Website Security and Web Application Security

If automated vulnerability scanners caught all security risks, hackers would be out of business and security personnel wouldn't have much to do. In reality, automated vulnerability scanners are only one tool used in the process of identifying and managing security risks.

For many organizations, web applications are a vulnerable element of an organization’s IT infrastructure. As your organization uses the Internet for customer, supplier, employee, and vendor interactions, Internet technologies and database interfaces become complex and require additional security.

Organizations typically have two different choices when it comes to website and web application security audits:

Automated tool assesses web application

• Tend to use tools that find easy to identify vulnerabilities
• Result in false positives (reported items that aren't really security risks)
• Since a person is not manually running the tool, the automated scan may not find the real risks

Knowledgeable security experts perform assessment

• Mimic the approach used by hackers to get into your systems
• Perform a controlled real life attack on your website and web application
• Identify and categorize threats into high, medium, and low priority security risks
• Test vulnerabilities to determine if they are real or false
• Important engagements can include several engineers assigned to find security risks

Automated scans provide little defense against knowledgeable hackers and full scale web attacks. Hackers don’t rely exclusively on automated scanners and neither should you. Experienced professionals using a combination of manual and automated tools give you the best chance at finding your security vulnerabilities.  Skilled professionals can identify risk areas created during the design, programming, installation, and maintenance phases of a software development lifecycle.

Knowledgeable experts can emulate the approach used by hackers, identify risk areas, and make recommendations to secure systems.  With the help of website security audits, organizations can better protect themselves and the sensitive information stored on servers.

Website security assessments help organizations identify, manage, and reduce their risks.

Tags: website security | web site security | penetration test | website security audit