Table of Contents
- Why Is It Important To Have Strong Web Application Security?
- Full-Scale Security Audits
- Data Encryption
- Real-Time Security Monitoring
- Proper Logging Practices
Security should be an important part of any web application you work on. You should thus think about web application security when you start working on your next project. Before that, let’s quickly talk about why security is so important:
Why Is It Important To Have Strong Web Application Security?
Loss of customer data
It’s safe to say that your customers trust you with their information. It’s up to you to keep their data safe from people who aren’t supposed to have access to it.
Loss of revenue
Service interruptions and downtime can cost your company a lot of money, including reputational harm. Imagine an eCommerce shop offline for hours (or days) due to a breach.
Loss of customer trust
Customers are wary about sharing their info. A cybersecurity breach can damage a brand’s reputation and lose consumers’ confidence. Loss of client data might lead to company closure in various instances.
Compliance and penalties
Governments impose security standards like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI and ISO 27001 to prevent enterprises from ignoring security. Non-compliance can result in fines, penalties or litigation.
Full-Scale Security Audits
One of the best ways to ensure your web apps are safe is to have regular security audits.
There may be one or more of the following things in a security audit:
- Black box security audit – The hacker method. This program is scanned for exploitable flaws without the source code.
- White box security audit – Unlike black box security audits, white box security audits allow you or your team to see the codebase. This form of security audit guarantees you’re using secure coding methods.
- Grey box security audit – This is a hybrid strategy combining white box and black box security audits. Ahead of the audit, vital information is exchanged.
If your audit finds any vulnerabilities, categorize them by impact, prioritize their remedy and start with the most critical (Critical/High).
Data Encryption
Your website may allow visitors to disclose sensitive information. Your server and visitor’s browser must be encrypted during transmission. Encrypting data in transit improves both consumer trust and SEO ranking. Google prefers SSL-enabled sites and even uses HTTPS as a ranking element.
You must also encrypt the data to prevent unauthorized copying or destruction. But not only data in transit must be encrypted. To keep your data safe, follow these guidelines:
- Network firewalls should be set up. This will help keep threats from coming inside the network.
- Choose a strong encryption algorithm and encrypt the data before you store it, so that it can’t be read by anyone else but you.
- Ensure people can’t see your data unless they know your username and password.
- Security for the infrastructure is important. Don’t forget about it and invest in infrastructure security.
Real-Time Security Monitoring
Regular security audits are important, but they are insufficient without effective real-time monitoring. Consider utilizing a WAF to help you detect and stop harmful behaviour in real-time. Because web application firewalls can overlook attacks or report false positives, use ASMP or RASP.
An ASMP monitors protocols outside the application layer to defend your applications from unforeseen attacks in real-time. While ASMP runs in your app, RASP runs on your server and analyzes web application activity plus user interaction. RASP will terminate the session and block the malicious user if it detects suspicious behaviour.
Proper Logging Practices
If you want to know what happened at a precise time (or if anything else happened simultaneously), you need to have suitable logging in place. This data is vital in case of a security breach.
Post-incident forensics might be difficult without good recordkeeping; however, in the event of a data breach, a robust recording system identifies the bad actor much simpler.
More information on web application security can be found at cyberhunter.solutions or by calling (833) 292-4868 today.
