Web application security threats are a raging issue for developers and users. Attackers come up with new ways to breach the security leaving websites vulnerable. The primary aim of these security threats is to access the user’s or the website’s sensitive data that can be leveraged for money or used for higher-level thefts and frauds.
Therefore, being aware of these risks and strengthening the security of the web is crucial. Here are some of the common security breaches you need to be familiar with.
Broken Authentication
In this risk, the authentication and session management tokens are not implemented properly. This can lead to accessing sensitive data or even misusing the privileges that come with the user’s ID. These schemes can be highly-targeted for a specific individual’s data or for accessing sensitive data in general. By 2020, broken authentication was one of the top two worst security breaches.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
It is a type of injection-based attack that can be initiated from the client-side. Here the hackers can inject a piece of code into the web application. Eventually, that piece of malicious code will be executed on the browser of the user.
An XSS breach in the web application security can lead to redirecting to malicious websites, manipulation of websites, and even stealing of the session credentials.
Injection Attacks
Some of the common injection attacks are SQL injections, email header injections, code injections, host injections, and more. In these attacks, the websites accept input from a different field without any proper verification. These attacks lead to a breach of database security and misuse of admin rights.
Security Misconfiguration
It is one of the most common threats to web application security. In this threat, administrators and developers often forget or neglect to change the default settings. In an attempt to provide an easy user experience, these default settings are kept unchanged which leads to exploitations of these settings Some of the default settings include usernames, passwords, and IDs.
Insecure Direct Object References (IDOR)
In this type of attack on application security, the URL of a website is manipulated. An attacker can get access to the database from other users. By editing the URL, an attacker can access sensitive information like the database without requiring the necessary authorization.
Missing Function Level Access Control
Now this threat and IDOR may seem like the same thing. However, the crucial difference between the two is that Missing Function Level Access Control gives an attacker access to features and functions that are not accessible to any common user of that website. And in IDOR, the attacker can access the database.
Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
We are redirected to a different website almost always when we visit one website. This threat in application security occurs when the redirect is done to a non-credible website. Redirects to untrustworthy websites also become a gateway for URL-based attacks. Moreover, the malicious sites themselves can be phishing sites or contain malware that could affect the user.
So, these were some of the common security risks we need to watch out for to maintain web application security. Prevention is better than cure, and on those lines, it is better to secure your website from these threats in the developmental stages of the website itself rather than working on the damage control later.