Vulnerability Assessment of Pakistan Government Websites

With the growing usage of internet in Pakistan, government of Pakistan is utilizing web for provision of e-services to the people. Most of these websites collect personally identifiable information of Pakistani citizens in one form or another. A minor attack can pose a huge risk to the critical data being handled by these websites. Therefore, it is important to regularly assess the vulnerabilities in government websites in order to timely address and mitigate the threats. In this research, 60 government websites are tested for the presence of vulnerabilities using open-source web vulnerability assessment tools Arachni and Owasp ZAP. Both tools are able to identify different set of high, medium and low severity vulnerabilities which are thoroughly studied and grouped using Owasp top 10 and SANS/CWE top 25. The research will help government IT departments construct detailed policies related to secure software development and maintenance.