The web security industry is constantly evolving. New threats, technologies, and best practices come out almost daily, making it difficult to stay up-to-date on all of the security information available. This is especially true when you’re a software developer building tools to uncover and fix security issues. In this blog post, we’ll explore the leading risks identified by the open-source community known as the OWASP Top 10 Project.. These top 10 flaws highlight the most significant security issues with web applications.
The Key Principle of Data Security is Define, Plan, and Practice
Data security is a critical part of any website’s security strategy. Every security decision you make impacts the data you store, the people who access your data, and the security of your system as a whole. While there are many ways to go about this, it’s important to first have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to secure. Once you’ve defined what you’re trying to secure, you can start to plan the best way to do so. This is the first step toward securing your data.
Do-It-yourself (DIY) isn’t the answer
A common question we receive is “what do I do if someone hacks my website?” While this question is valid in theory, it’s a really bad idea in practice. While there are many DIY projects you can perform to try and secure your computer, your website, or your network, doing so at the wrong time, or the wrong place, can actually become a bigger issue than it needs to be. If you try to secure your computer or device without first doing so for the site that you want to secure, you may end up with a much larger mess to clean up. A Misuse of loneliness can be fixed with a little bit of communication One of the leading causes of website insecurity is the lack of communication within an organization. When an employee has sensitive information such as a social security number or financial data sitting in a folder marked “confidential” in their work computer, they need to let someone know what they have access to. However, when they can’t ask a colleague for help because they’re afraid they’ll be fired, or worse, then the information is much less secure.
Careless storage Practices can be remedied with better storage design
One of the leading causes of website insecurity is the poor design of the storage medium. If your website uses a lot of static content, like information pages do, you may not need to worry as much about this as an ecommerce site. However, if your content is mobile-first, or if it consists of a lot of video, you need to ensure you’re keeping your files organized. You’ll also need to consider if you have the most appropriate types of files to be storing as part of your website persistence strategy.
Cross Site Request Forgery
CSRF is a technique that allows you to trick a user into doing something that her/him shouldn’t be doing. For example, you can set a policy that lets employees leave their desktops in “production” mode whenever they’re on-site, so they can’t accidentally test new features or send emails. However, this comes with a catch – employees who want to take this “back door” path to production should be aware that this is a potential CSRF vulnerability. Since these machines contain data that employees need to access in order to do their jobs, it’s important for them to have proper access control.
“SQL Injection” is easy to fix and difficult to understand
SQL injection is a common mistake that developers make. The most common type of injection found in web applications is “SQL.” SQL injection happens when an application inputs data that it doesn’t expect to be stored. The most common example of this is when you try and add a new product to a shopping cart, and then try and add a key-value pair that doesn’t exist yet. An attacker can then do whatever they wish with the data, usually loading something that’s usefull or damaging, without their knowledge it was done by their input.
“Cross-site Scripting” (XSS) can easily be fixed by using tools that exist now
Like many software security problems, the XSS problem is based on a Lack of understanding. Like many things in life, the solution is often more complexity. Realizing that you have a problem isn’t the solution, though. The best-case scenario is to find out what parts of your application are vulnerable, and then make sure those parts are as secure as possible. Beyond that, you need to look at the bigger picture. If you’re using a technology that’s more than 10 years old, it’s unlikely that a fix is available for it. Beyond that, you need to understand that there are tools for fixing many of these issues. Most of these are meant for software development, but some have been adapted for use in web applications. Examples of tools that can be used to check for security issues include hosted scanners, software (more commonly known as: “webshells”), and command line applications.
SQL injection is easily preventable by simply checking input into a database before it’s allowed to execute. The problem is that many developers make the mistake of trying to pull a subtle feature that requires special characters in the field name. So instead you’ll get an error saying ” uuid can’t be NULL.” It’s much easier to add an accept as statement after the SELECT: SELECT autoget_field(‘uuid’, ‘unique identifier’…) This allows the statement to still work as designed while reducing the chances of a SQLi attack… at least until they find out you secretly added their email address into your database somehow. Then they’ll try and fix that vulnerability too.Many programmers ignore these small errors or don’t understand how they leak information like this originate, leading them away from easy fixes and towards extremely hard-to-fix upgrade situations further on down the implementation timeline.
Conclusion
The internet has become an essential aspect of daily life for many people. With this, it has also become a target for cybercriminals. The OWASP Top 10 Project is a collaborative effort that brings together security researchers from around the world to identify the most significant web application security issues. It’s important to remember that the best way to protect your data is to use good software. The best tools to help with this are open-source projects. You must connect with Appsealing to deal with these projects