Deliberately inducing failure in a web application, often through techniques like fuzzing, penetration testing, or chaos engineering, serves to uncover vulnerabilities and weaknesses in its design and implementation. For example, a security professional might attempt to overwhelm a web server with requests to identify denial-of-service vulnerabilities, or inject malicious code into form fields to detect cross-site scripting flaws.
This practice is crucial for ensuring the robustness, reliability, and security of web applications. By proactively identifying potential points of failure, developers can implement necessary safeguards, improve code quality, and ultimately reduce the risk of real-world exploits or outages. Historically, the focus was on reactive patching of vulnerabilities discovered after deployment. However, contemporary development emphasizes preemptive testing to minimize risk throughout the software development lifecycle.
