The snag with websites is that they are openly exposed to millions of users, a good number of whom are malicious. Consequently, any security measures applied to protect sites can never be relied on for too long.
For every milestone achieved in cybersecurity, there is always a counter-milestone being experimented by cybercriminals. Notably, with almost every business today striving to establish an online footprint, cybercriminals are working round the clock to identify businesses with security loopholes on their websites.
Unraveled in the subsequent paragraphs are common website security threats and their prevention mechanisms.
1) Injection attacks
Injection attacks are the oldest and most dangerous type of security threats to web applications. The attacks rely on supplying malicious input to applications or webpages. Inevitably, the malicious input gets interpreted as a command or a query, which in turn forces a website to do what it was not supposed to do.
There are several types of injection attacks, including:
- SQL injection
- Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
- Code injection’
- CRLF injection
- Email header injection
- Host header injection
- XPath injection
How to prevent injection attacks
Some of the countermeasures that web developers can implement to mitigate injection attacks include:
- Implementing the best coding practices throughout the coding cycle such as avoiding external interpreters where possible
- Carefully and rigorously validate user-generated input
- Run regular system audits to detect and correct vulnerabilities
- Limit user privileges to what is required to perform a function
2) Cross-site scripting
XSS, which is a type of injection attack, differs from most web security that in that it targets the user instead of the web application. The attacker sends a malicious script to an unsuspecting end user. The malicious code then executes inside the user’s browser, giving the attacker the ability to masquerade as a genuine user and take advantage of user privileges. There are three types of XSS attacks which include Reflected, Stored, and DoM based XSS.
How to prevent cross-site scripting
Sanitization of input is the best-recommended guard against cross-site scripting. Before outputting data received as input, your website should always check for malicious code.
3) DoS and DDoS attacks
If your favorite site, especially one that relies on being online as a major financial source such as an online store, is down; then there is a high probability that the site is suffering DoS and DDoS attacks.
A Denial of Service attack floods the target URL with more requests than the server can handle. Consequently, making a website unavailable to its users. On the other hand, a Distributed Denial of Service is a DoS attack that simultaneously originates from more than one source.
How to prevent DoS and DDoS attacks
Some standard preventive measures against DoS and DDoS attacks include:
- Building redundancy in your network infrastructure such as by distributing your servers across multiple data centers
- Investing in network monitoring tools to proactively detect unusual traffic
- Deploy DoS and DDoS protection appliance
- Leverage the cloud which offers more bandwidth
4) SEO spam
SEO spam is majorly targeted at high ranking sites. Hackers gain access to a victim’s website by taking advantage of existing gaps, such as weak passwords. After which they use the high-ranking victim’s website to promote their products.
In a bid to promote their products, hackers usually use one or a combination of the following tactics:
- Spam keywords insertions which stuff their keywords all over your site
- Spam link injections which redirect visitors to other websites of their choice
- Creating new pages to pages to promote their products on your site
- Spam emails which are sent out to your customers to promote their products
- Displaying ads and banners to promote their products on your platform
How to prevent spam attacks
- Set up Google email alerts covering your site’s health
- Monitor new links through investing in link monitoring tools
- Monitor keyword rankings and website traffic
- Keep track and protect your best backlinks
In all the above cases, it’s best to work towards prevention beforehand than to clear up the problem later on. Consider spending good money at regular intervals each year on a professional website development company, which you hire to act solely upon detection and implementing preventative measures to secure your data. The longer your websites and online services have gone without these checks, the greater the risk of a breach increases.