Taking a Proactive Approach to Web Security
Web security focuses on protecting websites and their application programming interfaces (APIs) from attacks. This is a critical discipline that protects businesses from cyber vandalism, data theft, unethical competition, and other negative consequences.
The best web security solutions leverage multiple technologies to stop malware and ransomware, block phishing domains, restrict the use of credentials, and more—building a holistic defense. However, threats constantly evolve to bypass cybersecurity protections. That’s why it’s important to monitor the threat landscape and take a proactive approach to web security.
Many threats target web-based applications, with attackers using sophisticated attacks to steal data and exploit vulnerabilities. For example, a denial of service attack (DoS) can slow or even shut down a server by sending it more data than it can process. Distributed DoS attacks—which are carried out by many hijacked devices at once—are more difficult to stop and can be extremely damaging. Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks allow bad actors to inject malicious code into a trusted website, potentially accessing sensitive information or running unauthorized commands.
Attacks can also target the software and infrastructure adjacent to a web application, such as a flaw in an operating system or database. Threat actors can then gain proximity to a web application and use tools like Man-in-the-Middle attacks or SQL injections to take control of backend databases or the application itself.
Security measures can include encrypting data in motion and at rest, securing the communication between web servers and browsers, and employing secure authentication and session management techniques. Other practices, such as following secure coding guidelines and sanitizing user input, can help minimize the risk of introducing vulnerabilities through a web application.
A typical security architecture for a business’s public-facing web application includes a secure web gateway (SWG) appliance to monitor traffic and inspect requests traveling both inbound and outbound. Other components can include firewalls, IPS/IDS, a DMZ, sandboxing appliances, and more. However, these appliances can leave gaps when patching is not performed regularly and do not always provide visibility into TLS/SSL-encrypted traffic.
An alternative to traditional hardware-based security solutions is a cloud-delivered security platform. A platform provides holistic coverage and prevents policy violations, malware infections, data loss, and more, while reducing overhead and providing greater scale and flexibility than traditional appliances.