Why?
Why Dynamic Scanning?
Dynamic Scanning is today a necessity of all web-based applications, this will help to give an idea of what security level this meet.
If a web-based application have a vulnerability, it may at worst end up with a hacker that gains administrative access to the server where the web-based application or database server is running.
What?
What is Dynamic Scanning?
Dynamic scanning is scanning a web-based application in the production environment it lives in, that means dynamic scanning not only scans for errors in the web application but also scans for errors in web server, firewall and everything that surrounds that web-based application.
Dynamic Scanning should be done every time a new release of the Web-based application or after each update of the web server, the server (operating system), the database server, firewall, IDS / IPS, as the new release may contain new bugs, or misconfiguration.
How?
How does Dynamic Scanning work?
Dynamic Scanning is done by a program that communicates with the Web-based application through the web front-end in order to identify potential security vulnerabilities in the web application and architectural weaknesses.
Dynamic scanning can be done in several ways, but most Dynamic Scanners can run as an automatic process that looks for vulnerabilities by sending attacks, and this can be up to several thousand attacks on for each web-based application.
What if?
What if Dynamic Scanning?
It's never too late to perform a dynamic scanning of a Web-based solution, it is always better to know how it looks than to face a large data loss because you did not know that there were vulnerabilities.
Dynamic scanning is usually not something that takes several hours (there are many factors that are important here) and once this is complete the results of the scan will give a clear picture of how the security status of the web application is.
Arama Consult recommends all its customers to Dynamic scan their web-based solutions on a regular basis, since it is impossible to predict when a new vulnerability find its way into the web-based solution whether this is introduced via an update in the production environment, or if there is a new way to attack / exploit the environment.
Here is a list of different Dynamic Scanning solutions:
What?
What is Application Security?
Application Security is several things. For a web-based application it could be dynamic, static scanning and access control to name just a few, but it's always a good idea to have as many layers as possible as this can help to prevent any data loss.
Why?
Why Application Security?
In today's world it is necessary to think about Application Security to protect the Data that is important to any company.
Application Security should always be documented from the development phase to the final version in production, only in this way can a high level of security be in place.
How?
How to obtain Application Security?
Application Security can be achieved in many different ways, but the most used for web-based applications are static and dynamic scanning solutions.
Any supplier of applications should have static scanning done on all their products, as this can be used as documentation for the end customer that the software they buy is coded with security as a high priority.
What if?
What if Application Security?
It's never too late to think of Application Security, as this should always be in focus, the more secure the applications that are used in the company on a daily basis is the better.
There is always a reason to think of Application Security, because the entire company livelihood could be at stake, or if it's just corporate reputation, so it can all be measured on the bottom line, and in most cases it will be expensive to rectify the vulnerability than it would have been to find and fix it at the beginning.
Arama Consult recommends all its customers to demand more of their software supplier whether the application is self-developed or provided by 3rd party, there should always be evidence of the software's security level, as it is ultimately the customer's business being compromised if it should turn out that there are vulnerabilities in the application.
What?
What is OWASP?
OWASP stands for Open Web Application Security Project.
OWASP is a worldwide non-profit organization focused on improving the security of software, their mission is to make software security more visible.
Everyone can participate in OWASP and all their material is free and under open software license. You can find everything about OWASP here. OWASP does not endorse or recommend commercial products or services.
Why?
Why OWASP?
OWASP has for many years been the place for many people around the world who all share a common interest, namely software security.
OWASP has many different projects which all have one thing in common and that is to improve security in software no matter where or how this is developed, this can only be achieved due to all the people who are behind.
How?
How to use OWASP?
OWASP has developed many good tools to help improve security in the software, among them include OpenSAMM, TOP 10, ESAPI and ASVs.
OWASP has with, among other things, OWASP TOP 10 made it possible to see the 10 most used attack methods against Web-based solutions on a world plan, they have created this list from the data they collect from businesses worldwide, and this list is then updated every two to three years.
Who?
Who should use OWASP?
All companies that have focused on Data Security should know of OWASP.
OWASP covers many areas of Data Security, but if a company has a Web-based solution (even if this is just a website) it should be checked for the existence of vulnerabilities in the OWASP TOP 10 list.
Arama Consult has chosen to have focus on the OWASP TOP 10 since we help many of our clients find and correct errors in web-based solutions, thus we have chosen to have the latest Top 10 lists on our website.
