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Who out there didn’t love playing in the sandbox as a kid?
Sure, things can get a little gritty. Messy, even. But so much good happens in there too, including plenty of exploration, creativity, and imagination.
So it goes with sandbox testing: What’s good for the playground is good for the IT project team, too. This digital sandbox is the perfect place for exploration, creativity, and imagination as teams seek to improve the products they’re responsible for or to keep their companies safe from digital threats.
Here’s exactly what you need to know about sandbox testing for IT teams, including IT security and software development teams.
What is a sandbox environment in IT?
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Sandbox environments are digital locations where people and systems can test software and code without the risk of bad or malicious code doing damage elsewhere. They are used in software development and testing along with IT security, among other places.
So, why call these environments “sandboxes”?
Picture a real-life sandbox. Just like sand and toys are contained within the sandbox and can’t spill out into the surrounding environment, code or software is contained within the sandbox environment. It can’t “get out” and do damage in larger networks or systems (in the case of cybersecurity testing), and it allows software testers to fix problems and polish their software before releasing it.
What is sandbox testing?
Sandbox testing is the process of examining software or code within a sandbox, looking for bugs, UI issues, security vulnerabilities, and more in a safe environment that can’t be exploited by attackers.
Sandbox testing is most often used for software testing (including developer testing and application testing) and IT security (examining suspicious code in a place where it can’t do damage). (More on these specific types of testing after we walk through the way sandbox testing typically works.)
How does sandbox testing work?
Sandbox testing starts by creating an isolated environment where the testing will take place. This could be a separate piece of hardware, a virtualized environment, or a cloud-based environment.
Developers can add one or more virtualizations within this environment. For example, if you’re testing a piece of consumer-grade software, you might start with a virtual machine running Windows 11 and then add one running MacOS. You might also set up environments that emulate different kinds of hardware (such as Intel vs. ARM-based processors).
Next, before you start using the sandbox in earnest, you’ll make sure access is configured appropriately. For security testing, the sandbox should be disconnected from the broader network. For software testing, you’ll just need to ensure the right people have access but that the sandbox isn’t publicly accessible.
Next up is the testing itself, where you (or software automation tools) put the software or code through its paces to see how well it works in the environment(s) you created.
Sandboxes are designed to be terminated, too. If something starts to go wrong or a threat is uncovered, a properly designed sandbox can be terminated with no negative impacts on the system running the sandbox.
What are the different types of sandbox testing?
Sandbox testing comes in multiple flavors, each with its own purpose. Understanding each will give you an edge, whether you’re an IT project manager or otherwise responsible for IT or software development teams.
Application sandboxing
Application sandboxing is the process of evaluating a complete application without worrying about interference with the main system.
A large business looking to add a new piece of software might do this kind of sandboxing before unleashing the software across the enterprise. The organization wants to make sure the software will behave as expected and that it will interact correctly with the rest of the organization’s software and services.
Change management is complex enough under optimal circumstances. Navigating a change that’s less than optimal thanks to a broken software rollout or application migration? That’s something no organizational leader wants to deal with if they can help it!
Application sandboxing gives organizations the chance to find problems related to implementation and compatibility before going live. This way they can preemptively solve those problems before they cause issues at scale.
Security sandboxing
Security sandboxing is using a sandbox as a way to safely test and isolate potentially harmful code. When organizations (or cybersecurity professionals) come across a suspicious application or string of code, they can investigate that code within a security sandbox so that the code can’t do whatever malicious thing it was designed to do.
For example, imagine a piece of malware that’s a keylogger (something that captures every keystroke and reports them back to the malware creator, potentially revealing login credentials and trade secrets). Running that malware within a security sandbox gives professionals a chance to evaluate the code safely. They can figure out how it works along with how to stop it — without putting the rest of the system at risk.
Bart Lenaerts of security firm Crowdstrike explains the value of security sandboxing:
“Sandbox analysis provides valuable data that organizations can use to strengthen their cybersecurity measures and overall security posture. This data forms a critical part of threat intelligence, improving an organization’s ability to anticipate, prevent, and respond to threats.”
Developer sandboxing
Developer sandboxing is testing and debugging new code from software that’s still a work in progress. It’s the closest to what we gave as our general definition earlier. It happens before new software gets to the general public (and before updates, patches, and the like get released) and helps developers test code in a controlled environment.
Developer sandboxing helps reduce the number of bugs in a version 1 release. It gives developers tools to understand how a piece of software will run on various types of hardware and how it will interact with other applications and systems.
Cloud-based sandboxing
Cloud-based sandboxing is any sandboxing activity that takes place in the cloud (where the sandbox is running on a cloud server somewhere, not on a device in your own building). It can be any of the above types — the core distinctive is that it’s running in the cloud.
