Hackers never cease to search for vulnerabilities in web applications, so why shouldn’t you instill best security practices in your web applications to defend against those attacks?
IBM estimates that the average data breach cost grew from USD 3.86 million to USD 4.24 million in 2021.
Would you be able to survive losing such a large amount of money because your web application isn’t secured?
According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, approximately 43% of data breaches that occurred in 2019 were caused by vulnerabilities in web applications.
Having said that, the next question to consider is: what are web application security vulnerabilities, and how can they be eliminated to maintain the security of web applications?
As part of this blog, we will explore web application security vulnerabilities and discuss how you can mitigate them.
Table of Contents
Web application security vulnerabilities refer to the system flaw or weakness in a web application.
Security vulnerabilities can be exploited by threat actors i.e. hackers to manipulate web applications’ source code, gain unauthorized access, steal sensitive data, and interfere with the normal operation of web applications.
Now as you have gained a basic understanding of the web application security vulnerabilities, let’s take a glimpse over the root cause of the vulnerabilities:
Having complex systems increases the likelihood of flaws, misconfigurations, or unauthorized access to information.
The commonly used codes, software, operating systems, and hardware make it more likely that malicious actors would figure out or know about vulnerabilities.
A web application with a wide distribution is more likely to be vulnerable.
Attacks like brute force make it very easy for threat actors to break poor passwords.
SQL injection is one of the most common types of web application vulnerability which is the result of unchecked user input. Threat actors execute the unintended SQL commands to gain access to the web application database.
Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) serves as an online community that develops articles, methodologies, tools, and technologies in web application security. A recent OWASP report highlighted the 10 top web application security risks that all web development companies should consider to minimize security risks.
Let’s have a quick overview of the top 10 web application security vulnerabilities suggested by the OWASP:
By enforcing access control policies, users are not permitted to act outside their authorization. If broken, sensitive information is lost, modified, or destroyed, or operations beyond the users’ control are performed.
The best example of the broken access control is: active as a user without even logging into the application or acting as an admin when logged in as a user.
According to the OWASP, 94% of the applications tested were found to have broken access controls, which makes it one of the most common web app security vulnerabilities that every business should be aware of.
Impact of broken access control:
The impact of the broken access control is devastating. In addition to viewing the unauthorized web application content, as a result of broken access control threat actors could alter or delete content, make unauthorized changes, or even take over the administrator panel.
Sensitive data exposure occurs when sensitive data is unknowingly exposed by a web application.
These types of incidents occur most commonly because the database storing sensitive information lacks encryption. Another reason is that a web app that stores information without SSL or HTTPS security is at risk of being hacked.
In 2020, the United States (US) reported over 1001 cases of sensitive data exposure, affecting more than 155.8 million individuals. A lack of data security standards caused these breaches, which resulted in the accidental disclosure of sensitive information. (Source)
Impact of sensitive data exposure
An organization’s integrity can be destroyed when hackers gain access to a system and are allowed to roam around unauthorized areas undetected, causing a great deal of damage when sensitive data is exposed.
Injection attacks are among some of the most ancient and dangerous attacks against web applications. A threat actor injects or supplies malicious input into web applications and forces them to execute malicious commands.
In the event a malicious command is executed, it can result in several issues, including theft of data, corruption of data, denial-of-service attacks, and full system compromise.
According to Akamai, approximately two-thirds (65,0% to be precise) of all attacks against web applications were injection attacks.
Impact of injection attacks
Injection attacks have a profound impact on web applications. The injection can result in a variety of problems, including unauthorized access to the user list, the deletion of the entire web application database, or gaining access to the admin area of the web application, which can impair a business’s performance.
Insecure design is meant to refer to the risks related to the design and architecture flaws of the web application.
Impact of insecure design
An insecure design can have severe consequences for businesses. In this case, threat actors could allow third parties to interfere with application logic and compromise web applications, resulting in degrading the security of sensitive data.
Misconfigured security controls can put your systems and data at risk if they are configured incorrectly or left unsecured. In general, if you change any configuration settings or make a technical error across any component on your endpoints, it would cause a misconfiguration.
Among the most common security misconfigurations are open cloud storage, unnecessary HTTP methods, and misconfigured HTTP headers.
According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report, more than 39% of web applications were the victim of security misconfiguration.
