiteboard to encourage team collaboration. It was actually created by a software developer, so you know it’s optimized specifically for the people on your team. The tool helps remote workers plan, brainstorm, and share ideas through visuals like sketches, mind maps, and diagrams to foster more communication and inspire fast feedback without having to get together in-person.
Spacetime – This one’s a Slack integration because it’s seldom you come across any tech company that doesn’t use Slack these days. In general, Slack is a great messaging platform to talk to remote employees, but the Spacetime integration takes it a step further. It’s made specifically for teams in different countries or time zones. By prompting information about where different people are and translating time zones, Spacetime makes it easier to schedule calls or conferences.
Google Drive – Google Drive applications like Docs and Sheets allow everyone on the team to commit to shared documents. Users can comment and edit, so the original owner can see suggested changes and even reply before accepting them. You can see who’s looking at the document in real-time, and all changes are autosaved, so you don’t have to worry about that remote worker with unreliable internet losing important documentation info.
Zoom – Zoom uses video chat to allow easy communication between remote employees with up to 70 people. You can also do screen sharing, record meetings, integrate with calendar, schedule recurring meetings, and use it on multiple devices. If anything, it’s better to resolve issues quickly and efficiently over video conference than wasting time in unproductive meetings all day, and Zoom creates an optimized experience to encourage quick calls.
Groove – Groove is a great way to get the whole team involved with the customer support process. This makes it easier to track tickets for bugs with a chat feature, email management, and knowledge base. You can also assign tickets and exchange private notes on them. Groove aims to get rid of the clutter and complexity while streamlining messaging to involve the whole team in personalized customer support, which is especially important with highly technical products and services.
Trello – Trello is one of the most popular task management systems for developers and testers. The Kanban style set-up is a familiar layout for developers and testers, and it’s continuously a straightforward way to organize assignments as “To-do,” “Doing,” and “Done.” It’s accessible on different browsers and devices for workers on the go and creates and organized workflow that other team members can access for reference of their own projects.
Jell – While it’s important to have regular stand-up with your remote team, taking up too much time defeats the purpose. Jell makes them short, simple, and to the point asking three questions about what team members have accomplished, what they’re doing today, and what challenges they have. Jell requires you to write down important tasks, track successes, and stay focused on meeting daily, quarterly, and yearly goals.
TapMyBack – Speaking of calling out accomplishments, TapMyBack is a great way to recognize employees for a job well done when you’re not holding daily, in-person meetings. It’s a fun way for management to recognize their employees, as well as for peers to recognize each other for going above and beyond. Additionally, it keeps teams on track to and motivates by showing that everyone is working towards the same mission.

What have you found is an effective method for being productive when working remotely? Share with us in the comments section!

Time to Get Excited About SmartBear Connect

July 6, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

SmartBear is excited to be hosting the first-ever SmartBear Connect user conference September 12 – 13, 2017 in Boston. As we work to bring together a robust and global community of development, testing, and technology enthusiasts, we want to make sure we have something to offer for every attendee — this means you, CrossBrowserTesting customers.

We’ll have a dedicated track for discussing all things CrossBrowserTesting where you’ll have the chance to learn new testing strategies, mingle with the SmartBear team, and network with other CrossBrowserTesting users and industry professionals. Additionally, you’ll be able to participate in

Interactive product training classes
Sessions on the latest trends in Selenium, parallel testing, exploratory testing, and more
Unique insights and stories from CrossBrowserTesting customer

There will be two jam-packed days for discussing best practices and actionable insights to bring back with you. The team has been busy building the agendas for SmartBear Connect, and we wanted to share the schedule for the CrossBrowserTesting track on Day One.

Day One – Product Training Workshops & Certification

CrossBrowserTesting Speaker: Daniel Giordano

7:30 – 9:00	Registration / Breakfast
9:00 – 9:15	Welcome to SmartBear Connect 2017- Justin Teague, CEO, SmartBear
9:15 – 9:45	Welcome to CrossBrowserTesting
9:45 – 10:00	Break I
10:00 – 11:00	Exploratory Testing
11:00 – 12:00	Introduction to Selenium
12:00 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:00	Debugging Javascript in Browsers
2:00 – 3:00	Running Selenium in the Cloud
3:00 – 3:30	Break II
3:30 – 4:30	Running Tests in Parallel
4:30 – 5:30	Best Practices for CrossBrowserTesting
5:30 – 7:00	Welcome Party & Customer Awards

Day Two – Insights from Customers & Industry Experts

Day two will feature unique insights from customers and industry experts. SmartBear Connect will offer three tracks – API Design, API Quality, and Software Testing. CrossBrowserTesting customers are encouraged to jump from various tracks but will most likely enjoy the sessions included in the Software Quality track. Day two will conclude with a “SmartBear Product Presentations, Best Practices, and Road Map ” session from CTO and creator of SoapUI, Ole Lensmar. To learn more about what’s happening during the other sessions, you can check out the full schedule here.

