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Software testing teams spend a sufficient amount of time on different processes to ensure that the product being developed is error-free and all bugs and issues are timely fixed so that software can be released promptly. To start with smart defect management, first, you need to look out for the tool which is reliable and can be utilized completely as per your requirements. If you observe these tools from a high level, you will get to know that it is a combination of different testing requirements in one place. Different components are working together to meet premium quality standards. It is vital to understand how the defect management process works so that one can look out for tools accordingly. Once these tools would be incorporated in your daily routine testing, you would realize how effective and manageable the work is becoming. The ease of traceability and all issues being recorded and monitored simultaneously would set the base of the cake on which your entire work would depend. Below mentioned are the steps which are considered while working with defect management tools.

How does the defect management process work?

Identification

It starts with identification where testing and development team work head to head to lookout for maximum errors. It is important to identify all errors so that the end-user has a flawless experience. When a defect is discovered and is acknowledged by the team then its status is changed to ‘accepted’. Not all identified issues are accepted by developers or they do not agree to work on them, in such cases, a resolution process is applied where the conflict is resolved.

Categorization

Once the issues are identified, they are categorized on different levels which helps to prioritize issues on the base of urgency and importance. It helps to build the flow and the crucial issues can be fixed instantly. Defects are categorized at below mentioned four levels.

1. Critical

1. High

1. Medium

1. Low

Prioritization

Once the issue is categorized then it can be prioritized based on severity along with the efforts needed to fix that certain issue. Comparison is made with other defects and then prioritization takes place, usually change control board makes this decision that which issue needs to be dealt on an urgent basis. The project team, customers, and the management then decide which aspects need to be fixed instantly before the current release.

Assignment

After prioritization, the defect is assigned to be relative department so that it can be fixed. The developer or technician takes charge of the issue and fixes it in the suggested timeline.

Resolution

Once the issue is fixed by the developer, it is shared in the fixed environment by following the organization’s standards.

Verification

The environment from where the issue was originated is replaced by the fixed code and the testing team verifies whether the system is working properly with the updated fix or not. At this point, the fix is verified.

Closure

When the issue is fixed by the developer and is retested by the testing team then it is closed.

Management Reporting

At regular interval, management reports are created which are shared with the assigned people and this process is known as defined reporting requirements whereas in some cases on-demand reports can be generated on the need basis.

Importance of Defect Management System

Defect management tools and defect management processes combine together to form a complete system. Its significance is not limited to finding issues and reporting them, in fact, this whole system works around the culture of the organization, how teams interact and carry out the regular practices. It is rare that people welcome issues and put efforts to fix them. Constant bug identification from the QA team and repeatedly asking the development team to fix them might cause issues and promote negativity. At this point, an intelligent defect management tool can help with the automated process and prevent similar issues in the near future too.

Organizations need to utilize these tools at a maximum level so that ease of communication and transparency can be fostered and a healthy relationship develops within the team working on a similar project. Defects are part of the development process and organizations should deal with it in a smart way to develop a successful product.

Project managers work around the clock to ensure that they fulfil all requirements of the software project on time and within budget as well. It’s a tiring and challenging task, as issues and bugs can inevitably prop up at any point in the project from nowhere. If these defects and issues in the system are not detected in early phases and then resolved promptly, they can result in serious consequences for the projects, especially in terms of overall time delay and substantial cost impacts. This is where issue tracking tools come in handy for the project managers, as they can effectively triage and manage customer generated issues easily.

Basic of Issue Tracking Software

Issue tracking toolsprovide a platform for the teams to log in all the reported issues and defects in the system, enables the project teams to further investigate the root cause and source of the issue, communicate with the customers who reported the issue, and determine the severity of the issue and allocate it accordingly. At its core, the issue tracking system combines information and data from multiple sources into one platform so that it is not only easier for the project teams to have the same understanding of the issues, but that they are also able to communicate effectively with the customers.

