Data breaches alone can cost companies millions of dollars. Even if you’re a small business, data breaches and other security issues can cause major problems.
Website security should be at the forefront of any business owner’s mind. Looking for security vulnerabilities and fixing them before someone exploits them is the best approach.
You might not even be aware that you’re facing a serious vulnerability, but we’re here to help. Continue reading this article to learn more about website security and how to protect against attacks and other problems.
- Injection Issues
In the case of an injection problem, the attacker alters backend SQL statements. They do this by injecting their own commands where other commands are supposed to go.
Unless you are receiving things from a trusted source, you should not allow it to come through without filtering it. The best way to do this is by using a whitelist to let things that you trust go by.
You might have heard of using a blacklist to keep the bad guys out, but that’s rarely a good strategy.
Keeping the unwanted information and attacks away from your website is pretty simple if you filter everything. When you see something that doesn’t belong, make sure to block it, and you’re good to go.
If you want to make sure important information gets through, you need to create an exhaustive whitelist. If you don’t, you might find yourself missing key information because it got filtered accidentally.
It’s better to have less come through than needed, however. If you even fail to keep out one attack, you’re putting everything at risk.
- Lack of Security Setting Updates
When you’re learning how to make WordPress site secure, one of the key things many people overlook is updating their security settings. If you leave your security settings at the default setting, you might not get the security you need.
The first thing you need to do is personalize your security by changing the passwords and authentications. If you leave these at the default, anyone that had access to the site before can easily enter and do whatever they please.
Some of the things people commonly leave in place are such things as default passwords, leaving the directory listing enabled on the server, letting unnecessary services run on the machine, and even failing to fix errors that are showing up.
- Cross Site Scripting
Cross site scripting is also known as XSS, and these vulnerabilities target scripts that are embedded in pages that execute on the client-side browser vs. on the server end of things.
The people making the attack can use it to put malicious scripts on the browser, and it will execute. This means the attacker can hijack session cookies, redirect the user to other websites than the one they are viewing and more.
When this happens, the user might not even notice their browser is acting up. They may even think they hit a wrong button, but the damage is already done in many cases, which is why it is important to have a secure website.
- Insecure Direct Object References
When a developer exposes a reference to something like a file, the attacker is able to use the information to get into other objects. They may create a future attack to get into unauthorized data.
To make sure these types of things don’t happen, you need to use access control checks and keep from exposing object references in URLs. Whenever there’s a reference to objects, make sure to verify authorization.
Dealing with a security vulnerability like this can be a major hassle, so making sure to secure your website against them before they happen is the best course of action.
- Insecure Cryptographic Storage
Insecure cryptographic storage is a common website security issue. The reason it happens is because sensitive data isn’t stored securely as it should be.
Examples of this information are credit card data, profile information, health details, and other similar things. If they aren’t secured properly, attackers can easily get into the information and cause problems.
Storing the data improperly by not using encryption makes it vulnerable to people with bad intentions.
- Insufficient Transport Layer Protection
The problem here is with the information exchange between the user and the server. Applications often send sensitive information over a network. If you use weak algorithms or fail to use SSL, it can leave communication exposed to untrusted users.
This may compromise a web application and even steal sensitive information. Always make sure to use SSL or another way to make information transportation safe for everyone involved.
Check to see how your data sent over your network is taken care of and make sure everything is done properly.
- Broken Authentication
There are multiple problems that take place during broken authentication, and they all have different causes.
Some of the causes might be because the URL has the session ID, which might lead to a leak in the referer header. The encryption might be a problem because of storage issues or transit.
Failing to use SSL is still one of the biggest reasons for this problem. Remember—always use SSL vs. HTTP.
The easiest way to keep this problem from happening is to use a framework. Don’t try to roll your own code because there are a lot of things that can go wrong here.
Security Vulnerabilities Be Gone
Now you know more about the common website security vulnerabilities. As you can see, they are very serious, and if you don’t take care of them right away, they can cause short-term and long-term problems for your business.
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