What to Look for in a Web Security Solution

Web security covers a broad set of practices and technologies that help keep data and websites safe from attack. It includes the protection of sensitive information like credit card numbers and login credentials, the ability to prevent denial-of-service attacks that can halt website access for visitors, and the capability to detect and remove malware from a compromised server.

Hackers target sites with vulnerabilities in their software that allow them to eavesdrop on traffic, send fake information to users, take over servers with cryptomining code (that consumes resources and slows down site performance) or hold the site hostage with ransomware. A good web security solution needs to cover a variety of these threats, including web scanning and malware detection.

Many hackers use automated scripts to scour the internet, looking for established software weaknesses that they can exploit. This makes it much easier for them to find and target your website, whether your company is a small startup or a Fortune 500 enterprise. The good news is that you can greatly mitigate the risk of a breach by taking steps to implement best practices and safeguard your site against known vulnerabilities.

The most common web attacks include SQL injection, cross-site scripting and form forgery. These are generally targeted at web applications that trust data from a browser, such as a username or password. The best way to counter this is to sanitize any user data before it is displayed in the browser, used in SQL queries or passed into operating system or file system calls.

A web application firewall can help stop many of these types of attacks by putting an additional layer of defense between a web application and the internet. This can be configured to inspect all web requests before they reach the app and drop any that are deemed malicious or against corporate policy.

Another feature to look for in a web security solution is URL filtering. This is an effective way to block known-bad URLs that are often used in phishing campaigns or to deliver malware. A growing number of web applications utilize SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption, which can be inspected using SSL introspection to identify malicious activity such as data exfiltration and malware delivery.

The final category of web security measures is the recovery component, which is critical to ensuring business continuity in the event of an incident. This includes having a backup of the affected website or application, as well as having processes in place to restore functionality after an incident has occurred.

In the end, implementing web security is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and constant review of tools and processes to ensure your website’s security posture. It’s also a good idea to make cybersecurity awareness a part of your internal culture, so employees can help identify suspicious emails or strange behavior on the web that could lead to a compromise. Ultimately, the most important factor is having a plan in place for when a threat does occur so you can quickly contain it and minimize any damage to your website or business.