Impact of security misconfiguration
By exploiting vulnerabilities in security configurations, attackers can access system data and functionality without authorization. There are flaws in every system that can have severe consequences. A compromise of the whole system is one such example. It could have a great impact or a small impact on business, depending on the application and data protection requirements.
When authentication, identification, and session management functions aren’t implemented properly, or if user data is not effectively protected, an application cannot provide adequate authentication or identification services to a user. As a result, the web application may lead to identification and authentication failure.
Impact of identification and authentication failure
In the absence of authentication and identification, attackers can steal login data, forge cookies, and gain unauthorized access to web applications.
Code and infrastructure that fail to protect against integrity violations are to blame for software and data integrity failures. There are several factors that contribute to this problem, such as unreliable sources, untested repositories, or even-tempered software at the source, in transit, or even at the endpoint itself.
Impact of software and data integrity failure
By exploiting the software and data integrity flaws, threat actors can gain access to the web application and damage the business’s reputation.
Security logging and monitoring failure is meant to refer to the failure of logging, monitoring, and compliance responses at any time: for example, log-in attempts, failed log-in attempts, and transactions of high value are not logged.
Impact of security logging and monitoring failure
The failure of security logging and monitoring can directly impact visibility, incident alerting, and forensics.
Server-side request forgery (SSRF) means a vulnerability that could be exploited to cause unintended requests to be made by the server-side application.
The attacker usually supplies a URL (or modifies one already present) and writes code to the server to read or upload data. It’s possible for hackers to exploit URLs to access internal data that are meant to be private, including databases and configurations that are HTTP-enabled.
Impact of server-side request forgery (SSRF)
An attacker who uses server-side request forgery (SSRF) may be able to gain successful access to a web application database, back-end system, or to perform unauthorized access onto the web application.
When components such as libraries and frameworks are used within an app, almost always they are executed with full privileges, creating this type of threat. By using a vulnerable component, the hacker has an easier time causing serious data loss or taking control of the server of the web application.
Impact of vulnerable and outdated components
In case the threat actor is able to find the outdated and vulnerable components in your web application, they can easily exploit these flaws since the exploits methods are already available on the Internet, and the attacker only needs to use them to cause some minor damage or significant data compromises to the web application.
Here are the 5 best tips you can practice you can opt to make your web application secure from vulnerabilities:
A regular security audit is the best way to ensure you’re following the best practices for web application security and identifying potential security gaps within your systems. The ability to maintain this awareness will alert you to potential security vulnerabilities lurking within a web application and prevent targeted breaches.
Embedding encryption in web applications is one of the most important security practices. The majority of web development companies implement encryption for data in transit, but what about data at rest? That data should also be protected to prevent your web application from falling prey to hackers.
It is advisable to enable HTTPS on your web application alongside keeping your SSL certificate updated.
Testing for penetration is an essential part of any security assessment. It simulates a real-life scenario in which a team of QA professionals play the role of hackers and attempt to violate the web application security using any means from programming to physical force.
Performing penetration tests allows you to identify any vulnerabilities in your web application before they pose a potential security risk.
In order to implement effective account management strategies, you should enforce strong passwords, implement secure password recovery, and implement multi-factor authentication on your web application. You can even force re-authentication of users when allowing them to access more sensitive features.
Maintain OWASP’s list of the top ten web application vulnerabilities, and make sure your web applications are resilient to those threats. If any threat issue is found, you should follow the adequate measurements to eliminate those occurrences of the security threats.
As web applications are becoming more complex and businesses dependent on them are increasing. For any company that wants to succeed in the digital economy today, web application security should be their top priority.
In this blog, we have shared with you the top 10 most common web app vulnerabilities suggested by OWASP that every web development company should be aware of.
Having a web application development company adhere to these guidelines and develop secure web applications is one of the most effective security measures you can take. Konstant Infosolutions is one such company you can believe to bring your web application development idea to life with enterprise-grade security.
OWASP stands for Open Web Application Security Project and is an online community dedicated to increasing the security of web applications. Here are a few reasons why you should adhere to the OWASP security guidelines:
Due to the fact that today’s applications often connect to the cloud and are available over multiple networks, web application security is vital. In order to gain the trust and confidence of your users, you should maintain the highest level of security, which is a vital part of the success of any business.
Being indulged in the IT industry for more than 3+ years, I aim to offer up-to-date and latest knowledge on different technologies and trends setting the market. This is what I love to do. When I'm not working, I like to be near the outdoors surrounded by greenery.
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