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Why Web Application Security Securing a company's web applications is today's most overlooked facet of securing the enterprise. Hacking is on the rise with as many as 75% of cyber attacks done through the web and via web kayran.

Most corporations have secured their data at the network level, but have overlooked the crucial step of checking whether their web applications are vulnerable to attack.

Web applications raise certain security concerns. 1. To deliver the service (intended by design) to customers, web applications must be online and available 24x7x365 2. This means they are always publicly available and cannot discriminate between legitimate users and hackers 3. To function properly web applications will need to have direct usage of backend databases which contain sensitive information. 4. Most web applications are custom-made and rarely pass through the rigorous quality assurance checks of off-the-shelf applications 5. Through too little awareness of the character of hack attacks, organisations view the web application layer as part of the network layer as it pertains to security issues.

The Jeffrey Rubin Story In a 2005 review published by Information Week, a prominent security expert called Jeffrey Rubin, narrates his experience with a successful hack attack. The following is a citation from his article (the full reference is given at the end with this article):

"We're like the majority of Web developers who use the Microsoft platform ... Although we try to stay current with patches and service packs, we realize attackers often go after application, as opposed to network, vulnerabilities. A friend suggested we put in a hardware firewall to prevent future attacks. Not really a bad suggestion, but hardly a cure-all given that individuals have Ports 21, 80 and 443 and our SQL server (on a nonstandard port) spacious for development purposes. In the end, we're available of developing dynamic Website pages, and our clients are all over the country" ;.

Jeff's story is striking simply because (a) developers, like all, will also be susceptible to error despite most of the precautions they take to sanitize their developed applications and (b) being an expert he was still lulled right into a false sense of security by making use of the most recent patches and service packs. Jeff's story, sadly, is not unique and arises from misconceiving the security infrastructure of an organization and the solutions available to aid people inside their fight to safeguard their data.

Because so many organizations don't monitor online activity at the web application level, hackers have free reign and despite having the tiniest of loop holes in a company's web application code, any experienced hacker can break in using only a browser and an amount of creativity and determination. The slack security entails that attempted attacks should go unnoticed as companies react and then successful hacks. Which means companies will fix the specific situation AFTER the damage is done. Finally, most hack attacks are discovered months after the first breach simply because attackers do not need and will not leave an audit trial.

Systems administrators, CTOs and business people alike conceive cyber intrusion as standard physical intrusion: a thief in your own home leaves markers, e.g., a damaged window or a required lock. In web application attacks this physical evidence is inexistent.

The Security Infrastructure of an Organization It's convenient to think of the infrastructure of an organization as you with various layers. In exactly the same way you would drive back rust by making use of a variety of paints, chemicals and anti-oxidants in layers, a systems administrator puts in position several specialized security solutions each addressing specific problem areas.

These security layers represent a holistic outlook that talks about security as hardened measures taken fully to minimize intrusion risks and maximize the protection around the key asset of any organization, its data.

Standard security layers include:

 

The User layer containing software including personal firewalls, anti-root kits, registry cleaners, backup, anti-virus, anti-phishing and anti-spy/adware
The Transport layer including SSL encryption, HTTPS and similar protocols
The Access layer with access control, authentication, crypography, firewalls, VPNs, Web Application Firewalls
The Network layer with firewalls, network scanners, VPNs, and intrusion detection.
The Fifth layer may be the Application layer and must include web siote and web vulnerability scanning. Source code analysis ties in here Web Vulnerability Scanners are not Network Scanners Web vulnerability scanners (e.g., Acunetix WVS, Spi Dynamics WebInspect) are not network scanners (e.g., Qualys, Nessus).

 

Whereas network security scanners analyze the security of assets on the network for possible vulnerabilities, Web Vulnerability Scanners (WVS) scan and analyse web applications (e.g., shopping carts, forms, login pages, dynamic content) for just about any gaps caused by improper coding that may be manipulated by hackers.

For instance, it could be possible to trick a login form to think that you've administration rights by injecting specifically-crafted SQL (the language understood by databases) commands. This is only possible if the inputs (i.e., username and/or password fields) are not properly sanitized (i.e., made invulnerable) and sent directly with the SQL query to the database. This is SQL Injection!

Network security defense provides no protection against such web application attacks since these attacks are launched on port 80 (default for websites) which has to remain open allowing regular operation of the business.

What is needed is a net application scanner / web vulnerability scanner or even a black-box testing tool.

Black box Testing Black box testing is simply an examination design methodology.. In web application black box testing, the web application itself is treated all together without analyzing the inner logic and structure. Typically, web application scanners would see whether the web application all together could possibly be manipulated to get access to the database. Modern technology permits a good level of automation, in effect, reducing the manual input required in testing web applications.

It is very important to state reducing and not minimizing or doing away with. As any security consultant will show you, automation won't ever replace the intelligence and creativity of human intervention.

In general, automated scanners first crawl a complete website, analyzing in-depth each file they would find and displaying the entire website structure. After this discovery stage, the scanner performs an automatic audit for vulnerabilities by launching some hacking attacks, in effect emulating a hacker. Scanners would analyze each page for places where data could possibly be input and will subsequently attempt all the various input combinations. The scanners would check for vulnerabilities on web servers (on open ports), all web applications and in website content itself. The better made products launch such attacks intelligently using varying degrees of heuristics.

Heuristic Web Scanning It is very important to recognize that web vulnerability scanning shouldn't be limited by scanning known applications (e.g. off-the-shelf shopping carts) and/or module vulnerabilities (e.g. SQL injection in phpBB Login Form) against a pre-determined library of known issues. When it were to do this, custom applications would remain untested because of their vulnerabilities. Here is the main weakness of products that derive from matching vulnerability signatures.

Consider anti-virus software being an example. Standard antivirus products scan for thousands of known viruses including old and known viruses (even ones which were designed for old Windows 95 systems). In this day and age you would rarely encounter this OS in the minds of consumers what is most critical is "just how many viruses does this software detect?" ;.The truth is, having the most recent AV will provide you with protection for all nevertheless the viruses running in the wild. And it is these viruses that create the greatest damage. Standard AV products without the best technologies will not detect a disease in the wild if these could only match for "known" viruses. Good antivirus technology enables heuristic file checking or intelligent means of wanting to identify patterns of application behavior which can result in a kayran.

Web vulnerability scanning works in an exceedingly similar way. It would be useless to detect the known vulnerabilities of known applications alone. An important level of heuristics is associated with detecting vulnerabilities since hackers are extremely creative and launch their attacks against bespoke web applications to produce maximum impact.

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