The digital world continues to become a crucial part of everybody's life. It has already been adopted by many large financial and business organisations and is now entering smaller work units. As per reports from IDC, more than 70 per cent of the US workforce will be on mobile by 2020.  

Companies are allowing flexible work schedules and variable work conditions to improve productivity where they are cutting down paperwork and manual processes completely.

Mobile and desktops are valuable tools that can provide several services, but sensitive data transaction requires appropriate security features.  

• A report by Positive Technologies claims 48 per cent of the websites are vulnerable to unauthorised entries, and 17 per cent of the websites can be completely taken over where the user entering the system can exploit its features.

• Forty-four per cent of web applications are vulnerable to data leakage and security breaches. The report by the firm found almost all websites faced a kind of vulnerability.

• Government agencies are most susceptible to such attacks, where 43 per cent of the violations are surveillance-based. Still, some notorious organisations are misusing unrepaired vulnerabilities of sites for accessing non–critical data. 

The web applications commit fatal mistakes, which continue to exist as the development process is often adopted through policy-based arrangements. As a result, the websites adhere to regulations and laws but are technically inept. 

Broadly Adopted Defence

Some leading web development aberrations include creating web pages based on in-house or homegrown algorithms. Unfortunately, such systems can create loopholes where one can easily enter the scheme.

It is best advised to use the well-tested, widely adopted defence features. In addition, the website owners should constantly view the user's comments and reviews to enhance security features.

Use common security for all modules. 

The websites where diverse teams are working on complex modules and not using a shared security module for the whole project raise risks of higher vulnerabilities.  

Implementation

Implementation is the most labour-intensive area where the security assessments should be made, and the embedded software composition analysis should be conducted. The web application should recognise the unprotected libraries in the code in the embedded software applications.

Accessibility

The accessibility features should not be distributed to the users, and clear rules for passwords should be set where the authorisation passwords should be stored in the database in an encrypted format.

A proper requirement should be identified where sensitive data collected from the client should be stored in an encrypted format as it can reduce the loss of information in case of a breach.

The websites should not use variables in the URLs, revealing the code and web addresses to download files. 

Training

All associated teams must train on the project where they should be given training about integrating scalability and repeatability into some critical aspects. 

Multiple levels of quality testing for functional aspects and security should be performed, and updates should be maintained to restrict new methods of security hacks.

For more information, contact Mont Digital at www.montdigital.com or email info (@) Montdigital.com.