Today we will discuss website security tips for website developers. No matter how strong your development skills are, having a web security checklist is vital. It is common for web professionals to pay more attention to design, functionality, and other immediate concerns. However, if your top-level solutions are not secure, you will have a hard time keeping clients.
With the ever-increasing threat of hackers online, web security has become a hotter topic than ever. This is why you will want to provide secure authentication and encrypt all connections along with other best practices in your web development project.
In this post, we’ll share a web security checklist for developers to help foolproof your apps. However, we’ll first take a quick look at why security should be a top priority. Let’s start!
Why is web security development important?
It is estimated that every 39 seconds a cyber attack occurs somewhere on the Internet. What’s more, nearly 68 percent of business leaders believe their cybersecurity risks are increasing. When malicious software infects a website, it can easily collect data or even hijack all of its computer resources.
In other words, attackers can gain access to the sensitive data of both existing and new site visitors. Besides stealing their data, automated hacking tools can also infect computers. With thousands of new malware being created every day, you need to be at the top of your game to keep your site – and your clients – constantly protected.
The financial impact of web attacks is also significant. It is generally more expensive to clean up a site than it is to keep online assets safe. Since a lot of user information is at risk during a cyber attack, companies can lose huge amounts of money in the process.
In fact, the cost of a data breach now exceeds 20 percent of a business’s revenue on average. It is also believed that cybercrime will cost the world nearly $6 trillion by 2021. Even if you can control the financial and technical damage caused by a cyber attack, your customer base will still be negatively affected.
On average, it takes about 314 days for a data breach to be fully contained. Your site could be down for most of this time and your customer loyalty and credibility will take a significant hit. Some organizations lose 20 percent of their customer base in the process.
With all these important factors at stake, it becomes imperative to pay close attention to and protect your projects. Consider the standard web security checklist we recommend you follow to maintain a solid ship.
A Web Security Checklist for Web Developers (5 points)
Building your clients’ websites with security in mind will save you, your clients, and the end users of their sites a lot of trouble. Here are 5 points of the web security checklist that can help you keep your projects secure.
1. Select a Secure Web Host
The security of your website and applications starts with your web host. Having a secure project is almost impossible unless your provider uses hardened servers and properly managed services.
When choosing a web host, it’s important to compare your options based on how well they manage their servers and what tools they offer to secure your projects. While it’s almost impossible to guarantee 100 percent, a secure provider will typically provide the following:
- Secure operating systems (OS) and software
- Reliable backup and restore functionality
- Support for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol
- Industry-standard uptime
- Malware scanning and protection
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack mitigation
- Firewall implementation
Usually, web hosts list SSL certificates as one of their main offerings. This feature is important for encrypting the connection between your website’s server and visitors’ browsers. Another feature that your web host must include is the ability to scan for malware.
For e-commerce site owners, it’s important to consider your web host’s compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards. It protects customer information for all types of card payments. If your host doesn’t support it directly, it must be compatible with other third-party providers of PCI-compliant shopping cart APIs.
2. Encrypt all connections and secure your user logins
Once you’ve chosen a secure web host, the next point you need to consider is encrypting all your connections. This is especially important for websites that require some form of registration or transaction.
As we’ve already mentioned, using an SSL certificate is a prime place to start. You can make your site even more secure by implementing Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). Securing pages that require authentication should also be a top priority. Include a highly protective password value to require users to register with secure credentials. It’s also important to store passwords on your site using strong encryption. Technologies like ‘bcrpyt’ make password recovery impossible in the event of a data breach.
Similarly, if you have auto-registration enabled on your site, be sure to provide only unique, unique usernames. Other equally important things to consider include OAuth implementations and password reset tokens.
3. Use a Web Application Firewall (WAF)
A WAF is a very powerful tool that can save you and your business a lot of trouble. This is especially useful for detecting and preventing attacks from automated bots. The primary use of firewalls is to monitor Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic, which is significantly more susceptible to security risks than HTTPS traffic. Our ModSecurity firewall and similar tools efficiently mitigate common attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site spoofing, and more.
In short, when you deploy a WAF, a shield is created between your web application and the Internet. Every web client must go through this before reaching the server. A set of pre-defined rules filters malicious traffic and protects sites from vulnerabilities.
4. Secure your database
Another security loophole hackers can easily exploit is website databases. Typically, you need to store a lot of information (about your business and customers) on your web application’s server. However, make sure to save only the data you really need.
Use sensitive data such as credit card details, email addresses, and other identifying information as carefully as possible. It can become costly if mismanaged. As a general rule of thumb, try to encrypt all data that identifies users.
If you or your business is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you’ll want to dedicate time and resources to fully understanding and complying with its requirements. Google lost $57 million in 2019. These principles may apply differently to different web development projects.
5. Try Hacking Yourself
The last box you need to tick on this web security checklist is trying to hack your own project. Since that’s exactly what attackers and their bots aim to do, the best way to stay ahead of them is to try it first. Hacking yourself is a way to self-audit your web applications to see how they fare against common cyber attacks.
Even after testing your own app, you may want to run it by other developers and beta users to explore its functionality beyond general use. You can consult this detailed Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) checklist to see different ways to test your projects.
Conclusion
For every business to be truly profitable on all online platforms, top-notch security is an important factor that must be met. As a web developer, it is your duty to provide this in all your projects.
