The websites and web
applications are mission-critical business systems that must operate without
security problems to process corporate confidential information. And to respect
data protection rules, companies must consider web application security testing
services. There are statistical evidences supported by web application security
companies which present that in countries like Mexico, Brazil, United States,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, UAE, and India; two out of three companies
face web application security problems & risks.
Web
application security testing consultants classify web application security
risks by the type of attack. Using the type of attack as a base is the most
common method used by many web application security companies. The web application
security risk classification is very useful and is of exceptional value to
application developers, business executives, security professionals or any
other entity interested in website penetration testing. IT professionals
working in this field typically learn about IT risk, application layer attacks,
website penetration testing, web security via web application security training
courses. In countries like Mexico, Brazil, United States, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Argentina, UAE, India etc, there are several web application security companies
that provide web application security training courses.
However business professionals must take that web application security training
course that teaches independent methodologies for security review, secure
programming guidelines, international standards, website penetration testing,
exploiting methods, and application-level attacks.
Below
are some of the attacks that affect the web application security:
BRUTE FORCE
Brute
Force is an automated trial and error attack, used to guess the values (user,
password etc.) of the parameters of the web application/website. Usually people
use weak passwords or cryptographic keys that are easy to guess. Hackers
exploit this security vulnerability in website using a dictionary. Hackers loop
through whole dictionary one by one, searching for the valid password.
According to web application security testing services, the brute force attack
is very popular and can take hours, weeks or years to complete. With the help
of web application security testing companies can easily detect vulnerabilities
related to brute force
INCOMPLETE AUTHENTICATION & WEAK
VALIDATION
Incomplete
authentication is an attack, when a hacker accesses some confidential
functionality of an application without complete authentication. In this attack
a hacker could discover specific URL of the confidential functionality via
brute forcing through common files and directory locations (/admin), error
messages etc. Normally, many applications are not secure as they use
conventional techniques of web application security testing. In the scenario of
weak validation, the attacker can obtain, modify or retrieve data or passwords
of other users. This occurs when the information required to validate the
identity of users, is predictable and can be easily falsified. According to web
application security company’s consultants, the process of data validation is
an important part of the applications and businesses should implement web
application security testing services. With the help of web application
security testing companies can easily detect vulnerabilities related to
incomplete authentication and weak validation.
INSUFFICIENT AUTHORIZATION
Insufficient
authorization means that a user has access to confidential parts of the
application/website that should require elevated access control restrictions.
Without any website security & website penetration testing measures, the attack of insufficient
authorization could be very damaging. In the attack of insufficient
authorization, an authenticated user could control the entire application or
content of the website. As per the recommendations of web application security
training course, applications should have access policies, modification
policies and prudent restrictions should guide the user activity within the
application.
SESSION HIJACKING
In
session hijacking attack a hacker could deduce or guess the session ID value
and then can use that value to hijack another user’s session. If a hacker is
able to guess the session ID of another user, fraudulent activity is possible.
This could allow a hacker to use the back button of the browser to access the
pages previously accessed by the victim. Many companies without any website
security & website penetration testing measures are susceptible to this
attack. For this reason website & web application security are very
important.
Another
problem for web application security is incomplete session expire as per web
application security company’s experts. This results when a website allows
reuse of old session credentials. The incomplete expiration of session
increases the exposure of websites to hackers for stealing or hijacking session.
The session fixation is another technique used for session hijacking as per web
application security company’s experts. When a user’s session ID is forced to
an explicit value, the hacker can exploit this to hijack the session. Later
when the user session ID has been fixed, the hacker waits for user to use it.
When the user does so, the hacker uses this session ID value for session
hijacking. The web pages that use cookie-based sessions without any web
application security testing services are the easiest to attack.
Without any web application security testing services or web application
security solutions to prevent session hijacking, this attack could do a lot of
damage to business reputation and hackers can steal confidential data. As per
the recommendations of web application security training course, logic for
generating session ID, cookie and each session ID should be kept confidential.
Companies can also easily learn more about best practices to prevent session
hijacking & secure application programming during a web application
security training course.