7:00 – 8:15	Breakfast
8:15 – 8:30	“Welcome to Day Two of SmartBear Connect” – Bryan Semple, CMO, SmartBear
8:30 – 9:30	Keynote – To Be Announced
9:30 – 10:15	“Lessons Learned: The Challenges and Successes of Integrating Automated Testing into Existing Development Projects” – Robert Martin, QA Engineer, Select Medical
10:15 – 11:00	Bank of America Customer Presentation
11:00 – 11:15	Break I
11:15 – 12:00	Panel “Automation Frameworks with TestComplete.” Everyone has their own style when it comes to building a Test Automation Framework. In this panel, TestComplete customers will discuss their own best practices when building a good automation framework.
12:00 – 12:45	“Why, When, What & How To Automate” – Carson Underwood, QA Automation Engineer at O’Reilly Auto Parts
12:45 – 1:30	Lunch
1:30 – 2:15	“Moving From HP ALM to SmartBear QAComplete – Why and How” – Andy Lachapelle & Rich Meskill from a Large Sports and Entertainment media company
2:15 – 3:00	“Doing the Impossible: Implementing new Test Complete Framework for Windows Application” – Reginald Moore, Manager, Software QA, LifeWatch Services, Inc
3:00 – 3:30	Break II
3:30 – 5:00	“SmartBear Product Presentations, Best Practices, and Road Map” – Ole Lensmar, CTO and Creator of SoapUI, SmartBear

If you’re already registered for SmartBear Connect, we anticipate meeting you in September! If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, there’s still time for you to convince your boss to send you to this can’t-miss opportunity to learn everything there is to know from industry experts, CrossBrowserTesting users, and the rest of the SmartBear community.

How Android Fragmentation Complicates Application Quality

May 10, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

Android fragmentation map (Image credit: OpenSignal)

When there are more than 24,000 unique Android devices, fragmentation favors the consumer who loves choices but creates a massive headache for developers.

We already know that responsive design is a recurring challenge — we constantly need to be checking, testing, and optimizing web applications across desktops, tablets, and smartphones. When even the smallest discrepancies in screen size and resolution can impact the quality of the user’s experience, fragmentation creates problems for QA teams who know they need to test multiple devices.

But what is Android fragmentation exactly, and how does it affect software testing development? Let’s look at the statistics.

iPhone vs Android

If you look at the iOS device series history, the variations between Apple iPhones are minute. While an effective testing strategy should include a few iPhone versions, there are still only some models that haven’t gone obsolete. If you’re looking at majority, where iPhones older than the 4 only hold about .03 percent of the smartphone market.

However, though iPhone has lead the way for the look and build of today’s smartphones, the Android market does not match Apple’s consistency.

Between Samsung, Google, LG, HTC, Motorola, Blackberry, and Nokia (to name a few of the thousand brands), the range of manufacturers on its own ensures that these devices will not render developer code the same way.

While there’s already far more Android brands and models, this also means that new Androids devices are shipping 90 times more often than the one or two iPhones released every year. And, unlike the iPhone, Android user preferences among all these choices are not limited a couple of comparable devices but vary state to state and country to country.

Additionally, since iOS updates are automatic or otherwise prompted, most iPhone users are on either iOS 9 or 10. Meanwhile, Android users are on OS 2 to 6 and ever decimal in between (a.k.a. Gingerbread, Jellybean, KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow, etc.). In fact, only 1.2 percent of Android devices use the latest OS.

Android OS fragmentation Image via OpenSignal

Android OS fragmentation via OpenSignal

Android Fragmentation and Testing

Despite all of the shortcomings in fragmentation for developers, Android operating systems capture the majority of the market share for smartphones and tablets.

This makes sense, of course. Consumers are often drawn to Androids since they’re usually more cost effective. Meanwhile, companies like Samsung and Google have been releasing more competitive technology to peak buyer interest.

Moreover, because there are more models and more choices, the Android user base simply reflects the number of Androids.

