Building Secure Web Applications: Best Practices

Over the past few years, businesses from all over the world have become increasingly reliant on the use of web applications in order to deliver their services. At the same time, the occurrence of cyberattacks has also increased significantly, particularly targeting different web applications. Some of the common web application vulnerabilities include cross-site scripting or XSS, SQL injection, cross-site request forgery or CSRF, path traversal, and remote file inclusion.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the best practices when it comes to building secure web applications.

What are the best practices when it comes to building secure web applications?

When the talk of the hour is building secure web applications, here are some of the best practices that you should always keep up with.

Always check your policies and processes

To ensure a secure web application development, it is crucial to have a proper web security strategy planned as an inherent part of your wider cybersecurity strategy. This includes adopting a cybersecurity framework. 

While you can create an efficient cybersecurity framework on your own, it is wise to begin with already existing industry standard frameworks such as:

• ISO 27001- These include guidelines from ISO for Information Security Management Systems.

• NIST- At the moment, this is the most widely adopted framework when it comes to cybersecurity planning in large organisations and establishments. 

• CIS Controls- It is a framework by the Center of Internet Security for effective cyber defence, which has been designed to safeguard websites and enterprises from the most common cybersecurity threats.

• ASVS- Lastly, it is a basis for testing web applications' technical security controls and provides a list of requirements ensuring secure development.

It is also very crucial to audit your web assets. A neglected web asset can often prove to be a gateway for hackers to inject their codes into your system and access your entire database.

Auditing your whole system, even if you have only a handful of applications at the present moment, can be extremely beneficial. If there are unused web assets, you should consider deleting them altogether. If you can't delete unused assets, make sure that they are inaccessible to unauthorized users.

Automating and integrating security software and tools

Although cybersecurity threats are growing at a rapid pace, we now have access to web application development security programs. These include several automation tools and solutions to assist in keeping your web applications safe and protected at all times. 

The key to prohibiting the most distributed, overwhelming threats to your web application is to identify bot traffic within an automated tool. You shouldn't have to depend just on manual scanning, evaluation, and security, among other things, even if manual testing still have their advantages.

Moreover, today's cybersecurity solutions are designed to be integrated with one another. For instance, high-end automated vulnerability scanners can integrate with CI/CD solutions and other issue trackers. 

Any advanced bot detection system can automatically detect and block malicious bot activities, besides integrating with your SIEM/SOC tools, your server logs, and any other relevant application that reads HTTPS request headers.

Some of the proven advantages of automating your web application security are as follows:

• Manual processes can often bring about the risk of human errors. So, theoretically, when you automate everything, your system becomes much more secure.

• Automation and integration mean that you can detect and eliminate issues beforehand, thereby preventing permanent losses and damages.

• Integration among security tools and other solutions generally means that both IT security managers and developers won't have to spend a lot of time learning and using different solutions catering to web application security purposes.

Updating software and systems to counter vulnerabilities

No software or system developed by any web app development company is 100% perfect. There will always be security vulnerabilities. Hence, whenever there's an update for any system or software, especially a security-related patch, you should update it right away. 

Yes, updating your software to the latest version may often break something here and there, but when compared to having a hacker attacking your system, this is a justified risk. You can always stay ensured that every known vulnerability has been addressed with a security patch.

Whenever the software developer breaks something with a patch, they'll take responsibility for releasing a fix right away. However, when your system gets breached because you have left software unpatched, it becomes your sole risk. 

Inspecting incoming traffic in real time 

Some of the most common and effective ways when it comes to inspecting and controlling traffic to your web application are as follows:

• Monitor your system logs and alerts on a regular basis and check for suspicious activities.

• Make use of automated network monitoring and inspection tools to check what's happening on your web application and what the traffic comprises.

• Setting up a Web Application Firewall and configuring the right policies according to the threats you've been facing and what all you need to allow. Also, beware of the limitations of your WAF.

• Today's web application assaults are often caused by sophisticated bots, which may be detected and secured using an advanced bot detection tool.
  
  

Encrypting data and web traffic channels

It is important to realise that no matter how many security solutions you've placed and all that you're doing to protect your web application, it will never be 100% safe. As an additional layer of security, it's essential to make use of strong encryption for all your data. 

This way, even when an attacker successfully steals your data, they will not be able to make use of this stolen information. 

Furthermore, make sure that all your communication channels have been encrypted properly, preferably via the usage of an SSL certificate/HTTPS for your website. 

Final Words 

Maintaining a secure web application should be a collective effort of your whole team, not just yours individually. You can start by defining a plan to detect vulnerabilities, followed by setting your priorities and fixing these vulnerabilities to prohibit attempts of attacks. Additionally, you may keep up a regular monitoring plan by keeping an eye on your security logs and activity trends.