How Does Web Application Security Affect Me?

Web Applications are compromised daily and nowcompany lose trust in the security of the company and
account for the majority of vulnerabilities on thestart taking their business elsewhere. The company
Internet.then starts losing revenue and the customers begin to
Website weaknesses are a major way that cyberfind that their credit cards are being charged illegally.
criminals, working with hacking techniques, can stealThe credit card companies are involved and are losing
sensitive data. With this data, nefarious crooks canmoney as well. Nobody is immune to these website
affect companies and individuals alike; there is littleattacks, whether its large company or one individual.
distinction between Fortune 500 Companies and anAs programmers design web applications to be more
end user with a credit card. They often just follow theaccessible and easy to use, often these features are
path of least resistance.targets for crime groups to attack. Programmers must
Online data theft is not a game. While some hackersprotect their applications by following secure coding
will brag about having breached the security of a webpractices to filter out any attacks and create a safe
application and gained access to sensitive data, theplace for their clients customers to do business.
criminals have money, not bragging rights in theirOne of the major ways hackers breach a web
cross-hairs. Extortion is sometimes the name of theapplication are through SQL injection attacks. SQL
game. If data can be held at ransom by thieves,injection attacks can be used to access sensitive data
depending on how sensitive the data is, they canor do any number of destructive things to the data
demand a huge sum of money.stored in the web application's database. Cross-site
The ways that companies and individuals are affectedscripting attacks are also prevalent. This attack occurs
by web application attacks are numerous. Imagine thiswhen malicious code is inserted and executed when a
"what if" situation. A large Fortune 500 company isuser loads an infected page. Denial of service attacks
attacked by an orchestrated attack and the creditare also popular. This happens when the network
card numbers are taken and held at ransom by anhosting a website is swamped with useless requests
organized crime group. Word gets out and the Fortunesent out by the criminals which creates so much traffic
500 company under goes a huge investigation andthat the network or system crashes.
security audit. The clients and customers of theIt's a wild world out there...