Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Web Security Intern

🎯 Role Definition

As a Web Security Intern, you will support the security team by performing hands-on application and web security testing, analyzing vulnerabilities, assisting with remediation, and contributing to automation and secure development initiatives. This role blends practical pentesting fundamentals, tool-driven scanning (SAST/DAST), secure code review assistance, and collaboration with engineering teams to close security gaps. The position is designed to accelerate your learning through real-world assessments, reporting, and participation in secure development lifecycle (SDLC) processes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Computer Science / Cybersecurity student internships
Software engineering or QA internship with interest in security
IT/network support or operations internships with security exposure

Advancement To:

Application Security Engineer / Analyst
Penetration Tester / Security Consultant
DevSecOps Engineer

Lateral Moves:

Cloud Security Engineer
Incident Response / SOC Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct hands-on dynamic application security testing (DAST) of web applications and APIs using tools like Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, and custom proxies, documenting test methodologies and findings in clear, prioritized reports.
Perform static application security testing (SAST) using tools such as SonarQube, Checkmarx, or GitLab SAST to identify insecure coding patterns, and work with engineers to interpret and remediate scan results.
Execute authenticated and unauthenticated web vulnerability scans, validate findings, reproduce exploit steps, and provide remediation guidance for issues such as XSS, SQL injection, CSRF, insecure deserialization, and broken access control.
Assist with manual code review for security-sensitive components, focusing on input validation, authentication/authorization flows, session management, and cryptographic usage; produce actionable code-level recommendations.
Support vulnerability triage workflows by assessing severity, reproducibility, attack surface, and business impact; create and maintain detailed tickets in vulnerability management systems (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow).
Collaborate directly with development teams to validate fixes, perform re-tests, and confirm closure of security defects while tracking metrics and timelines for remediation.
Participate in threat modeling and architecture review sessions, contributing attacker-perspective assessments and identifying potential abuse cases and design-level mitigations.
Build and maintain small automation scripts and tooling (Python, Bash, or Go) to streamline repeated security tasks such as scan orchestration, report parsing, and result normalization.
Help integrate security checks into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions) to enable early detection of vulnerabilities during the build and merge process.
Run scheduled host and network vulnerability scans (Nessus, OpenVAS) for web-facing assets and assist in interpreting network-level findings that affect web application security posture.
Support container and deployment security reviews, scanning container images for vulnerabilities (Trivy, Clair) and validating runtime configurations for least privilege and secure defaults.
Assist with secure configuration reviews for web servers, application servers, load balancers, and reverse proxies, recommending hardened settings for TLS, headers, and HTTP security policies.
Participate in simulated attack exercises and tabletop scenarios (red team / purple team) to validate detection capabilities and improve response playbooks alongside SOC/IR teams.
Draft clear, executive-friendly and technical remediation reports, including proof-of-concept steps, risk context, and prioritized remediation paths to help stakeholders understand and act on findings.
Maintain and update knowledge base articles, secure coding checklists, and playbooks for common web vulnerabilities to help scale security knowledge across engineering teams.
Support bug bounty and external disclosure triage by reproducing user-submitted reports, validating severity, escalating confirmed findings, and ensuring coordinated disclosure and remediation.
Monitor security mailing lists, vulnerability advisories, and vendor CVE feeds relevant to web frameworks, libraries, and components used in our applications; surface high-risk findings to the security team.
Assist in creating and delivering secure development training materials, hands-on labs, and short technical demos to increase developer awareness of OWASP Top 10 and secure coding practices.
Help maintain security dashboards and KPIs (time-to-remediate, number of open vulnerabilities, scan coverage) to provide visibility into the web application security program’s performance.
Contribute to building repeatable testing templates and checklists for new application onboarding and periodic security assessments to ensure consistent coverage across projects.
Support incident response activities by gathering forensic artifacts for web-based incidents, summarizing attack vectors observed, and contributing to containment and remediation steps.
Engage in cross-functional meetings to explain security findings, propose pragmatic remediation plans, and recommend compensating controls when immediate fixes are not feasible.
Assist in researching and prototyping new security tools, OSS libraries, or integrations that could improve detection fidelity, reduce false positives, or increase automation across the security toolchain.
Maintain ethical hacking and legal compliance standards in all testing activities, ensuring tests are authorized, scoped, and executed with appropriate approvals and logging.