Arama Consult has chosen to list OWASP TOP 10 lists from 2007, 2010 and 2013. We have created a table with the developments over the past years.
Here you can find the information for OWASP TOP 10 2007.
Remember that the list below is from 2007, and that is not valid any more, and that all software developed before could be vulnerable to the below vulnerabilities.
Security is not a one-time performance, already in 2008, much of this list was outdated, and therefore all programs should be checked regularly to see if they are vulnerable to new errors or attack methods.
Following is the TOP 10 list from 2007:
| A1 - Cross Site Scripting (XSS) | XSS flaws occur whenever an application takes user supplied data and sends it to a web browser without first validating or encoding that content. XSS allows attackers to execute script in the victim's browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, possibly introduce worms, etc. |
| A2 - Injection Flaws | Injection flaws, particularly SQL injection, are common in web applications. Injection occurs when user-supplied data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker's hostile data tricks the interpreter into executing unintended commands or changing data. |
| A3 - Malicious File Execution | Code vulnerable to remote file inclusion (RFI) allows attackers to include hostile code and data, resulting in devastating attacks, such as total server compromise. Malicious file execution attacks affect PHP, XML and any framework which accepts filenames or files from users. |
| A4 - Insecure Direct Object Reference | A direct object reference occurs when a developer exposes a reference to an internal implementation object, such as a file, directory, database record, or key, as a URL or form parameter. Attackers can manipulate those references to access other objects without authorization. |
| A5 - Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) | A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim's browser to send a pre-authenticated request to a vulnerable web application, which then forces the victim's browser to perform a hostile action to the benefit of the attacker. CSRF can be as powerful as the web application that it attacks. |
| A6 - Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling | Applications can unintentionally leak information about their configuration, internal workings, or violate privacy through a variety of application problems. Attackers use this weakness to steal sensitive data, or conduct more serious attacks. |
| A7 - Broken Authentication and Session Management | Account credentials and session tokens are often not properly protected. Attackers compromise passwords, keys, or authentication tokens to assume other users' identities. |
| A8 - Insecure Cryptographic Storage | Web applications rarely use cryptographic functions properly to protect data and credentials. Attackers use weakly protected data to conduct identity theft and other crimes, such as credit card fraud. |
| A9 - Insecure Communications | Applications frequently fail to encrypt network traffic when it is necessary to protect sensitive communications. |
| A10 - Failure to Restrict URL Access | Frequently, an application only protects sensitive functionality by preventing the display of links or URLs to unauthorized users. Attackers can use this weakness to access and perform unauthorized operations by accessing those URLs directly. |
As shown in the above list there are some not so appropriate error that may be contributing to the website / web-based solution is vulnerable to hacker attacks, and thus a potential data loss from this hacker attacks, therefore Arama Consult recommends all of its customers as a minimum to live up to the OWASP TOP 10 on all their web-based solutions.
What?
What is SIEM?
SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management.
SIEM is a Log Management solution that aims to gather log information from as many sources as possible in order to create an overview.
SIEM solutions can be configured to collect Log data from both hardware and software, and in this way to keep track of what happened when and where, and what data was accessed. This may be log information from a web server, a firewall and a switch, and in this way gather information about a possible attack and to make it more manageable to take decisions, or to keep track of a possible attack on the company's website, and might find it before the attacker does damage.
Why?
Why is a SIEM solution necessary?
A SIEM solution is a good way to create a quick overview of what is happening on your servers, applications and hardware by collecting log information from all of them in one place, and make this searchable.
A really good SIEM solution can help to detect an attack in time, when it is analyzing the log data in real time, thus stopping a potential data loss.
How?
How does a SIEM solution work?
A SIEM solution works by collecting all the log information from the different log sources and converting it into a common log format, and then indexing this data.
A good SIEM solution will also look for know attack patterns in the logs, and based on this raise an alarm so the security responsible personnel can take action on an attack before the attacker does any harm to the company's data.
Who?
Who should use a SIEM solution?
Any company with several servers, services and hardware solutions should look at an SIEM solution to get a central overview about what is happening on these.
If a company want to protect it Data it should consider a good SIEM solution to help in the protection of their Data, and then their costumers and their revenue.
Today a good SIEM solution is able to track a users movement through the entire company, whether this is through IT logging into a computer and from that accessing another computer or physical checkpoints with access cards, and show this users movements in an easy way with the relevant information, and if this user is trying to gain access to information he or she should not have access to raise an alarm.