Web applications have become a critical aspect for businesses to get more things done efficiently. Unfortunately, even in 2022, web technology remains susceptible to threats. As a consequence, IT security teams have to implement countermeasures.

However, by learning how to develop secure web applications for your business, you can reduce security challenges and survive unforeseen circumstances. In this post, we’ll share some of the best practices for secure web application development.

Secure Web Application Development – Best Practices

1.     Consider an Agile Approach to Web Application Security

The agile methodology is rapidly becoming the go-to approach for software development teams. It’s collaborative, quick, and data-driven – all essential factors required to work in small, consumable increments and deliver a secure web application faster.

Therefore, to start your development, you need to build security checks into the process. This can be costly and time-consuming but well worth the effort. Many modern companies use threat modeling at the design phase to help answer questions, such as:

• Are we taking encryption measures to secure data at rest and motion?
• Do we have a strong password policy?
• Is the web application’s input validation consistent?
• Are there multiple layers of security?
• Are we abiding by the Principles of Least Privilege (PoLP)?

2.     Foster Pronoia During the Initial Design Process

It’s easy to become paranoid when it comes to input validation since User Input is no one’s friend. By fostering pronoia, you can consider all input to be hostile until proven otherwise with a positive approach.

Input Validation ensures only authentic deduplicated data passes through the workflow in a web application. This way, it ensures bad or corrupted data gets filtered out before it even becomes a problem in the future. Popular types include:

• Data validation (numeric, text, etc.)
• Data format validation (JSON, XML, etc.)
• Data value validation, etc.

3.     Encrypt Your Web Application Data

Encryption is the process of securing data and valuable information by encoding it, ensuring it’s only accessible by authorized personnel. The process doesn’t interfere with the workflow. Instead, it simply obfuscates the intelligible content from those not authorized to access it.

Encryption has become a common practice in the developing world for protecting sensitive information in rest (database, storage devices, etc.) and transit. When developing a secure application, you need to use powerful algorithms and APIs to keep hackers at bay.

4.     Utilize Exception Management

Another innovative security measure in the modern age is exception management. This measure ensures you never display anything more than just a generic error message in case of downtime or failure. The last thing you want is to give hackers a clue or key to the back door to your database.

Therefore, when developing a web application, revert to rejecting the operation and display a simple, friendly message to the user instead of your code.

5.     Apply Multi-Factor Authentication and Role Management

If your web application contains user accounts, you should implement an effective password management strategy with multi-factor authentication and secure recovery mechanisms. Many services force re-authentication for transactions or access to more sensitive information.

By adopting the principle of minimal privilege from the beginning, you can ensure secure web application development and reduce the chance of an intruder trying to bypass your system. Other options include account lock-outs/timeouts, password expiration, and SSL protection to hide account-related data.

6.     Prevent Security Misconfigurations

Of course, your team would have to be vigilant during configurations to ensure they don’t leave any bread crumbs for hackers to follow. Considering the many options web server management software provide users, there are hundreds of ways you can muck things up, including:

• Leaving files/directories unprotected
• Leaving default or guest accounts on the webserver
• Leaving webserver ports open unnecessarily
• Using obsolete security patches or protocols
• Letting digital certificates expire.

7.     Leverage the Power of HTTPS

One of the main prerequisites of developing a secure web application is having a well-documented process at every stage. However, you also need to employ encryption at the service level as an additional security layer using HTTPS – Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

This technology is used to create an encrypted link between your data server and the browser, ensuring the workflow remains encoded during the transit. Most modern web applications employ this technology today, especially those handling online transactions.

8.     Including Auditing and Data Logging

With the emergence and advancement of content serving systems, it’s become easier to conduct auditing and logging at the server level. Data logs are crucial for recording suspicious activity by providing security teams access to a user’s actions on the application. Logs may also be required for legal disputes and proceedings.

9.     Thorough and Consistent Quality Assurance and Testing

By opting for a powerful third-party penetration testing or vulnerability scanning service, you can cost-effectively amplify your web application’s quality assurance process. It’s smart to take extra caution when possible and outsource some quality assurance processes to specialists to give an objective view of the overall infrastructure.

Conclusion

At Deltalyz, our team of experienced data scientists, developers, and business analysts can help design and develop a secure web application tailored for your business’s brand, products, operations, and user capabilities. We employ all of the practices mentioned here and more to ensure all the security boxes are checked off.

Our solutions are incredibly cost-effective, and we strive to ensure our clients are up to speed with their digital transformation initiatives, whether it’s through business intelligence, revamped digital presence, or enhanced security measures. Feel free to get in touch with our team for more information and a free quote.

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Many of us use this term to describe the digital security of a system or organization against malicious hackers and cybercriminals, which isn’t incorrect. Still, it is so much more than that.

Today, we will discuss cyber security in some detail to give you a comprehensive understanding of the term, what it encompasses, and why it is vital for organizations.

What Is Cyber Security?