Uses of Issue Tracking for Project Management

Considering that the issue tracking system produces a single system of recording keeping, easy prioritization and organization of all issues is enabled. With this, the administrative tasks of the project managers that are time consuming and tedious are automated including automated routing of issues to the relevant team members. The overall visibility and traceability of all activities and the progress of issues is increased so that managers can keep a check on what is done and which issues are left. This enables greater accountability and ownership of the tasks for the project teams for resolving all assigned issues. Issue tracking systems also include a user friendly and flexible dashboard which allows project managers to custom fields and features to better suit the requirements of the application and easily manage all issues. The comprehensive and in-depth reports that includes all pertinent information for the reported issues can be accessed by all team members in real time. The real time reporting features not only saves time for the people working on the project, but it also bridges the gap between different teams across the organization.

Conclusion

In the race to close as many issues as possible and to keep all the customers satisfied, issue tracking software is indispensable for organizations. Project managers require flexible and agile software that has a wide range of features and aspects that can facilitate them in task management, and supports integration with the existing tools. Issue tracking primarily assists the organizations in effective project management especially when it comes to the organization and allocation of issues, ability to interact efficiently with the customers, and grouping similar issues to improve resource allocation.

Software code quality and security are no longer optional, they are a must. Many organizations, including investment banks, are making it mandatory to pass security, penetration, and static code analysis tests before deploying code in production. Static code analysis is an analysis of source code without execution to find potential threats, bugs, and vulnerabilities.

Static code analyzers look for patterns, defined to them as rules, that can be the cause of a security vulnerability or other code problems. But like every other technology, static analysis has it’s set of pros and cons and in this article, we’ll discuss some of them.

Why Static Analysis is Good

Among many good reasons to use static analysis in your project is that it analyzes your code thoroughly without executing them. It scans the entire code and finds vulnerabilities even if they exist in the distant corners of the application. Another advantage of static analysis is that it follows the defined, project-specific rules, and if any team member forgets to follow them, they will be highlighted by static code analysis tools. Finally, static code analysis enables you to find defects early in the defects, reducing the cost to fix them. All of these benefits can be gained if a static code analyzer is used right and incorporated into the software build process.

Whereas, manual testing, penetration testing, or bug management tools can provide only a limited amount of false positives than static code analyzers. Though both penetration testingand static code analysis are seen as an alternative, in reality, they are not. Instead, they compliment each other. When it comes to who’s more realistic, penetration testing is the winner. Because it simulates real-world situations where users provide test cases. On the other hand, static code analysis only looks for patterns, which can cause bugs. The absence of a pattern doesn’t mean the absence of bugs. This is why you need to do both static code analysis and penetration testing to push your application in production.

Why Static Analysis is Bad

Let’s have a look at the other side of the coin. What are the disadvantages of static code analysis? Let’s start with the biggest one: too many false positives. Yes, those are warnings that are sometimes safe to ignore and not a significant issue. This creates a lot of work for developers, who set them as low priority and eventually stop fixing them. One way to minimize false positives is to suppress them and create custom rules to make the scan more context-specific. This should be done after the initial triage. This holds for most of the tools, even bug management tools for that matter because you need to customize them according to your environment. Instead of being a one-time process, the static analysis should be used as a continuous scanning process throughout development and testing.

Another disadvantage of static code analyzers is that they take too long to run and sometimes developers don’t bother to run them either. This problem can be minimized by incorporating static code analysis in your build process instead of treating it as an option or alternative. Secondly, the custom rules must be reviewed and written so that it won’t take too long to execute.

Cyber security and its threats are well-known in today’s world of technological advancements and its growing access. Entrepreneurs have been quick to identify window of opportunities and the market gaps are being filled up. But we still won’t see the end of innovation as changing times are driving changing demands. We have a similar example of Amir Levintal who, while serving his time in the Israeli Defense Forces Elite Technological Unit as director of research and development, identified a unique problem. He realized that the introduction of technology in the railway industry has increased the vulnerability of industrial control systems, train operations, and perhaps even the industry’s metadata warehousing centers to cyberthreats.

In an interview with CNBC, Levintal explained, “Rail travel has undergone a digitization process that may be lagging behind other industries. Train companies also use safety systems meant to last 30 years or more, which means many of these have been put in place long before contemporary hacking tools were available or threats known.” Levintal identified the need and founded a cyber security testing company named “Cylus” which entirely focuses on solutions for the railway industry. Cylus is a first-of-its-kind and undoubtedly, first of many rail security testing companies to enter this untapped market in the near future. Cylus aims to help mainline and urban railway companies to avoid safety incidents and service disruptions caused by cyber-attacks.

