When it’s time to get to the security portion of web development, the headaches can come fast associated with it can get brutal. Thankfully, there are some tools and services available to us that can make our lives exponentially easier by taking out a ton of the legwork for us.
Long gone are the days where we have to pine over our own coding or go through the process of intense server setup (or reading through book after book of protection measures), as the following types of tools are now readily available whenever we might need them. Let’s plunge right into it:
Data Defense
Defending from exploits that compromise the data of your users, clients and yourself should be the utmost priority when developing a site and web apps. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a great place to start looking into the various threats out there. And, to protect your and your clients’ sites against the notorious OWASP Top 10 and SANS standards, Checkmarx has your needs covered and then some.
Protection from Site-Wide Attacks
Beyond ensuring data is well protected, some online attacks can come through forced shutdowns, scraping, content management system vulnerabilities (i.e. through WordPress or Joomla! loopholes), or brute-force entry. Multi-layered firewalls like Fireblade are a necessity when defending against these kinds of actions and become increasingly important as a site’s user base and popularity grow.
Discovering Vulnerabilities
There are quite a collection of vulnerabilities testing tools and services available online that range from web application testing to code analysis. For most intents and purposes, tools like Websecurify and Paros can handle the testing side of that equation while Checkmarx is wonderful when verifying the programming itself.
However, what is even more important than whatever tools you choose for testing is that you conduct as many tests as you possibly can. Test the security of your site(s) until your fingertips bleed, then do a few dozen more tests.
Going Above and Beyond
So, for most of us, this might seem like going “above and beyond,” but if you’re working on the security for a large corporation, Cenzic and its $26,000 price tag might be shrugged off somewhat easily. Still, its web-based software is all hosted online, which allows for testing from anywhere in the world. This program allows the testing active and apps that’re currently processing, and it displays real-time tracking of all integrated security systems. Still, if you’re not sure the tools are what your company needs (they probably are), you can request a free demo to try it out before investing the price of a new sedan.
So there you have it, a quick brief and some key points on how to get just a tad safer when dealing with web development and maintaining your online asset secure. There’s no good reason why not to do it (securing yourself), with the array of tools and services at your disposal nowadays!
