What are Web Application Security Best Practices?

Web application security refers to the policies, practices and tooling organizations use to protect their web applications from malicious activity or attacks. Ensuring adequate security measures and solutions are in place can help to prevent costly breaches or reputational damages. The following provides best practices for keeping web applications secure. 

Why good web application security matters

Web applications process and store sensitive data like customer information, payment credentials, and proprietary business data. Hackers use SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and misconfigured APIs to gain access to an application. An unsecured web application could result in the loss of sensitive data, downtime or ‘broken’ apps. Even worse, this then results in decreased web traffic, lost sales, loss of customer trust, fines, and reputational damage. 

Failure to implement good web application security practices results in:

• Data Breaches. Unauthorized access can lead to identity theft and financial fraud.

• Operational Downtime. Attacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) can render applications unusable, disrupting business operations.

• Regulatory Penalties. Failing to comply with GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and others can result in heavy fines.

Loss of Customer Trust. Security lapses can irreparably damage a brand's reputation.

A proactive approach to web app security is therefore critical, helping to not only safeguard the business but also foster consumer trust and confidence. 

Web application security best practices

By implementing web application security best practices within your broader security program, you can avoid the negative consequences listed above. At a minimum, a good web app strategy should include the following practices: 

Enable HTTPS

Securing all web traffic with SSL/TLS encryption protects data in transit and prevents man-in-the-middle attacks. It should be a best practice to always redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS. HTTPS is a secure HTTP protocol to transmit data over the internet. Enabling HTTPS on your website or application helps to protect against data interception.

Implement Web Application Firewalls (WAFs)

A WAF is a security tool that monitors and filters incoming traffic to a website, blocking malicious traffic and allowing legitimate traffic to pass through to the origin. A WAF filters and monitors HTTP traffic, blocking malicious requests before they hit your application.

Implement a DDoS solution

DDoS Mitigation solutions use a network of servers in multiple locations to absorb and filter DDoS traffic before reaching the targeted website or network.

Enforce Strong Authentication and Access Controls

You should implement multi-factor authentication, following the principle of least privilege (PoLP) so users only access what’s necessary, and regularly audit user roles and permissions to see if any changes are needed. 

Use strong, unique passwords for all accounts associated with your website and applications to prevent unauthorized access.

Regularly Patch and Update Software

Outdated frameworks, libraries, and CMS plugins often contain known vulnerabilities. Automate updates or schedule regular patch cycles.

Also, keep software and plugins up to date - outdated software and plugins can contain vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. Keeping your website’s software and plugins up to date ensures you patch known vulnerabilities.

Have an incident response plan in place

Have an incident response plan in place to detect and quickly respond to security breaches and help limit costly fallout. 

Validate and sanitize all inputs

Protect against SQL injection, XSS, and command injection by using parameterized queries, escaping outputs, and implementing input validation.

Use Secure Session Management

It is a good practice to set short session lifetimes for sensitive activities. You should also regenerate session IDs after a user logs in, and secure cookies with the HttpOnly and Secure flags.

Monitor and Log Security Events

Monitoring and logging activity on your website will help you identify suspicious activity. You should track and analyze logs for any suspicious activity, failed login attempts, and unusual patterns. It can help to integrate with a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) tool to get real-time alerts.

Perform regular vulnerability scanning

By regularly scanning for vulnerabilities, you can identify and address potential security issues before attackers exploit them.

Conduct Regular Penetration Testing

Pen testing can help you identify vulnerabilities in the same way a malicious actor would. You can hire ethical hackers or use automated tools to simulate attacks and identify weaknesses before real attackers exploit them.

Follow Secure Development Practices

You should ensure your security program follows secure development practices. Basics include training your developers on OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, implementing security throughout your software development lifecycle ( integrating security checks into CI/CD pipelines), and using secure coding standards.  Having guidelines for designing and building applications and web properties is also critical. Teams should perform regular code reviews to identify and fix vulnerabilities before releasing code.

Conduct regular Training

It is very important to regularly train employees about security best practices to help to prevent accidental security breaches. 

How Fastly can help

Fastly’s WAF and DDoS offerings can help you implement or enhance your web application security program. 

Fastly's Next-Gen WAF is designed from the ground up with security best practices in mind. As the world's largest global edge cloud platform, it sits within milliseconds of users worldwide. This strategic positioning allows Fastly to protect websites and applications faster than traditional WAFs. Inspecting traffic close to end users quickly limits the level of threats that can penetrate, helping to block attacks before they ever reach the origin servers.

Among its key benefits, Fastly's Next-Gen WAF provides:

• Comprehensive protection: Fastly detects and blocks the OWASP Top 10 web application vulnerabilities and custom threats you define through simple rules.

• Rapid response times: With its global network of POPs, Fastly's Next-Gen WAF ensures ultra-low latency inspection for exceptional user experience, even during attacks.

• Flexible configuration: You can customize rules, response pages, and more via Fastly's user-friendly interface without relying on lengthy change windows.

• Real-time analytics: Thanks to Fastly's dashboard and API for proactive issue identification, you benefit from valuable insights into traffic and security events.

• Seamless integration: Fastly's Next-Gen WAF works transparently with its CDN and edge computing services for unified security, performance, and delivery capabilities.

Fastly's cloud-based DDoS protection solution directly resolves each of these concerns. The key benefits of Fastly’s DDoS Protection include the following:

• Lowers Costs: Fastly offers cost-effective DDoS protection, which is included with its CDN services. 

• Flexible payment options:  Let you choose the package suited to your needs, with unlimited overage protection. Consolidating with a single vendor for security, CDN, and edge cloud services is the more affordable choice.

• Simplifies Complexity: Fastly's solution requires no complex setup or manual tuning on your side. The network automatically absorbs layer 3/4 attacks, while the next-gen WAF seamlessly handles Layer 7 threats.

• Reduces False Positives: Fastly's advanced SmartParse detection engine accurately classifies requests while minimizing the false positives that could block real users.

• Continuously Evolves: Fastly enhances detection and mitigation based on solid intelligence, letting you stay ahead of evolving global attack trends, such as the recent Reset attacks.

• Resource Efficient: Fastly's massive 336 Tbsp network has a built-in capacity to absorb even extraordinary attacks without performance impacts. Automated edge mitigation also reduces the origin load. 

You can learn more about Fastly’s security offerings here.