Many of the tools which are still used in railways can’t differentiate between a cyberattack and a technical breakdown. Dealing with the problem is entirely dependent on the reporting of the problem and this is where first respondents struggle. For example, during a cyberattack, an attacker may target vulnerable systems in sequence — so as soon as one system is back online, a new attack on a different system with a similar vulnerability brings it down. According to Levintal, “The ability to detect cyberattacks and make accurate assessments is critical. Without the proper information, rail companies cannot respond appropriately and false positives have the potential to cause debilitating delays”.

Rail systems are vulnerable in two primary ways, which Cylus serves: first in how tracks are operated with signals, stop signs and pedestrian crossings, and, within the ticketing systems, and onboard trains, where hear, air conditioning and safety functions are managed. “Rail systems were designed in a way that every disruption necessitates that the trains stop running,” Levintal told CNBC. “This procedure can potentially be exploited by cyber attackers to cause massive disruptions in the network.”

He expresses his views regarding the expected growth in tailored rail cyber security market driven by continuous digitization process in the rail industry including “wireless communication” hardware that is being introduced to improve the efficiency of trains in many cities, as well as to maintain safety. He says that Cylus’s valuation of the current rail cyber security market is around $6 billion which expected growth to $12 billion by 2027. Increased connectivity and growing use of modern technologies are the factors in play when talking about the growth in this market. Cylus is the market pioneer and the market leader in this specific niche industry and it made CNBC’s 2019 Upstart 100 list which was released just recently.

There are many examples in recent times of cyber threats associated with transportation.

• North Korea recently tried to hack South Korea’s rail transit system
• Criminals used ransomware to shutdown metro operations in Germany and San Francisco
• A global ransomware attack on Maersk (a logistics company) left ships stranded in 2017
• Reckitt Benckiser faced the music when it was hit with the same bug
• FedEx also suffered the 2017 incident, taking $300 million charge

 

Once again, another target checkout takes place.

 

Many people rushed to their social media to take on the retail agent head on. This has happened for the second day in a row and the buyers are suffering. Many stores are only accepting cash and gift cards which is a total outrage. Such a major retail giant must not be allowing such incidences with such frequency. This happens after Target suffered a global point-of-sale machine outage on Saturday. The checkouts were down for a time of more than two hours.

 

Target has maintained that they can “confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue” and that “no guest information was compromised at any time.” The company said that an “internal technology issue” was the result of this outage. They made no comment on the specifics of this incident.

 

Company reputations suffer greatly when data breaches occur. That’s why companies increasingly seek security testing services these days. Security breaches are a make or break for any business today.

 

In 2013, a data breach occurred and the company was forced to pay $162 million in expenses.

 

Jenna Reck, a spokesperson for Target, recently said:

 

“Like many other companies, Target uses NCR as a vendor to help accept payments, and on Sunday afternoon NCR experienced an issue at one of their data centers. While this was not an issue within Target’s technology system, Target was unable to process select card payments at some stores for about 90 minutes. The issue is now resolved and payments are going through normally. Additionally, we can confirm that this was not a security-related issue and no payment information was compromised at any time. Although this was unrelated to Saturday’s issue, we know many guests had a frustrating shopping experience in our stores this weekend. For that, we are truly sorry. We never want to disappoint any guests and we’re working tirelessly to ensure these issues don’t happen again.”

 

Updated with comment from Target.

By 2025, the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices are expected to grow up to 75.44 billion worldwide. This growth poses many challenges and risks for app developers. Manufacturers are concerned cybersecurity increase as data breaches have increased with the growth of IoT devices. In order to improve the safety of a device and user data, organizations are coming up with strategies. So with the rapidly evolving technology, the IoT industry is taking measures to attend ever-growing cyber-security trends.

Addressing Interoperability

Interoperability needs to be addressed in a highly connected world. A lot of data and information is shared and exchanged via IoT devices, which raises concerns for security. Thus, an IoT software testing company focuses on interoperability testing to ensure that systems are integrated and communicate without security issues. But it is not that simple and holds challenges for testers. Each industry has its own protocols, so it gets challenging for manufacturers to ensure that products work as they are expected to. Testers are also required to keep a close check on future product updates, security patches , and device upgrades.