Testing within cloud environments enables a greater level of collaboration, especially across distances. Software engineers from around the globe can pop into the sandbox, investigating and tinkering with the code and building off each other’s ideas.
Web browser sandboxing
Many of today’s cyber threats arrive through the user’s web browser. From clicking phishing links to landing on a compromised page, the web isn’t nearly as safe as most people want to think.
Web browser sandboxing is a way to isolate a web page or a script similar to how other sandboxing methods treat software or code. There are a few ways to do this, and the simplest is through a virtual browser.
Several providers offer cloud-based access to sandboxed virtual machines running specific web browsers for the purpose of testing how a site or script functions — without running the risk of exposing a real system at your business to a malicious attack.
Top benefits of sandbox testing for IT projects
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No matter what kinds of IT projects and IT teams you work with, sandbox testing can accomplish a lot. These are the most important ways sandboxing can help your team.
Enhanced cybersecurity
Sandbox testing is an efficient way to make whatever’s in the sandbox more secure — and no matter what’s in the sandbox, more security is a good thing from a cybersecurity perspective.
It doesn’t take much imagination to picture how security sandboxing contributes to cybersecurity. But both application and developer sandboxing help expose weaknesses, flaws, and vulnerabilities in software both before and after launch. By identifying and then patching those vulnerabilities, software makers and app developers can make their products more secure and reduce the likelihood of a successful attack.
Browser sandboxing plays a similar role, giving cybersecurity and network security teams a safe space and a cost-effective method to evaluate web-based exploits and potential threats.
Better test efficiency
Sandbox testing also improves the efficiency of your software testing efforts.
It’s kind of like how split testing can show marketing teams which message or which version of a piece of content is performing better. By running multiple tests within one or more sandboxes, you can identify issues in multiple operating systems, hardware configurations, and application integrations faster and more efficiently than you would by testing multiple actual systems sequentially.
Cost savings
On the front end, sandbox testing helps developers release better products that stand to perform better in the marketplace. And by reducing the risk of breaches or compromise, sandboxing helps businesses lessen the likelihood of needing to execute costly and disruptive recovery processes.
Lastly, some forms of virtual sandboxing directly save money as testers don’t need to procure as many different forms of hardware and software to test their applications.
So while sandbox testing isn’t free and there certainly is an upfront cost, this cost is typically lower than the alternative and can lead to long-term financial benefits as more customers buy in and stay satisfied.
Realistic testing environment
Sandbox testing also provides a realistic environment that closely mimics production settings. Software engineers can tinker with their projects all they want, but the real world always seems to find new and unexpected ways to break things — and sandboxing gets closer to the real world.
While it can’t account for all possible human behavior (that’s what the beta is for), it can identify incompatibilities and unexpected outcomes.
Here’s an example. Say you’re building, we don’t know, a web-based project management platform like Teamwork.com. You know going in that users will access it on PCs and Macs, and on a half dozen or so browsers on each.
But what about Intel-based devices versus ARM-based? What about Windows 11 compared to Windows 10? And what about mobile devices (and the variety of operating systems and browsers on those)?
You need a way to ensure your product works seamlessly on as broad an array of devices and operating systems as possible. Sandbox testing is the best way (short of buying cartfuls of laptops and smartphones) to set up realistic testing environments that cover a wide spectrum.
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Faster issue detection
Finally, sandbox testing helps testers to discover issues earlier in the development process. Unexpected UI behaviors or inconsistencies are a great example. We’ve all landed on the occasional website that just couldn’t function on a smartphone, where the on-screen keyboard covered the “submit” button no matter what tricks we tried. Sandbox testing is one possible way to find that sort of issue before getting dozens of frustrated user reports.
The same is true on the security side of the sandbox: there’s a big difference between finding a zero-day threat before day zero or after you have thousands of active users. Proper sandboxing could be that difference.
No matter which kinds of issues you’re testing for, detecting those issues earlier will always lead to better product quality and more on-time completions that stick to project timelines.
Improve the outcomes of your IT projects with sandbox testing
Sandbox testing is a powerful and cost-effective way to improve the quality of a wide range of IT projects.
It helps software developers identify performance issues in their code and squash UI bugs. It helps enterprises identify issues before applications are deployed to thousands of users. And it gives security professionals a safe way to investigate suspicious files and code without exposing broader systems.
But sandbox testing doesn’t solve all your schedule bottlenecks or workflow challenges. It might even create new ones as your teams start finding issues earlier than planned.
That’s where project management software tools like Teamwork.com can help.
Teamwork.com helps IT teams organize and plan projects that include sandbox testing, giving you the power and flexibility to stick to the schedule while improving product quality.
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