What Is Black Box Testing?

In the black Box testing process, the tester does not have any kind of information regarding the internal functioning of the application or software product. Black Box testing is a higher-level software testing, which aims at the software application’s behavior. The test is generally carried out from the perspective of the end users. You can apply Black Box testing virtually to all the levels of testing including unit, system, integration, and acceptance.

Also Read: Security Techniques for Black Box Testing

What Is White Box Testing?

White Box Testing is a technique that is applied for checking the system’s internal functioning. This testing process is entirely based on the coverage of the code statements, paths, branches, or conditions. The White Box testing is generally considered to be a lower-level software testing. It is even known as Glass Box testing, Transparent Box testing, and Clear Box testing. In the White Box testing process, the tester usually has an idea about the logic of the program.

Also Read: Understanding White and Gray Box Testing

Difference between Black Box Testing and White Box Testing

In general, Black Box testing differs from White Box testing by various parameters. Here, we will consider each parameter and discuss how these two testing methods differ.

Programming Knowledge

• Black Box Testing: In this testing approach, the tester does not have any kind of information regarding the internal functioning of the application.
• White Box Testing: In the White Box testing process, the tester usually has an idea about the logic of the program.

Usage

• Black Box Testing: This kind of test process is generally carried out for the higher level testing such as Acceptance testing, and System testing.
• White Box Testing: This kind of test process is generally carried out for the lower level testing such as Integration testing and Unit testing.

Implementation Knowledge

• Black Box Testing: Implementation knowledge isn’t required when performing Black Box testing.
• White Box Testing: A thorough knowledge of implementation is required in White Box testing.

Automation

• Black Box Testing: As the programmers and testers are usually dependent on one another in Black Box testing, automation stands to be very difficult here.
• White Box Testing: As there is no such dependency between the programmers and testers in White Box testing, automation can be easily done.

Also Read: 6 Most Powerful Strategies for Automation Testing

Purpose

• Black Box Testing: This testing method is carried out for checking the functionality or working of the software application under test.
• White Box Testing: This testing method is carried out for checking the code’s quality.

Basis of the Test Cases

• Black Box Testing: The testing process usually begins after the requirements have been specified.
• White Box Testing: The testing process usually begins after the detail design of the system has been prepared.

People Involved In Testing

• Black Box Testing: This kind of software testing is generally carried out by the testers, developers, and end users.
• White Box Testing: This kind of software testing is generally carried out by the developers and testers.

Testing Method

• Black Box Testing: This testing process generally depends on the method of trial-and-error.
• White Box Testing: In this testing process the internal boundaries and data domain can be checked.

Time Consumed

• Black Box Testing: This testing process consumes a less amount of time in comparison to White Box testing.
• White Box Testing: This testing process consumes more amount of time.

Algorithm Test

• Black Box Testing: It is not a very good method for testing the algorithm.
• White Box Testing: It is the best testing method to test the algorithm.

Expertise level

• Black Box Testing: The test process can be easily carried out by testers having low expertise.
• White Box Testing: A well-trained and experienced tester is required for conducting White Box testing.

These are some of the parameters on which Black Box testing and White Box testing vary from each other. Apart from these, these two testing forms also vary based on the techniques used and the level of maintenance required. They also have their benefits and drawbacks that differ from one another. That being said, both Black Box testing and White Box testing are critical and should be performed wherever required.

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Provide Comments to Disabled Tests

At times, you may require to disable an existing test temporarily, if the corresponding functionality of the test is disabled in the application under test or if the test results in an error that could potentially affect other tests. In such circumstances, one should write a comment to the disabled test, indicating details such as the author of disabling, reasons for disbanding the test (defect number, if any), date etc. Such comments become useful when the author/other testers may require to reopen the test after a long time. Though a very inconsequential advice, it can lead to extreme time and resource saving in the future.

Perform an automatic restart of failed tests

In a large number of cases, tests may fail when performed automatically but pass when they are run separately. Such cases may arise due to the use of the application for long durations or other specific issues which need to be investigated in order to find solutions and fix them. At times, such problems also arise because of the specific test environment or the interaction of the automation tool with the application under test. In these instances, tests may hang for no good reason, or worse, report strange errors. In these cases, it becomes necessary to perform an automatic restart of those tests that fail for unknown reasons.

However, sometimes, the tests also fail because of errors in the test itself and performing automatic restart may not solve the problem. In such cases, it is necessary to identify the cause of such errors and fix them accordingly.

Run Scripts Frequently

Usually, every new build requires running tests, but if the tests are unstable or flawed, even correctly run applications may show some errors. Thus, to stabilize your tests, it’s useful to run them as often as possible, as you are more likely to spot the problems and fix them on an immediate basis. It is also necessary to note that running tests each time on different builds may also be redundant. Instead, you can use the same build for multiple runs. This is particularly true at the time of introducing automation when the test duration is less and the number of tests is few, but as the testing progresses, it may become difficult to run all tests. Running frequent scripts is especially useful when a large number of verifications are required or for tests that work for a long while and are dependent on several factors. Such tests must be thoroughly debugged as they must be reliable in future.

