Web Development and Data Encryption: Securing User Data

When you're running an online business, having a secure web presence is a fundamental requirement. If your web app has security holes, you're leaving the back door open for those hackers you always hear about in the news.

Before you deploy your web app on a web server and make it public (letting it face all kinds of cyber attacks), you need to ensure it's super safe so you don't risk your and your customer's sensitive information.

Here's a daunting fact: Over half of all consumers have experienced a cybercrime first-hand, and one in three have become victims within the past year.

As a business owner, you don't want your customers to be a part of these statistics—that'll destroy your reputation.

Your architects, developers, and database administrators are the people responsible for building secure web apps, with testers also playing a significant role.

Every one of them knows that our security measures should be peer-reviewed and tick all the boxes with industry best practices. If someone is telling you to do the opposite, it should raise some concerns.

Here are some top tips and the industry best practices you, your developers, and everyone on your team should be following to protect you from getting your brand image (you've worked so hard to build) ripped into pieces:

Understand Your Data: Protect and Encrypt It

One of the most vital principles every web developer needs to consider is grasping the vital data that needs safeguarding and encryption.

Most of the information stored away in databases is plain and easily accessible, wide open for anyone to have a peek at.

But sensitive data that's worth keeping hidden (your user information, for example) should be encrypted within the database. The cost of storing encrypted data isn't too much, anyway—most new versions of database systems have built-in encryption features.

Now, to consider the kind of data you should be keeping a close eye on, make sure you're encrypting and securing things like user IDs, email addresses, passwords, social security numbers, and dates of birth. You should also encrypt credit card details, password hint answers, private chat and messages, banking info, and financial records, among other things, to ensure data privacy.

Apply double encryption for sensitive data like passwords, credit card info, social security, and anything else you consider valuable. Hashing is the best way to protect passwords and other sensitive data.

Hashing is a method or procedure for mapping keys and their corresponding values into a hash table using a hash function.

This simple step is all part of the application's framework and how you design the database, and it doesn't require much of an effort.

Strengthen Cybersecurity with Python

Python is a high-level object-oriented programming language that is easy to learn and understand. It also offers an extensive library of modules and packages for data analysis, machine learning, and automation. Combined with Python's simplicity, it allows you to rapidly develop scripts. As such, Python is an excellent choice for cybersecurity.

On top of that, Python lets cybersecurity professionals focus on improving defense by automating memory management. Its automatic garbage collector helps manage memory, reducing risks of error.

The best thing is that Python integrates well with other cybersecurity tools and technologies. So you don't have to worry about it being not compatible with the tools you already use. There is a high chance that it is.

Here are a couple of ways you can use Python for cybersecurity:

• Leverage Python's robust libraries to identify vulnerabilities. It will allow you to detect suspicious activities and weaknesses in the source code.
• Use libraries like Cryptography and pyJWT for data encryption and user authentication. You can also use libraries like Django and Flask to prevent remote code execution, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting.
• Use Python to automate reconnaissance in penetration testing. You can use libraries like BeautifulSoup or Shodan to collect emails, IP addresses, and open ports.
• You can use libraries like Pandas and Elasticsearch to automate log processing, effectively facilitating security log analysis.
• Use Nmap or Masscan to do automatic scans and results analysis for network security.
• Use machine learning technologies to prevent threats before they arise. It will allow you to detect malicious activities like phishing attacks and attempts to put malware into your system.
• Build custom tools for incident response and forensics analysis. You can use scripts to extract and analyze digital evidence. Then, the investigators can use tools like Matplotlib to interpret the findings.

Encrypt Website with HTTPS

These days, it's essential to have HTTPS on a website. It helps users transact without worrying about data loss, increases their trust, and stops those annoying browser warnings and alerts. To get it done:

• Sign in to your hosting and add an SSL certificate.
• Install the certificate.
• After installing the SSL certificate, restart your server via the menu.
• Keep an eye on certificates – they last about a year or up to 27 months. Make sure they're valid, and your servers are secure.