Cyber security is an umbrella term for the practice of protecting computers, mobile devices, IT systems, networks, servers, and data from breaches, hacks, cyber threats, and other malicious practices on information technology systems.

For organizations, cyber security intends to defend the integrity and confidentiality of IT systems and data. Cyber security is not limited to the digital realm of cyber threats; it also encompasses real-world, non-cyber occurrences like natural disasters, human errors, and behaviors.

It protects all the digital, electronic, and virtual assets of an organization or system from internal, external cyber threats, and non-cyber threats alike. When we talk about cyber security, we are talking about anything and everything that may affect the integrity of IT systems or data.

Implementing effective and comprehensive cyber security requires the protection of multiple IT systems and data of an organization in a coordinated manner. These systems may be connected or stand-alone systems, including various types like network, mobile, cloud computing, or backup data.

Since cyber security is such a broad term, it has some common and basic subsections that are widely recognized worldwide. Most organizations around the world that use cyber security incorporate some or all of them in their security infrastructure.

They include:

Network Security

Network systems are one of the most vulnerable parts of any organization. Cybercriminals and hackers often use it as an entry point to breach their IT systems. Organizational network systems require protection to ensure the safety of all connected systems.

Software and hardware systems need to work together to prevent hackers, cybercriminals, and software from breaching the network.

Application Security

Application security aims to protect an organization’s software and applications from unauthorized access or modification. This facet of cyber security is based on secure coding, threat modeling, and many other things. However, the most important part of application security starts at the design stage of any application.

Mobile Security

Mobile devices are the most common and basic technology used by people in an organization, and since the global increase in remote working, mobile security is more important than ever. It entails protecting the company and personal data on all the organization’s mobile devices, which includes laptops, smartphones, and other portable devices.

The cyber threats to these mobile devices may include data breaches, malware, or even instances of theft or unintentional loss of devices. Mobile security takes measures to safeguard sensitive data, like implementing strong password protection or maintaining some remote access to these devices.

Cloud Security

Organizations that deploy or use cloud-based technology and services require designing secure applications, architectures, and environment configurations for effective cloud security. This enables them to prevent cyber threats by eliminating external interference, influence, or modification to their cloud systems.

Data Security & Identity Management

The safe storage, transfer, and backup of sensitive information or data come under data security. It may include protecting various types of data for an organization. Identity management ensures that only the organization’s legitimate and authorized individuals, who are allowed access, can access the organization’s information systems and data.

It encompasses all the processes and frameworks that enable the authentication of authorized individuals and protects the organization against identity theft and related security breaches.

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Disaster recovery is an organization’s preparedness to avoid things like natural disasters or successful cyber attacks. It focuses on how organizations will respond to recover from the damage caused to their data, IT systems, and/or operations after a disaster, either physical or digital.

On the other hand, Business Continuity is an organization’s plan about how to continue operating without compromised or damaged data, IT systems, and/or operations once a disaster has occurred.

End-User Education

It is no secret that human error is the most random and common factor that results in more than 90 percent of all cyber security breaches. Even the most secure systems are not safe from the mistakes made by the people in an organization, especially if they are not following cyber security best practices.

Educating the staff and training them about cyber security and its best practices, End-User Education can eliminate most of the cyber threats for an organization by simply reducing human error. More importantly, it can educate and train users to recognize and report cyber threats before they breach or cause damage to the organization.

Why Is Cyber Security So Important?

Except for natural disasters and other environmental occurrences that may disrupt the technology and IT systems of an organization, cyber security protects them against the following forms of cyber threats:

• Cybercrimes: These are cyber threats that include the crimes committed by groups or individuals that want to take advantage by exploiting or disrupting the data or systems of an organization.
• Cyber attacks: These are cyber threats that are typically politically influenced and entail breaching, collecting, or stealing data or technology for exploitation.
• Cyber terrorism: These are cyber threats that are targeted to create panic or instill fear by compromising crucial IT systems of public or private organizations.

These types of cyber threats may come from anywhere in the world at any time. They are a constant concern for most organizations, regardless of their size or industry. What’s worse is that most cyber threats are difficult to track or bring to justice, which is why cyber security is so important.

Cyber security is the best way we know to prevent such cyber threats from crippling organizations around the world. It is crucial in preventing a multitude of threats that include, but are not limited to:

• Online Scams
• Malware
• Ransomware
• Phishing
• Injection Attacks
• Denial of Service Attacks
• Social Engineering
• Many more

Conclusion

Since almost everything in our modern world relies on data, technologies, and IT systems, implementing cyber security and its best practices is more critical than ever. Public and private organizations require some or all of the mentioned subsections of cyber security to prevent cyber threats and avoid disasters.

The realm of cyber security and cyber threats is constantly evolving, and newer, more advanced threats are developed every day. Similarly, cyber security developments are produced and implemented to counter these threats. Learning about them is the first step towards safety and cyber security.

If you want to learn more about cyber security or implement it for your business or organization, please visit our website today.

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