This article tries to address the security-related concerns of the owners of websites or applications by providing them with a quick recap of the most common security troubles that can plague their sites or applications.
According to the PHP developers, most of the companies are not wary of the security threats or breaches that can trouble their sites, until it actually happens. It is mainly because there are innumerable types of security issues, most of which are obscure and for which it is difficult for the website owners itself to understand what’s going on with their site and whether it is affected.
While a maximum number of companies partner with their website development companies to find PHP developers to fix up all security issues, an effective approach to prevent a threat to arise is being proactive and act with precaution. So, here this article tried helping them a bit to know what can go wrong with the security of their websites and how to avoid them.
#1 Broken Authentication
This problem stems out a number of security issues. Some are URL with a session Id (that can be leaked to the referer headers), non-encrypted passwords, predictable session Ids, the possibility of session fixation and hijacking. The best way to avoid these is to use a top-notch framework of PHP, like Laravel, CodeIgniter, Symfony or Zend. Built with inherent security features, it helps to avoid these issues.
#2 Data exposure
The security of the website lies entirely in safeguarding and securing its data. Sensitive data like user personal credentials (login details), financial information (used for checkouts) and passwords must be encrypted so as to prevent being leaked while in transit. Using HTTPs for websites and authorised payment processors like Braintree, Authorize.Net or Stripe will help in the protecting data.
#3 Injection mistakes
To avoid entry of any unauthentic input, all kinds of injection flaws need to be avoided. Injection flaws result in passing away of unfiltered data to any browser or SQL server and those can easily be recognised and used by the hackers to inject breaches command. Best ways to avoid injection flaws is to modifying and authenticating the user input into the SQL query and using of prepared statements.
#4 Unvalidated redirects
This too is an issue related to input filtering. Putting up redirect module on the target site that considers any URL as “Get” parameter. It means anyone can manipulate the parameter to produce a URL on the target site which will redirect the users to a malware installation link. To avoid these, owners need to totally avoid redirects or know exactly the valid locations for redirecting.
#5 Cross-site scripting
XSS is a grave security vulnerability that targets the scripts on the pages that are in the client-side instead of the server side. Client-side vulnerability means the user browser is at stake and the actual problem arises when the web application in a data, which may be from an untrusted source and then transmit it to the browser. Key recommendations to check XSS are whitelisting of the input fields and encoding of input-output.
These points might now help all the owners who spend countless hours knowing what went wrong with their websites and applications. While the conventional way always is to hire a dedicated PHP developer who has inherent knowledge in fixing the security breaks, knowing these in advance can give the owners an added advantage.
Jonathan Paul is one of the best PHP developers in Australia, working for PHPProgrammers for more than 7 years, a reputed company offering versatile digital web solutions to businesses and provide PHP developers for hire at reasonable quotations. With a rich background on PHP and web security, he has worked on some of the leading projects that were quite challenging in terms of database security.