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What is an Application-level Attack?

Application-level attacks are those attacks that exploit weaknesses in a program, rather than in its underlying infrastructure.

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A simple example would be that the attack would be against the application’s passwords, not any password for the server hosting the application.

Application attacks target areas like the application’s permissions model, authentication controls, and data handling. Common application weaknesses that are exploited are buffer over/underflows, SQL injection, and logic errors. An application penetration test would aim to find these weaknesses before a malicious actor does.

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