While Android application design may be something software engineers want to avoid, the popularity of the devices proves that testing for this fragmented user base is imperative.

In this way, Android fragmentation truly emphasizes the need for cross-browser testing. Because the operating system versions, hardware specifications, screen sizes, and system UI all differ from device to device and brand to brand, test results will vary in the same way.

Having a device lab, or outsourcing test automation to a third-party cloud for parallel testing, is truly the only way to optimize usability for various Android devices in order to be inclusive of your current market as well as your potential market of mobile users. To learn more, check out our developer’s guide to cross-browser testing.

How you execute UI testing on all these different mobile devices? Tell us in the comments!

SeConf Austin Trend: Spotlight on Security Testing

April 12, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

Security is a topic that’s on every tester’s mind this year. Whether you’re testing behind your company’s firewall, improving your applications security against hackers, or ensuring privacy in a consumer-facing application, many of us know that security is important but neglect it as part of our strategy.

During Selenium Conf Austin, test automation experts Denali Lumma and Surendran Ehiraj shared their insights on the best practices for more efficient security testing.

Denali Lumma

It’s no surprise Uber has a prominent concern for security testing with over 2 billion rides taken. Considering the amount of user information they acquire, confidentiality, integrity, and availability all serve a vital role in quality engineering efforts.

Denali Lumma is the Senior Technology Manager and the Founder of People Engineering at Uber tasked with hiring the engineers that will ship high quality, high security libraries through identification, authentication, and authorization user processes.

In “Catching Waves in the Ocean of Quality,” she posits that like successful quality work, successful security must be integrated into each step of the development process including design, RFC, code, and review.

Lumma and her team first built a secure customer authentication platform to protect user identity, defend against defrauding, embed privacy, and support the company ecosystem. It also improved usability, scalability, maintainability, and extensibility.

The way data is handled is also essential through practices including deletion, filtering, and encryption. This means making sure data is deleted without reappearing, sharing data internally and externally without compromising individual privacy, and regularly changing encryption keys are critical.

To approach this Lumma uses a differential privacy to ensure indistinguishably and limit the amount of information someone can gain about individuals and prevent insufficient anonymization while preserving trends and data.

In response to Uber’s growing consumer base, Lumma and her team were able to meet the high priority need for thorough security testing, while simultaneously increasing user acquisition, improving performance, and reducing losses due to fraud.

Denali Lumma Talks Security Testing at Selenium Conf

Denali Lumma at Selenium Conf

Denali Lumma Talks Security Testng at Selenium Conf

Denali Lumma at Selenium Conf

Surendran Ehiraj

Do you think in this digital world NFR’s such as security are important?
If yes, are you doing security testing as part of an agile process?
If yes, what is the frequency of your test?

These are the questions that Surendran Ehiraj posed at the start of his presentation, “Security Test Driven Development (STDD) Using Selenium/Appium”.

“Security is important. We all know, but we don’t do it,” says Ehiraj. “We compromise on security.”

Instead of including it in our agile development process, Ehiraj noticed that it becomes a concern after there’s an issue, referencing the infamous Ashley Madison hack as an example of a time where security was considered after it was a little too late.

To combat breaches, Ehiraj asserts that static, dynamic, and forensic application security testing can be inserted into the TDD process using existing tools and practices to include a greater focus on security into the development process.

For example, using Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) as an open source solution for finding vulnerabilities on a web applications, you can continue to use existing Selenium tests while advancing security measures.

Ehiraj promoted ZAP as something he uses quite often to act like a proxy, and while automation experts might be hesitant to begin security testing, the tool is fairly easy to use even for beginners to collect comprehensive results on how secure a web application is.

Even better, we played around a little with ZAP and it works against CrossBrowserTesting, which means you can execute cross browser security testing with Selenium. Very fancy.

Surendran Ehtiraj Speaks About Security Testing at Selenium Conf

Surendran Ehtiraj at Seleneium Conf

Surendran Ethiraj Speaks About Security Testing at Selenium Conference Austin

Surendran Ethiraj at Selenium Conference Austin

In Conclusion

We know the importance of automated testing and cross-browser testing. However, one area we often disregard is security testing.

To ensure that your engineers are deploying high-quality and trusted web applications, security testing needs to become a part of the testing and development process. By prioritizing the security of your company and your customers, you can avoid the past pitfalls, data breaches, and security hacks that less fortunate applications have suffered from in profit and reputation.