So, Web application attacks are increasing day-by-day.
Meanwhile, we are living in the age of advanced science and technologies. Our life has become entirely depended on a computer, smartphones, and the internet. Our communication system has improved and gone too far. We do a lot of things via computer, smartphone, social media and so on. We communicate with each other via email and instant messengers. Even our home appliances are getting connected to the PC or phone. We can control them via computer or phone through the internet. Nowadays, we are getting into the web for our daily personal work. Isn’t it?
We spend most of our times on the web. Other than social media activities, we send emails, we prepare documents on Google docs, we do our instant accounting-based calculations on Google calculator, we use cloud storage to keep the backup of important files, we use maps and check weather updates. These are web-based or web application. We can do many important things by web apps. But there are something we need to worry about. Web application attacks are the thing you should get worried about. You are sure that you know how to use all of the applications you have? Are you really sure you know how to surf the web safely? Get yourself into the internet security tips first!
What is Web Application Attacks?
As it has been mentioned that, we do tons of famous works on the internet. Web applications are making our way easier to do so. But, some threats are lying on the way. Even the number of threats are increasing every year. Web apps are getting vulnerable by the application layer which is very hard to defend. This layer is also the most open kind of the world and must have the accessibility over the port 80(for HTTP) and port 443(for HTTPS). Exposed and open web application can be attacked by the cyber attackers even if there is a defense firewall or any other prevention system.
There are some common web application attacks. In this article, we are going to talk about those attacks. Those attacks were reported by OWASP, otherwise known as Open web application security project. OWASP is a non-profit organization that shares latest information about web securities. So, let’s see:
Injection Attack
Injection is the most famous and popular web app attack to date. It will let the attacker to modify the back-end statement of command through an unusual user input. Back in 2014, SQL Injection attack first came to the spotlight that was responsible for 8.1% of data breaches. It was so acute that, it has become third most used cyber attack after malware and distributed DDoS (denial of service) attacks.
Broken Authentication and Session Management
Broken authentication is the another type of web application attack that allows attackers to bypass the authentication method that is used by any application. An attacker can steal the user account or data through this attack. Once the attack is successful, the attacker can easily control the victim and their account.
Cross Site Scripting
Cross-site scripting is also very dangerous attack. It is such kind of vulnerability that allows attacker enter a JavaScript in a trusted web page. By this trick, an attacker can easily alter the content of a web page. Let’s say for an example; the attacker could send the user’s credential data to some bad server. An attacker can send a text-based evil script that can exploit the interpreter of the website.
Insecure Direct Object References
Another vicious attack that allows attackers to obtain all the data from the server via file manipulation process. The attacker can easily change the parameter of value that directly refers to the system object to another object the user is not even aware of.
Security Configuration
Places in top 5, this is another most vicious kind of attack you can ever experience. This critical flaw deals with the severe misconfiguration of a server or even application. Attackers can gain easy access and access unused pages, unpatched flaws or unprotected files to the system that can be completely vulnerable later.
Data Exposure
This category deals with the weakness or data security or lack of data encryption in transport through the web. Is your web application securing any of your sensitive and confidential data such as credit card number If not then an attacker can easily steal or modify the data and can conduct credit card fraud or identity theft.
Missing Function Level Access Control
This category deals with the situation where a highly-privileged functionality can be hidden from an unauthenticated user. Any person with network access can send a request to your application. It allows attackers to access unauthorized functionality. This attack is easily detectable, but it is tough to find the affected URLs or functions.
CSRF or Cross-Site Request Forgery
Although, it’s a very tricky attack. It allows attackers to trick any users to perform anything which is out of their knowledge. An attacker can steal money online from someone’s bank account. Attacker prepares a forged HTTP request and tricks the victims. One can easily detect this attack via penetration test and code analysis. However, only expert programmer can catch this.
Using Vulnerable Components
As long as It is about using unpatched third-party components. Attackers can easily identify the weak and vulnerable components through manual analysis and scanning. Sometimes, it gets harder to detect this attack because many developers are not even aware of the components they are using. Component dependency is the worst side of this attack.
Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
Attackers basically use this vulnerability to initiate phishing attack. Firstly, they trick the victim into navigating to the malicious site. Attackers can even manipulate the URLs of an authorized site to redirect to an unvalidated or unauthorized site. You can easily detect unchecked redirects. However, it’s little bit tough sometimes to distinguish unchecked forwards.
So, this article covers all the noticeable and top web application attacks you can ever experience. Now you can prevent those attacks too. These are very dangerous enough to make your things vulnerable. All you need is to be very careful and alert. And how can you be careful and alert? By following the cyber security tips.
Lastly, I hope this entire article will be very helpful enough for the one who is looking forward to knowing about web application attacks.
Enjoy.