Securing Web Applications and API Security

About Web applications and API

You might not think the below topic is interesting if you aren’t a developer or haven’t studied how a web application works or how a web application is developed. If you are a security professional, you should be aware of the following topics. You can refer to the following videos as a reference to learn more about web applications.

Every web application usually offers an API interface to interact with the application and add it to your application.

In the old days, the web application was deployed on a single server that contained all the components in one place like front-end web services, back-end database, load balancer, web application firewall, and CDN.

As web applications have evolved and are more often deployed in cloud environments, modern web applications still contain all these components, however as separate services.

The authentication methods for these web applications are changed from legacy user names and passwords to OAuth.

The 5 best practices for procuring and securing the application are given below

• Cloud-agnostic solutions are those that can easily be migrated to different clouds from the current cloud environment, such as Azure to AWS, or to Google Cloud.
• Priority-based risk management means once you understand the application and data and assets involved, you need to protect the application resources and assets based on their criticality and asset values. Risk profiling is the way to move forward with this.
• There will be vulnerabilities in Web applications. These can be noticed in real-time during production or by performing a static vulnerability analysis of the code of the application. Security testing is critical at each stage of the development lifecycle, as well as during and after deployment, as well as when deploying security solutions.
• Use multiple layers of defense, like using the Web application firewall, protecting the API code and database, etc…
• Use security tools at each stage of API development and deployment, including securing and scanning application code, images, analysis of access permissions, configuration, and code management.