Website Security
How to Secure & Protect Your Website Website security can be a complex (or even confusing) topic in an ever-evolving landscape. This guide is meant to provide a clearidea for website owners seeking to mitigate risk and apply security principles to their web properties.
Before we get started, it’s important to keep in mind that security is never a set-it-and-forge-it solution. Instead, we encourage you to think of it as a continuous process that requires constant assessment to reduce the overall risk.
By applying a systematic approach to website security, we can think of it as an onion, with many layers of defense all coming together to form one piece. We need to view website security holistically and approach it with a defense in depth strategy.
What is Website Security? Website security is the measures taken to secure a website from cyberattacks.
Why is Website Security Important? Website security is important because nobody wants to have a hacked website.
There are various goals when hacking websites, but the main ones are:
- Exploiting site visitors.
- Stealing information stored on the server.
- Tricking bots and crawlers (black-hat SEO).
- Abusing server resources.
- Pure hooliganism (defacement).
Website Vulnerabilities & Threats
SQL Injections SQL injection attacks are done by injecting malicious code in a vulnerable SQL query. They rely on an attacker adding a specially crafted request within the message sent by the website to the database.
A successful attack will alter the database query in such a way that it will return the information desired by the attacker, instead of the information the website expected. SQL injections can even modify or add malicious information to the database.
Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
Cross-site scripting attacks consist of injecting malicious client-side scripts into a website and using the website as a propagation method.
The danger behind XSS is that it allows an attacker to inject content into a website and modify how it is displayed, forcing a victim’s browser to execute the code provided by the attacker when loading the page. If a logged in site administrator loads the code, the script will be executed with their level of privilege, which could potentially lead to site takeover.
Credential Brute Force Attacks
Gaining access to a website’s admin area, control panel or even to the SFTP server is one of the most common vectors used to compromise websites. The process is very simple; the attackers basically program a script to try multiple combinations of usernames and passwords until it finds one that works.
Website Malware Infections & Attacks
Using some of the previous security issues as a means to gain unauthorized access to a website, attackers can then:
Inject SEO spam on the page Drop a backdoor to maintain access Collect visitor information or credit card data Run exploits on the server to escalate access level Use visitors’ computers to mine cryptocurrencies Store botnets command & control scripts Show unwanted ads, redirect visitors to scam sites Host malicious downloads Launch attacks against other sites
DoS/DDoS Attacks
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a non-intrusive internet attack. It is made to take down the targeted website or slow it down by flooding the network, server or application with fake traffic.
DDoS attacks are threats that website owners must familiarize themselves with as they are a critical piece of the security landscape. When a DDoS attack targets a vulnerable resource-intensive endpoint, even a tiny amount of traffic is enough for the attack to be successful.
Airzero Sec check all these issues and make a report and suggest solutions for you to keep your website secure