This is beneficial to an application, because a valid input cannot contain malicious data and can be further processed easily. Unfortunately, obtaining such a mindset requires a lot of learning from a developer. Every application is built using some server side language, client side language, database or no database, etc. Each component used could be the source of opening a security vulnerability in your application and server. For example, using an outdated version of Struts Framework can lead to a user exploiting remote code execution on it, or an older version of PHP leading to the same consequence. Similar is the case for databases and every other component which is used to build an application.
So you don’t have to write one from scratch and then get it security tested. It is better to use industry tested regular expressions than writing one on your own (which in most cases will be flawed). In the next section OWASP Proactive Controls Lessons you will see how input validation can secure an application. Combining input validation with data encoding can solve many problems of malicious input and safeguard the application and its users from attackers.
Top 10 Proactive Controls
Authentication and identity are two components of accessing any kind of information that goes hand-in-hand. Access control should by default deny all requests which are from a user for a resource for which either access is restricted or an authorized entry has not been made. Her identity is known to Bob, so he allows her to enter her home (if she was not known to Bob then entry would have been denied, aka authentication failure).
When it comes to software, developers are often set up to lose the security game. But ProActive Controls should not be looked upon as the only set of controls for application security. It is a good place to start developing skills and knowledge leading to continuous learning and habitual secure coding practices. Data encoding helps to protect a user from different types of attacks like injection and XSS. Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is the most popular and common vulnerability in Web applications of smallest to biggest vendors with a Web presence or in their products. Web applications take user input and use it for further processing and storing in the database when ever needed.
OWASP Proactive Control 10 — handle all errors and exceptions
Stored XSS are those XSS which get stored on a sever like in a SQL database. Some part of the application fetches that information from the database and sends it to the user without properly encoding it. It then leads to malicious code being executed by the browser on the client side. Stored XSS can be carried out in public forums to conduct mass user exploitation. Performing a simple SQLi attack in the username field will manipulate the SQL query, and an authentication bypass can take place.
This document was written by developers for developers to assist those new to secure development. The OWASP top 10 of proactive controls aims to lower this learning curve. This session gives an overview of 10 common security problems, and how to address them. We will go over numerous security anti-patterns and their secure counterparts.
Implement Security Logging and Monitoring¶
So before starting any application development, it should be made clear what components can or may lead to a vulnerable application in the present or near future. All security details, such as application features, modules, database details, modules functioning and security implementation in modules should be mentioned in an application. It should be defined that all secure coding practices in any application should be implemented at the time of development. To stop a SQLi vulnerability, developers must prevent untrusted input from being interpreted as a part of a SQL query. It will lead to an attacker not being able to manipulate the SQL logic implemented on the server side.