What Is Web Security?

Web security involves implementing cybersecurity strategies to prevent cyber attacks from reaching business systems. The goal is to protect sensitive information, maintain business continuity, and avoid costly repercussions such as reputational damage or data loss. Typically, web security comprises multiple tools that work together. It includes a mix of software, hardware and services that ensure the security of an organization’s website, web applications, and third-party apps.

Identifying vulnerabilities and making security updates before attackers exploit them. It includes securing website pages with SSL, protecting online banking systems from phishing scams, and monitoring traffic to look for malware infiltration or attacks against critical infrastructure.

Cyber attacks disrupt operations and lead to downtime, which has a direct impact on revenue. Effective web security measures thwart these attacks in real-time, helping to keep businesses operating as usual.

A cyber attack can cause a website to crash or slow down and can even leave it unavailable for days. This can have devastating consequences for a business, particularly when customers cannot access the company’s products or services. The right web security solution can proactively scan and monitor websites, alerting IT when an issue arises and blocking suspicious activity.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the main component of any web security solution. This is a protocol that encrypts and authenticates the connections between a web server and a browser. It helps to keep sensitive information private and protects against threats such as eavesdropping, identity theft, and fraud.

Web scanning involves using an application to systematically check the entire layout of a website for vulnerabilities. This may include checking for SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), remote file inclusion, and more. The software can also search for hidden code, which could be used by an attacker to gain access to the website.

XSS vulnerabilities involve data sent from the client browser to the server, which can then be executed by the server. This can be the result of POST or GET requests, cookie data rendered by the browser, user files uploaded to the site, and more. Often, these vulnerabilities are caused by failing to sanitize user input at the front end and back end of a web application. This process of modifying user input so that it cannot be used to run scripts or affect the execution of server code is called sanitization and most web frameworks do this by default.

Hackers use XSS to steal data, take over accounts, and more. This can be a major disruption to business operations and can cost companies substantial amounts of money in damages, fines, and lost revenue. Effective web security can prevent hackers from stealing valuable data, and even protect the integrity of the network, servers, and networks.

The best way to protect against web attacks is to build a strong security foundation during the development cycle. This means ensuring that every person who touches the web application is trained in security so that they can spot vulnerabilities. This includes developers, DevOps engineers, and CI/CD teams before the application goes live. It’s also important to only store and display data that is necessary for the application, and not to share this data with third parties. For example, displaying the last four digits of credit card numbers instead of the full number reduces the risk of someone intercepting and using that information on other sites.