Kali Linux Tutorials

Damn Vulnerable NodeJS Application (DVNA) is a simple NodeJS application to demonstrate OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities and guide on fixing and avoiding these vulnerabilities.

The application is powered by commonly used libraries such as express, passport, sequelize, etc.

Developer Security Guide book

The application comes with a developer friendly comprehensive guidebook which can be used to learn, avoid and fix the vulnerabilities. The guide available at https://appsecco.com/books/dvna-developers-security-guide/ covers the following

• Instructions for setting up Damn Vulnerable NodeJS Application
• Instructions on exploiting the vulnerabilities
• Vulnerable code snippets and instructions on fixing vulnerabilities
• Recommendations for avoid such vulnerabilities
• References for learning more

Also Read – Risk Assessment Framework : Static Application Security Testing

Quick Start

Try it using a single command with Docker. This setup uses an SQLite database instead of MySQL.

docker run –name dvna -p 9090:9090 -d appsecco/dvna:sqlite

Access the application at http://127.0.0.1:9090/

Getting Started

Damn Vulnerable NodeJS Application can be deployed in three ways

• For Developers, using docker-compose with auto-reload on code updates
• For Security Testers, using the Official image from Docker Hub
• For Advanced Users, using a fully manual setup

Development Setup

Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/appsecco/dvna; cd dvna

Create a vars.env with the desired database configuration

MYSQL_USER=dvna
MYSQL_DATABASE=dvna
MYSQL_PASSWORD=passw0rd
MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes

Start the application and database using docker-compose

docker-compose up

Access the application at http://127.0.0.1:9090/

The application will automatically reload on code changes, so feel free to patch and play around with the application.

Using Official Docker Image

Create a file named vars.env with the following configuration

MYSQL_USER=dvna
MYSQL_DATABASE=dvna
MYSQL_PASSWORD=passw0rd
MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes
MYSQL_HOST=mysql-db MYSQL_PORT=3306

Start a MySQL container

docker run –name dvna-mysql –env-file vars.env -d mysql:5.7

Start the application using the official image

docker run –name dvna-app –env-file vars.env –link dvna-mysql:mysql-db -p 9090:9090 appsecco/dvna

Access the application at http://127.0.0.1:9090/ and start testing!

Manual Setup

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/appsecco/dvna; cd dvna

Configure the environment variables with your database information

export MYSQL_USER=dvna
export MYSQL_DATABASE=dvna
export MYSQL_PASSWORD=passw0rd
export MYSQL_HOST=127.0.0.1
export MYSQL_PORT=3306

Install Dependencies

npm install

Start the application

npm start

Access the application at http://localhost:9090