Security Standards

Another challenge manufacturers face when it comes to designing and building products is that there are no set regulations for interoperability. IoT-enabled devices have standards like ISO/IEC but do not address interoperability which is the talk of the town, but no measures are taken to devise them. Due to a lack of standards, testers cannot exactly address while testing too. Manufacturers should come up with standards, or consider how to address this issue in the most suitable manner.

Risk Assessments

No matter how well-integrated systems, may come in contact with several other products or components. Thus, you need to consider the following factors to protect your device from any impact:

• Other devices connected to a network

• Potential risks to the connected devices

• Access controls through   and connected devices

• Open ports that can lead to data breaches

• Default credentials

• Interference from other devices

• Other devices that can be a potential risk to  

All the above risks should be considered when more products and networks are connected, without affecting the performance. Although performance issues cannot be ignored, they are important for ensuring good user experience too. If a manufacturer fails to address all these issues, it can put their brand image at risk by producing low-quality products.

Evaluation

Even if your product is launched into the market, it needs to be evaluated for security and interoperability. The current digitally evolving era calls for evaluation while focusing on interoperability.

Manufacturers and developers should work together and plan on developing updates, upgrades , and patches regularly to address such   and performance issues. It will help in protecting the industry against new advancements and also protect from emerging viruses, malware , and other cyber-threats. IoT software testing companies come up with testing solutions to address all cyber-threats and prevent IoT devices from being affected by any security breach.

The Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) industry faces critical problems in software development. Digital transformation in banking brings huge challenges and makes security vulnerable, calling for regulatory compliance within the software development process. Firstly, the controls and technology for change management should be developed according to the guidelines. Secondly, development teams need to test systems not only for their performance, reliability, and functionality but against the policies and regulations.

Moving forward to the approach that software testers use to develop features that are out of the box, should also include using the right processes and tools. Simultaneously, they need to have low-cost solutions while ensuring quality being the main drivers of digital transformation across BFSI. Test case management tools are used rigorously when software testers are working on banking and financial services applications. They are designed to check test cases separately to validate it against the quality metrics and banking regulations.

Let's have a look at how the right test management tools can help testers achieve their goals:

Due Compliance with Regulations

When testing in the BFSI sector, testers need to comply with a range of regulations that keep evolving. Apart from focusing on functional, load and security testing, there’s a lot more on the plate for testers. Most of these regulations are passed by organizations like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). testers require updating their test cases and test plans according to these regulations.

Tools that provide Centralized Access and Solutions

From a tester’s point of view, documentation is the key to success. Project managers should assign team members who have expertise in compliance during the test management process. They should use tools to document all the regulatory and update them from time to time. Testers need a tool that provides centralized access and solutions to manage all the test management tasks efficiently. Right from the creation, importing and tracking of test cases, testers need to stay on top of all the changes in the policies.

Improved Delivery Speed

In the DevOps and Agile environments, the need for rapid software delivery and system updates is increasing. To keep up with the current competition in the banking sector, releasing quality digital services is the key to success. This requires support and use of tools to cope up with this growing digital transformation pace. Test management tools should support automation to import results and use them into the test suite. Rolling out banking apps and adding new features to existing apps is becoming very common in the BFSI industry.

Conclusion

There are tonnes of features that make test management tools the best choice for software testers when testing banking and financial services organizations. All sectors have various sets of challenges to achieve digital goals successfully. Software testing processes are as important as the tools, they only require compliance with the industry standards. Above all, the BFSI sector should look for test management tool vendors who have the relevant knowledge to guide them better.

Overlooking the significance of the testers and testing teams is a hideous thing. It is difficult to believe that numerous companies and people still think about this.

Therefore, we are presenting you with the list of stupid excuses that companies make for not hiring the testers.

1.   The Product Is Not Completed Yet

This is one of the worst excuses the companies make when they don’t hire a separate quality assurance team. They say that they are still working on the product. However, it is believed these days that product needs testing even if it is in their development phase. It is always better to detect and resolve bugs step by step and stage by stage instead of solving them at the end. This saves time and money. You won't have to go back again and again to make corrections.