Errors in Logs Should Be Informative

Many times, a typical error message may show something on the following lines-

ERROR: incorrect value

In such cases, the text of the error does not disclose any details required to correct the flaws. A number of components are missing in such error logs, including the actual and expected values, place of occurrence of error and actions leading to such error. Hence, while formulating tests, keep such things in mind. If required, you can also arrange the expected and actual values on different lines, one under the other. In this case, it’s also easier to see the differences, especially in the case of long strings.

Take screenshots of the error

A screenshot taken at the time when the error arises is a great tip that could be of great help in performing tests effortlessly. It is especially useful in GUI applications where errors are easier to identify visually or where the application under test is affected by an unforeseen event (for instance, there appeared a system message that caught the focus). If the tool does not have an automatic screenshot functionality in case of an error, you should go ahead and take it manually. Often, tools allow you to take either a screenshot of the screen or a page, and for these actions, you may need to call different functions.

Hence, while you are working with a web application and require a screenshot to be taken, think of the information that you need to be saved. If the content of the entire page is needed, it is convenient to save the entire page. In case you require a screenshot (for example, to not only see the browser window, but also other applications), use the technique of saving the entire screen, while also keeping in mind that some of the page content may not be shown in the screenshot.

Conclusion

The tips mentioned above may help you in performing tests efficiently. Also note that while you are running tests against the application, it is necessary to have a detailed report with messages/information regarding any issues faced during the test run. Also, never forget the benefits of organizing your tests’ run and the efficiency and time-saving benefits it may bring to your organization.

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In the quality assurance world, white box testing is nothing of a revelation. Also referred to as an open box clear box or simply ‘informed testing’, white box testing enables all information about the system under test to be known to the tester. In security parlance, this is also referred as an insider attack. Since the tester has access to the design documentation and source code, he can tester be efficient, do a line-by-line code review or can threat-model the system, thereby exploring information to guide the selection of test data.

Being one of the most effective ways to find security vulnerabilities, white box testing provides an accurate picture of the system’s security and consequent vulnerabilities as it doesn’t rely on security by obscurity (i.e. hoping that attackers will never discover information about how a system works). The assumption that follows in white box testing is that ultimately all data pertaining to the system will be leaked or discovered.

One of the major benefits of white box testing is having access to the code, which makes it the only method of reaching 100% coverage in testing, in principle.  Various white-box testing techniques can be utilized to catch irregular or suspicious codes at the stage of programming as well as when the code is being executed/performed.

Some relevant aspects of white box testing include:

Making the Code Readable- If the written code is more readable, it will become comparatively easier to catch the bugs.  Consider adopting good programming methods that can help to produce standardized codes. This will in turn help to implement different automated tools during the process of validation. Practice compile-time checks to improve the quality of your codes. Exercising this tactic can help eliminate irrelevant structures and function calls.

Inspections and Reviews- Use of static analysis methods, like various kinds of reviews and inspections, are very important for developing good-quality software. Inspections generally focus on the software development reports or the original code. A requirement for successful reviews and inspections is forming a strategy for code implementation. Various bodies like that of IEEE have released many industry standards that define a list of guidelines on where and how reviews and inspections must be implemented.

Code Auditing- Code auditing is the simplest approach to white-box testing. Some people notice errors in codes (including security errors) better compared to the others. In terms of security, the simplest tools of code auditing systematically examine the code trying to find susceptible functions, including strcpy(), sprintf(), popen(), system(), scanf(), memcpy(), gets(), as they are usually responsible for the overflow issues. A simplistic approach like this one is sure to reveal a lot of false positives as using these functions is safe. The more complex tools of code auditing scrutinize the structure of the entire program, have models representing the common programming mistakes, and make a comparison of the program’s structure with these models.

A code review may occur off-line or at the time of compilation. Certain tools for static analysis examine the code’s compiled result, scrutinizing flaws within the assembly code produced during software compilation. Integration of the compilers is also carried out using different quality-aware functionalities, generating warnings when anything suspicious is witnessed within the program or an intermediate rendition. Thus, the problem usually encountered with tools enabling code auditing is are the many false-positive issues that are security alerts, which don’t act as a security threat. Another major problem that is encountered with a majority of code-auditing methods is that these practices can only detect the issues that they are taught to detect, meaning the functionality of executing actions on its own is absent- a major drawback to security testing.

Grey Box Testing

Usually, security testing is a combination of white and black box techniques. Whereas white box testing allows discovery of functionality flaws occurring in the development and design of the product, black box testing is utilized to ensure the discovery of flaws without having access to application internals. A combination of both these techniques is referred to as grey box testing.

In a grey box testing technique, the tester ensuring application security performs grey box testing in order to find vulnerabilities in software design or flaws occurring due to unspecified functionality. The tester gains the advantage of the grey box by running the software under test in a debugger (i.e. black box test) and melding it with the source code. Once the software runs in the debugger, black box testing can be used by means of various automated regression suites or fuzzers. The tester can thereafter put a number of breakpoints on lines of code that are dangerous, in order to ensure they cannot be accessed with an external input to the program.

Conclusion

Testing has to be measurable and quality assurance practices have used various means of validating the quality of the tests themselves. Black and Gray box methods of testing can be instrumental in improving the security of your business and products.

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