Excluding Embedded SQL

Embedded SQL queries in your code could open the door to dodgy hackers. Go for a stored procedure or some encrypted queries to give the hackers a hard time.

And if SQL queries are a part of your presentation layer code, you'd better shift them over to your server-side code. But if you're only creating the UI layer, make sure to transfer the data through secure APIs.

Securing Credentials

The usual practice among developers is to store their database server credentials in config files. But no matter what, you should always encrypt database servers and other server connections. Don’t straight-up hardcode server credentials if possible.

And if you really need to hardcode the credentials into your code, make sure they're encrypted and store the private/public keys in a safe and secure spot.

Require Complex Passwords

The term "complexity" when talking about passwords refers to how tough they are for potential attackers to crack. Here are a few tips that developers need to follow to create strong, complex passwords:

• Set a minimum 8-character password length
• You must have at least one capital letter, one lowercase, a digit, and some special character in your password.
• Don't use names or user IDs in your password.
• Don't use old passwords again.
• Make sure you have to change your password, say, every 60 days in sensitive systems.
• When resetting a password, it should have some security questions or give them a PIN by email or phone check.
• Hashing is the top technique to keep your passwords safe—no one can read your password. If you want to change the password, it uses security questions and clues. And it doesn't send old passwords in emails—that's a big no-no.

Additionally, using trustworthy password managers can make it easier to generate and store complex passwords securely. They not only save time but also ensure that your credentials remain safe and easily accessible when needed.

Implement Fit Authentication and Authorization

Broken Authentication is a significant concern in web app security, as per the OWASP Web Application guidelines. When apps mess up their authentication and session variables, you're literally rolling out the red carpet for hackers, who can pinch passwords, keys, and other precious credentials cached in sessions.

Here are a few ways to stop these broken authentication attacks:

• Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to verify who's trying to log in. You can send them a One-Time Password (OTP) via text or email. This will keep the hackers from pulling off brute force attacks, stuffing credentials, and reusing stolen logins.
• Tell your users to stop using easy-to-guess passwords by making them throw in a mix of lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and special characters when they create their passwords. Best follow the NIST 800-63 B's rules in section 5.1.1 for secret passwords.
• Don't let them have too many tries at login—cap it at three or a max of five tries. If you detect suspicious activity—a brute force attack, credential stuffing, or any other funny business, alert the system admin.
• Make sure your credential recovery, registration, and API pathways don't expose vulnerabilities to account enumeration attacks. Use the same message for all of them to be on the safe side.
• After users log in, create new session IDs with high randomness. Remember, don't let the session IDs be there in the URL, and invalidate them after they log out.

Keep Web Server Secure

The Web Server is responsible for hosting your website and everything that goes with it—the code, the services, and everything you need.

Here's a list of tips you need to follow to keep your Web and Database servers as safe as possible:

• Always go for the best and the most secure web hosting you can find. Losing your data in a hacker attack can be an absolute nightmare, and even a little security hiccup can lead to a breach. That's not just a headache; it can hit the wallet and tarnish a business's good name, which might put a damper on future sales. When businesses go for secure web hosting, they can keep these risks at bay and keep their data safe.
• Make sure you have separate environments for development, staging, and production.
• Keep different logins and their permissions sorted out based on what they're meant to do.
• Ensure tight security on the Web Server, covering permissions and access.
• Give the Operating System its own partition on the hard drive.
• Keep your web application, scripts, and all the code on a separate hard drive.
• Install a Firewall and all the essential security products.
• Make sure to allocate and separate the right resources for web apps and services.
• No sharing servers with other businesses; that's just not the go.
• And don't let anyone mess with the server's file system—no write permissions allowed.

Wrapping Up

Server admin blokes should educate web admins, devs, and even the management on the actual value of the security. They need to discourage the habit of constantly downloading and changing things. And remember, every tweak made to the servers needs to be logged, reviewed, and approved.

Considering the potential for cyber attacks aimed at web apps, be ready and have a solid web app security plan to prevent these threats from causing significant damage to your business and its web apps.

With these key security measures for your web application, you can rest easy knowing you're well protected against most cyberattacks that could harm your web app and its users.