Website Security Tests Protect Against Application Vulnerabilities

More than four out of every five (85 percent) U.S.6. Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling
businesses have experienced a data breach,7. Broken Authentication and Session Management
according to a recent study by Colchester,8. Insecure Cryptographic Storage
Conn.-based law firm Scott + Scott, putting millions of9. Insecure Communications
consumers' Social Security numbers and other10. Failure to Restrict URL Access
sensitive information in the hands of criminals.Web Application Security Consortium Most Common
If a website's server and applications are notVulnerabilities Report
protected from security vulnerabilities, identities, creditThe Web Application Security Consortium (Wasc)
card information, and billions of dollars are at risk.reported the top five web application vulnerabilities by
Unfortunately, firewalls do not provide enoughtesting 31,373 sites.
protection.According to the Gartner Group, "97% of the over
Firewalls, ids, ips Are Not Enough300 web sites audited were found vulnerable to web
Attackers are well-aware of the valuable informationapplication attack," and "75% of the cyber attacks
accessible through Web applications, and theirtoday are at the application level."
attempts to get at it are often unwittingly assisted byWeb application vulnerability assessment
several important factors. Conscientious organizationsFrom the information above it's clear that most
carefully protect their perimeters with intrusione-commerce websites are wide open to attack and
detection systems and firewalls, but these firewallseasy victims when targeted. Intruders need only to
must keep ports 80 and 443 (ssl) open to conductexploit a single vulnerability.
online business. These ports represent open doors toA web application scanner, which protects applications
attackers, who have figured out thousands of ways toand servers from hackers, must provide an automated
penetrate Web applications.internet security service that searches for software
Network firewalls are designed to secure the internalvulnerabilities within web applications.
network perimeter, leaving organizations vulnerable toA web application scan should crawl the entire
various application attacks. Intrusion Prevention andwebsite, analyze in-depth each & every file, and
Detection Systems (ids/ips) do not provide thoroughdisplay the entire website structure. The scanner has
analysis of packet contents. Applications without anto perform an automatic audit for common network
added layer of protection increase the risk of harmfulsecurity vulnerabilities while launching a series of
attacks and extreme vulnerabilities.simulated web attacks. Web Security Seal and free
Extreme Vulnerabilitiestrial should be available.
In the past, security breaches occurred at the networkA web application vulnerability Assessment should
level of the corporate systems. Today, hackers areexecute continuous dynamic tests combined with
manipulating web applications inside the corporatesimulation web-application attacks during the scanning
firewall. This entry enables them to access sensitiveprocess.
corporate and customer data. The standard securityThe web application scanner must have a continually
measures for protecting network traffic do not protectupdated service database. A website security test
against web application level attacks.should identify the security vulnerabilities and
Owasp's Top 10 Web Application Securityrecommend the optimally matched solution.
Vulnerabilities 2007The vulnerability check has to deliver an executive
Open Web Application Security Project (Owasp), ansummary report to management and a detailed report
organization that focuses on improving the security ofto the technical teams with the severity levels of each
application software, has put together a list of the topvulnerability.
10 web application security vulnerabilities.It is recommended that the detailed report include an
1. Cross Site Scripting (xss)in-depth technical explanation of each vulnerability as
2. Injection Flawswell as appropriate recommendations. The website
3. Malicious File Executionsecurity test will conduct subsequent vulnerability scans
4. Insecure Direct Object Referenceand generate trend analysis reports that allow the
5. Cross Site Request Forgery (Csrf)customer to compare tests and track progress.