With cyber-attacks on the rise, it’s fundamental that developers pay attention to any flaws or mistakes when building and deploying their web applications.

Cybersecurity must be a priority in your company. Be proactive and don’t wait until a breach occurs to adopt a robust IT security.

Common web application security vulnerabilities

According to OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project), there are ten top common web application vulnerabilities that developers should pay attention to.

OWASP report for 2021 shows some differences from previous years and includes new security risks such as insecure design or Software and Data Integrity Failures.

To strengthen cybersecurity, companies should be aware of the following most critical security risks and vulnerabilities to web applications:

• Broken Access Control 
• Cryptographic Failures
• Injection
• Insecure Design 
• Security Misconfiguration 
• Vulnerable and Outdated Components 
• Identification and Authentication Failures
• Software and Data Integrity Failures 
• Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
• Server-Side Request Forgery

Most vulnerabilities revolve around authentication, validation, and user input flaws. 

Last year, compromised credentials, the most common initial attack vector, caused 20% of the breaches, at an average breach cost of 4.37 million dollars.

Successful approaches to web security threats must, by definition, be proactive and defensive. So, let's explore the risks. 

Broken Access Control

It's relevant to patrol flaws that might allow users to act outside their intended permissions. And this is why it's necessary to strengthen access control.

The most common access control susceptibilities happen when developers don't follow the principle of least privilege or when access control checks are bypassed by modifying the URL, among others.

Authentication needs to be active and configured to prevent unwanted access. "Access control is only effective in trusted server-side code or server-less API" where the hacker cannot reach backend configurations or access control check or metadata.

Cryptographic Failures

Also known as Sensitive Data Exposure, cryptographic failures happen when sensitive data it's transported or stored without any encryption or protection, leaving it vulnerable to attacks.

Encryption plays a fundamental role because sensitive information is often exchanged between client and server.

Preventing the exposure of your sensitive data is vital to the security of your app.

So, your web application must have HTTPS and perfect forward secrecy (PFS) to contain this vulnerability.

Disabling data caching that may store sensitive information can be another way to protect data.

Injection

Injection flaws are no longer the most common web application vulnerabilities.

This susceptibility allows an attacker to dispatch malicious data through an application to attack backend systems or other clients connected to the vulnerable application.

The most ordinary types of injection are OS Command Injection (a malicious parameter that can exploit commands) and SQL Injection (when the hacker passes unfiltered or hostile data to the SQL server).

Validate input and applying the least privilege are two ways to prevent injection flaws.

Insecure Design

Last year, this vulnerability entered the top ten of the most common web application vulnerabilities.

Occupying the fourth place, this risk it's related to design and architectural flaws.

The insecure design does not mean an insecure implementation because they come from different sources and remediation.

According to OWASP, one of the factors contributing to insecure design is the lack of business risk profiling inherent in the software or system developed. 

Security Misconfiguration 

Attackers can capitalize several vulnerabilities in web applications with security misconfigurations.

Security misconfigured vulnerabilities can include the lack of appropriate security hardening across any part of the application stack.

Unnecessary features enabled or installed and default accounts with enabled and unchanged passwords, among others, are also some of the vulnerabilities that lead to security misconfiguration.

To prevent misconfiguration from being an issue, ensure you have a robust build and deploy process. Plan and evaluate the configuration to ensure it will provide the protection you need.>

Web application security best practices

Now that you know the most common vulnerabilities, you need to know which best practices to follow.

A security breach can cost you a lot. Not only the budget but also your application integrity.

With that said, make sure you carry out a full-scale security audit. This strategy will help you to prevent potential security risks.

Also, make sure to encrypt all your data in transit between the visitor's browser and your server.

You can implement real-time security monitoring to help you block any malicious-looking activity in your website or web app in real-time such as SQL injections, XSS attacks, or bad bots.

Choosing the right option for your project can be complicated. With Zalox, you will always find the most appropriate solution. Contact us and find out what your application needs to grow!