Nine Most common security errors made by Web application developers (1)

Nine Most common security errors made by Web application developers (1)

Web application development is a broad topic. This article only discusses security errors that Web application developers should avoid. These errors involve basic security principles that should not be ignored by any developer.

What basic security principles should developers pay attention? What security errors should be avoided? To answer these questions, the following suggestions can be answered.

Self-righteous: Develop your own security methods

Some developers mistakenly think that their algorithms or authentication methods are safer: after all, hackers have never seen this method, so they are more difficult to crack. Is that true?

The answer is no. It is an error for developers to develop their own authentication or login methods because they will make one or more mistakes that hackers can discover. Developers should rely on existing fully tested security methods because they have been repeatedly tested by the security community. Therefore, these methods are unlikely to include major security vulnerabilities ignored by developers. Some security experts pointed out that anyone can invent an encryption algorithm that they cannot crack, but it is much more difficult to develop a method that others cannot crack. Therefore, developers should honestly use the authenticated or security testing methods.

Careless: access the database directly using the information provided by the user

When developing applications, especially Web applications, many developers fail to fully validate the input data received from users. This approach has security issues because it allows illegal data to enter the customer's database and has a greater security risk. User input cannot be verified (whether from the Web or from the API), resulting in SQL injection, cross-site scripting attacks, command hijacking, and buffer overflow, and other Web application vulnerabilities exploited by attackers.

This error is most common in Web application development. If these programs are not protected, users may use input fields to inject malicious scripts into the application or access the private data of the database. Of course, most users do not have any malicious attempts, but developers must use defensive mentality and methods to process user input.

Developers should not trust user input easily, but perform dual verification on the client and server. Otherwise, serious vulnerabilities may occur, such as cross-site scripting attacks and SQL injection.

Ignore global: Focus on components rather than the entire system

Large development projects are often different parts of applications developed by multiple developers, so developers are easy to focus on individual components. Of course, every small part of an application developed in this way may be safe, but have developers considered the overall security?

Many security problems arise not from components, but only when data and processes flow from one part of the business process to another. Developers generally assume a part of a business process, and generally do not understand other parts of the business process. This lack of awareness can lead to insecure data transmission, which can expose data to various attacks and threats, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, data integrity problems, and information leakage.

It is essential for developers to have a systematic view of Enterprise Business Services. Only in this way can they understand how all components work together and how to ensure the security of the merged applications.