Hacking a website has become a very simple task to perform. People with bare hacking skills are able to sabotage the security of the poorly protected websites and this can be for money, recognition or for sheer fun. The constant manipulation overflow is effecting the in-built protection mechanisms in modern operating systems.

There are many advanced hacking techniques and mechanisms which can cause huge security breaches. As the number of techniques like XSS and SQL injection techniques which will counter these attacks grow, the number of hacking techniques and hacking mechanisms are increasing as well which is not a very good sign for the IT security industry.

The hacking techniques and mechanisms usually lead to:

• Denied Authentication of User Access
• Confidential User Information can be Stolen Very Easily
• The Service will be Denied Unwantedly
• The Site will be Crashed
• Data will be Encrypted… and many more

 

Automated solutions like vulnerability scanner or vulnerability testing can detect different types of Web Vulnerabilities. Even though a lot of progress has been made in the scanning techniques since last decade, there are still a lot of loopholes in detecting these vulnerabilities of web. This is because the SMEs do not have either time or the budget to deal with such scenarios related to their website security or skills to identify them. There are a huge number of companies in the market today who sell and resell their products and solutions in this specific area. Not surprisingly, many SMEs are either confused or speechless by a variety of technologies available.

Many IT companies today claim that they are the experts in the security domain by performing various security techniques to safeguard the company’s sensitive information but all that which is being done is not sufficient as the hackers keep inventing new hacking techniques every single day. All the attacks on the security is stopping companies from delivering the most effective products and solutions to the companies.

Such scenarios are even continuing in large companies and corporates as maintaining proper security measures has always been a worse nightmare for them. For example, if a corporate website is hacked for any good reason, then it can be very disastrous as it directly or indirectly hits the corporate reputation and a clear breach will be visible to everyone which in turn can create a media buzz flaming the social media and social networks. The main reasons effecting the corporate security breach can be confused hierarchy, Infrastructure complexities, lack of knowledge on security measures and integrating technologies from different vendors without having a proper awareness and knowledge about those technologies of different vendors.

Today, many large companies or corporates are facing issues related to maintaining the security departments as they need to manage huge interconnected networks all the time. Though all the corporate companies maintain huge IT Security budget, they don’t often spend on security testing or security auditing. Another problem faced by these companies is that they have pressure from the Top management and shareholders who will only be concerned about the cash flow and the timely deliverables which perform very well. The companies will also be worried about their budgetary constraints. There is also a danger of the companies not realizing the fact that if they release their web applications in the market without performing proper security testing on it, then it will be a heavy loss for them in every way afterwards. This is the main reason why there should be an independent security testing integrated in every phase of Software Development life-Cycle (SDLC) so that things brighten up and proceed in a better way.

Ultimately, there is a huge ongoing increase in the number of security attacks on different types of websites. To counter these attacks, many new techniques, rules and regulations come up but they do not serve the purpose until and unless the IT security professionals and all the people involved also take these rules very seriously. It is advisable that if there is an equal contribution from every developer from junior level to high level, then there will be certainly a better change in countering all these security attacks, hacking attacks and the related attacks. So the website security assessment should be involved in every phase of the development before we release an independent website.

To know more about ClicTest’s Security Testing, please  write to us at info@clictest.com.