What Is Web Application Security And Its Importance

With more and more businesses growing more reliant on web applications for various business operations, more cybercriminals are now targeting these web applications to steal sensitive data as well as other malicious intents.

This is why web application security is now a vital consideration for any business running web applications, particularly for web applications that are developed to process sensitive data and critical business resources.

Here, we will discuss all you need to know about web application security and let us start from the basics.

What is Web Application Security

A web application is a computer program of software that runs on a web server and will execute the programmed function directly on the web browser, unlike traditional software that is run locally on the device’s OS and so users won’t need any software installation on their devices to run this application–only their web browsers.

Web application security, on the other hand, is an effort or initiative to address the vulnerabilities and security issues surrounding web applications, including the security of the websites and mobile APIs. Web application security attempts to secure the web application so that it’s secure enough to protect sensitive data and maintain reliable uptime.

Web applications, like all software, contain defects and potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. This is where web application security comes in to defend the web application and the system from such vulnerabilities.

Web application security essentially involves leveraging secure application development practices and implementing security measures throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC), however, it will also involve some web application security best practices, as we will discuss below.

Web Application Security Best Practices

1.    Regularly Perform Threat Assessment

The first thing you should do is to track your assets: which servers you are using for specific functions, which APIs are in your web apps, and other elements that might need protecting.

Once you have a list of these assets, you can start figuring out what threats to each specific asset are, and how to mitigate them.

You should answer key questions such as:

• Do you have any existing security measures in place to detect or prevent an attack?
• What are potential vulnerabilities hackers could exploit to breach your web application?
• Would you need more tools to secure your apps?

Identifying your risks is a core part of your web application security strategy, and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

2.    Invest In a Bot Management Solution

Many cybersecurity threats targeting web applications make use of bots, and so it’s very important to have a proper bot management solution in place that can effectively detect and manage malicious bot activities.

However, nowadays an advanced, AI-powered bot management solution is required to tackle two challenges of today’s bot management practices:

• Besides the malicious, bad bots, there are good bots that are potentially beneficial for your website and your business. We wouldn’t want to accidentally block these good bots, for example, Google’s bot that will index your website and allows it to rank on Google’s SERP.
• Today’s bot programmers are getting more sophisticated at programming their bot to mask its identity. Sophisticated bots are getting better at impersonating humanlike behaviors like visiting other pages before executing their objectives, performing non-linear mouse movements, and so on, and they can also use various technologies like rotating between hundreds of different IP addresses to bypass detection measures.

3.   Update Everything Regularly

Make sure to update your OS and your software with the latest version. Updates, especially security patches, are there for a reason, and you wouldn’t want to get your sensitive data breached by hackers just because you forgot to update one of your APIs or software.

Turn on automatic updates whenever possible, and if not, the best practice is to update everything as soon as those updates are available.

End Words

Maintaining a secure web application should be a collective effort of your whole team. Start by defining a plan to find vulnerabilities, set your priorities, and fixing these vulnerabilities to stop attack attempts. Also, maintain a regular monitoring schedule by checking your security logs and activity patterns.

A real-time bot detection solution can also help in detecting hacking attempts as early as possible, which in turn can be very effective in preventing various web application attacks