2.   The Company Has Scarce Budget and Time

Some companies still believe that they have scarce budget and resources. Therefore, it will be very difficult for them to hire a dedicated team of testers who can perform testing. They allocate the majority of their budget on hiring expensive development resources. They believe that the product created by those resources is so perfect that it doesn’t require testing. However, believing such things is extremely wrong and can harm your actual product.

Therefore, companies are advised to outsource their testing to a good software testing service provider or invest in a test management tool. This will help them to save time and money. It is mostly being practiced by the majority of big and small companies.

3.   The Product Is Error-Free and Doesn’t Require Testing

Believing such sort of things is extremely dangerous for the success of your product. Your product requires testing as long as they can qualify as a good usable web app, website or software etc.

4.   A Dedicated Team of Testers Is Not Required to Check the Quality

These sorts of lame excuses are made by the teams who follow this mantra “Quality is everyone’s responsibility”. Therefore, they jump to conclusions that you can actually attain excellent outcomes without a separate testing team. This all works theoretically. However, the problem starts when everybody begins assuming that every other guy in the other workspaces is already testing the product. Therefore, it is okay to skip it.

5.   A Separate QA Team Will Create An “Us Vs Them Mentality”

Sometimes, testers and developers report to the same manager. Sometimes, testers report to dedicated test managers. Both of these can perform effectively, given that the office politics is kept under control and the team's manager is accountable at guaranteeing this also. Successful teams believe that a separate testing team is important for the team's overall success. This is because the QA team saves the programmers a lot of time and trustworthiness by assisting them to resolve defects before they find their way to the customers. This plays a significant role in saving the stakeholders considerable revenue that would then be allocated on fixing the bugs in a post-release situation and would need ensuing patches to be released; not to mention the angry investors and frustrated customers.

Banking and finance apps are, perhaps, the most complicated apps. There are many reasons which make them so complicated. For example, these apps have to deal with thousands of users at the same time. Moreover, such apps contain a huge database which is of a confidential and sensitive nature. Banking and finance apps need to be tested to ensure robust security of users' data. However, in this blog, we will discuss the specific reasons why performance testing is extremely important in the case of banking and finance apps.

Following are the reasons which explain the importance of performance testing services for banking and finance apps.

Multi-tier Functionality

Most of the banking and finance apps are mostly multi-tier. This means that these apps function in multiple layers. It differentiates different operations of the app. Therefore, performance testing is very important to ensure the functionality of all the tiers.

Large Scale Integration

Banking applications integrate with a lot of other operations as well. For example, they integrate with utility bill paying apps and trading accounts. Hence, performance testing is important to make sure that large scale integrations are possible.

Complex Business Workflows

Banking apps operate on complex business workflows. This means that there are a lot of stakeholders who are dealing with totally different businesses at the same time. Banking apps normally offer different kinds of partnerships with other businesses. This makes it even more complex and hence, performance testing becomes very important.

Real-Time Processing

Banking and finance apps require real-time processing. This means that there shouldn’t be any delays in processing large amounts of data. Users expect real-time results and they don’t want any delays in their action command. Performance testing makes sure that your users have real-time results.

High Rate Transactions

Banking and finance applications deal with a very high rate of transactions. This means that thousands of transactions per second are in process. Performance testing makes sure that these high-rate transactions go smoothly.

Massive Storage

There are thousands of users using these apps at the same time. The data available to these apps, at any time, is huge. To store this data without affecting the performance of the app is very important. Performance testing services are important to make these apps compatible with large data storage.

Disaster Management

In case of any problem with the application, a disaster management mechanism helps to manage that problem. Performance testing helps to make sure that the disaster management mechanism works properly. This helps users to have an enhanced user experience.

Customer Issues

Banking applications must have an effective troubleshooting method. This helps users to have enhanced customer experiences. Performance testing ensures the troubleshooting of the problems in real-time. Hence, the overall functioning of the application is improved.

Conclusion

Testing is all about improving the performance of the software or an app. In the case of banking and finance apps, the importance of performance testing increases manifolds due to the aforementioned reasons. Therefore, if you are planning to launch an app for your banking or finance business, you should keep the importance of performance testing in mind.