Everyone is affected by a possible security breach, from large consumer portal sites to government agencies. Your site is affected too and without proper security measures it is exposed to serious attacks. Unprotected web application can be easily manipulated enabling hackers to access and sabotage corporate and customer data.

Web based applications are in wide use nowadays. CRM solutions, Content Management Systems (CMS) and database driven websites have become common in the corporation of today.

The benefits of e-business are obvious – enhancement of supply chain operations, more efficient customer relationship management, corporate communication and data exchange.

However, all web applications you run are linked to computer systems that contain security weaknesses. Possible security threats lurk in application design (source code), system configuration and software/hardware versions you are using.

The risks include security breaches, data access for unauthorized users, data theft, data loss and serious misuse of your systems.

Therefore a successful implementation of those systems cannot be achieved without a consistent approach to the Web Application Security.

Everyone is affected by a possible security breach, from large consumer portal sites to government agencies. Your site is affected too and without proper security measures it is exposed to serious attacks. Unprotected web application can be easily manipulated enabling hackers to access and sabotage corporate and customer data.

Management errors that affect IT security

An increasing number of businesses that use web based solutions and applications is targeted by hackers wanting to gain access to confidential information or sabotage corporate networks. It should be clearly stated here, that conventional security measures are ineffective and insufficient when it comes to securing web based environments.

Common management errors are:

• Bad software design,

• Underestimating of a potential problem,

• Failing to realise the financial costs of a potential attack,

• Assigning unskilled and untrained staff to maintain security,

• Relying on short-term fixes, so problems keep re-occurring,

• Relying on unreliable security measures such as passwords or firewalls,

• Pretending the problem will go away.

Hackers are always one step ahead

Malicious people are always on the lookout for new ways to attack your network and to compromise your web application's security. Most hackers exploit security holes generated by common programming errors that inexperienced programmers do or when an application wasn't tested for vulnerabilities. Also preconfigured, “out of the box” software solutions leave gaping security holes hackers can easily take advantage of.

It is therefore vital to test application available on the web for vulnerabilities. Otherwise you may experience serious security breaches and your data will be exposed to malicious users.

Exploiting an unsecured web application is easy

Hackers often find ways to attack extremely easy. It's astonishing how a web application, e.g. an e-commerce site, can be vulnerable to an attack. Buffer overflow attacks, SQL injections, code injections have become so common and they are so easy to conduct on a misconfigured application, that ignoring the security problem can be disastrous for your business.