CROSS-SITE SCRIPTING
When a
user visits a website, the user expects security on the website and that the
website will deliver valid content. Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is an attack
where the victim is the user. In the XSS attack, the hacker forces a website to
execute a code in the user’s browser. With this code the hacker has the ability
to read, modify and transmit confidential data accessible by the browser.
Without any web application security testing services, a hacker could steal
cookies, hijack sessions, open phishing sites, and download malware using the
XSS attack. According to website penetration testing experts, there are two
types of XSS attacks, persistent and non-persistent. Both attacks can cause a
lot of damage to the reputation of the website. Using website security
solutions such as website penetration testing or web application security
training course, companies can easily understand, detect and resolve
vulnerabilities related to cross-site scripting (XSS).
CROSS SITE REQUEST FORGERY (CSRF)
The
cross site request forgery (CSRF), also known as XSRF is an attack where the
hacker can get the user to perform unwanted actions on remote domains. It is
based on the idea of exploiting the persistence of sessions between browser
tabs. Typically, most users do not terminate their website sessions and remain
active while browsing other websites. By exploiting the vulnerability of XSRF a
hacker can steal other website sessions. According to website penetration
testing experts, Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack is derived from XSS
and with some basic website penetration testing companies can prevent CSRF
attacks.
BUFFER OVERFLOW
The
buffer overflow is a very common vulnerability in different softwares, which is
when the data written to memory exceeds the reserved buffer size. According to
experts from web application security company, during a buffer overflow attack
the attacker exploits the vulnerability to alter the flow of an application and
redirect the program to execute malicious code. According to professor of web
application security training course, this vulnerability is very common at the
operating system level of the application server and can be detected during the
web server & web application security testing.
SQL INJECTION
The SQL
injection is a very common and dangerous attack. Many companies with no web
application security testing procedures are susceptible to this attack. This
attack exploits the websites that use SQL as a database and construct SQL
statements from user-supplied data. During the SQL injection attack, the hacker
can easily modify an SQL statement and by exploiting this vulnerability, the
hacker can gain full control over the database or even execute commands on the
system. According to the experience of the web application security testing
services, companies can prevent SQL injection by sanitizing data provided by the
user. Also companies can easily detect and resolve this vulnerability with the
help of web application security testing.
DIRECTORY INDEXING
In the
directory indexing attack, an attacker can access all files in the directories
on the server. Without any website security, this is equivalent to running a
command “ls” or “dir” and showing the results in HTML format. The information
in a directory may contain information that is not expected to be seen in
public. In addition, a hacker can find confidential information in HTML
comments, error messages and source code. According to the experience of
consultants of web application security company, directory indexing can allow
data leakage which can provide data to a hacker to launch an advance attack.
PATH TRAVERSAL
In the
Path Traversal attack, a hacker access files, directories, and commands that
reside outside the “root” directory of the website. Many companies without any
web application security testing services are susceptible to this attack. With
access to these directories, an attacker could have access to the important web
application executables that perform important functions and access to
confidential information of users. In the path traversal attack a hacker can
manipulate a URL so that the website will run or disclose the contents of files
located anywhere on the web server. Using website security solutions such as
website penetration testing or web application security training course,
companies can easily understand, detect and resolve vulnerabilities related to
Path Traversal.
DENIAL OF SERVICE
In a
denial-of-service attack (DoS), the motive is to prevent a website/web
application to function normally and serve normal user activity. DoS attacks
try to utilize all available resources such as CPU, memory, disk space,
bandwidth, etc. When these resources reach their maximum consumption, the web
application will be inaccessible. According to experts of web application
security testing services there are different types of DoS attacks, such as
network level, the device level, application level and from different sources
(DDoS). Using website security solutions such as website penetration testing or
web application security training course, companies can easily understand,
detect and resolve vulnerabilities related to denial of service.
These
are some of the cyber attacks on web applications. Web application security testing services and web application security training
course should help to identify and resolve risks associated with web
applications in your organization. The web application security methodology
should be very different from traditional methodology of web application
security companies. The web application security methodology should be
based on a process of manual and automated testing using our own scripts, code
review, proprietary, commercial and open source tools that identifies all types
of vulnerabilities.
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