Secondary Functions

Contribute to internal security documentation, runbooks, and onboarding materials to increase team efficiency and knowledge transfer.
Support ad-hoc security reviews of partner integrations, third-party widgets, and open-source dependencies before production rollouts.
Help maintain a curated inventory of web assets, dependencies, and public-facing endpoints to improve scan accuracy and asset coverage.
Participate in weekly sprint planning and agile ceremonies with security and engineering teams to align priorities and unblock remediation efforts.
Assist with research projects or proof-of-concept work to evaluate emerging security controls (WAFs, RASP, runtime monitoring).

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Strong understanding of web application fundamentals (HTTP/HTTPS, cookies, headers, RESTful APIs, JSON/XML).
Knowledge of OWASP Top 10, ability to recognize and explain common web vulnerabilities such as XSS, SQLi, CSRF, and broken access control.
Practical experience with dynamic testing tools (Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP) for intercepting and manipulating web traffic and performing active testing.
Familiarity with static analysis tools (SonarQube, Checkmarx, Veracode) and experience interpreting SAST results and reducing false positives.
Basic proficiency in scripting languages for automation and PoC development (Python, Bash, JavaScript).
Hands-on familiarity with vulnerability scanners and remediation workflows (Nessus, OpenVAS, Qualys).
Experience or coursework in penetration testing fundamentals, including authenticated testing, session manipulation, and exploit validation.
Exposure to secure coding practices and code review techniques for languages commonly used in web stacks (Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Ruby, PHP).
Understanding of authentication/authorization mechanisms (OAuth2, JWT, SAML) and session management security considerations.
Knowledge of TLS/SSL fundamentals, secure cipher selection, and certificate lifecycle basics.
Basic container and cloud security awareness (Docker security practices, AWS security groups, IAM principles).
Familiarity with source control and CI/CD systems (Git, GitHub/GitLab, Jenkins) and how to embed security gates into pipelines.
Experience with logging and monitoring basics (ELK, Splunk, Datadog) to support detection validation and incident investigations.
Ability to use network diagnostic tools (curl, tcpdump, Wireshark) to gather and analyze web traffic when troubleshooting issues.

Soft Skills

Strong written communication skills — able to convert technical vulnerabilities into clear, prioritized recommendations for developers and managers.
Curiosity and willingness to learn — a proactive approach to self-study, labs, and continuing education in application security topics.
Collaborative mindset — comfortable working cross-functionally with engineers, QA, product managers, and operations teams.
Attention to detail — meticulous when reproducing findings, documenting steps, and validating fixes to minimize false positives.
Problem solving and critical thinking — able to decompose complex application behavior and identify root causes of security issues.
Time management and prioritization — capable of juggling multiple assessments, triage tasks, and remediation follow-ups in an agile environment.
Ethical judgment and professionalism — maintains responsible disclosure practices and adheres to organizational policies and legal constraints.
Presentation and training ability — can prepare short demos or micro-trainings to help teams adopt safer development practices.
Resilience and persistence — comfortable iterating on difficult bugs and following up on remediation across multiple stakeholders.
Initiative — proposes tooling or process improvements to make the security program more efficient and scalable.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Currently pursuing or recently completed a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical field.

Preferred Education:

M.S. in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or relevant advanced coursework; or formal security training (certificates and bootcamps).
Relevant certifications such as CompTIA Security+, eJPT, OSCP (in progress or completed) or OWASP training are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Cybersecurity / Information Security
Software Engineering
Network Engineering
Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

0–2 years of practical experience; internship or part-time security-related work preferred.

Preferred:

Prior internship or lab experience performing web application testing, participating in bug bounty programs, contributing to security-related open-source projects, or coursework with hands-on labs (HackTheBox, TryHackMe, WebGoat, DVWA).
Demonstrated experience working with at least one web security toolchain (Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, SAST/DAST scanners) and familiarity with CI/CD integration concepts.
Portfolio items such as write-ups of vulnerability research, GitHub repos with security tooling/prototypes, or contributions to security-focused projects are advantageous.