The web is a dangerous place where attackers can eavesdrop on traffic, redirect visitors to malicious sites and steal data or hold a website hostage (ransomware). It’s also possible for attackers to target the server or network with DDoS attacks that slow down or even take down websites. A variety of threats can be mitigated by the use of a robust and comprehensive website security solution.
A secure web gateway (SWG) is a powerful tool that monitors, inspects and filters all web traffic entering or leaving an organization’s IT domain. It enables an IT administrator to define security policies to block or allow specific content, applications or actions based on the risk level. An SWG can protect a site or web application from a range of cyber threats including SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), directory traversal, unauthorized login attempts and cookie manipulation.
Keeping Software Updated
Web servers, CMS platforms and other applications used to run and manage a website require frequent updates to patch vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attacks of opportunity. This includes third party extensible components such as plugins and themes used to extend the functionality of a CMS. This activity is best performed as part of an ongoing vulnerability management program.
Using HTTPS: This simple but effective measure encrypts all data exchanged between a web browser and the web server, making it much more difficult for unauthorized individuals to intercept data during transmission. This can be combined with other measures such as URL filtering and security standards like CSP to thwart a wide variety of code injection attacks.
Data Loss Prevention: Exfiltration of sensitive or proprietary information from a website can carry significant costs for an organization. A good web security solution will sanitize and check all data coming from the browser, including parameters of GET and POST requests, cookies, header information and user-uploaded files.
Malicious bots are a significant threat that can cause DDoS attacks, harvest credentials and execute other malicious activities. A good web security solution will identify these bots and block them from accessing a website. It should also offer multi-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of protection by requiring the user to provide an additional verification code such as a code sent to a mobile phone. It’s important to note that no matter how well you configure your web environment, it’s critical to maintain a backup of all data in a separate location to ensure that the data is recoverable in case of a malware attack or other unexpected event. This can be accomplished with a centralized backup system or by using a cloud-based service that offers a full backup of all your web and application data on a regular basis. This will enable you to recover from any data loss or corruption caused by an attack or hardware failure in a very short period of time.
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