A key takeaway for me was that Application security requires more work that operating system security. This is due to typically a company has many applications and each application has their own vulnerabilities, patching, timing, etc., which makes it challenging to manage. Whereas typically companies only run one or a few operating systems that maintenance is easier to manage.
Hi Jill! I agree that application security requires more work than operating system security. It is very crucial for us to also factor in the three tiers, i.e. the clients (top tier), the back end ( bottom tier), and the application ( middle tier), which form the architecture of a modern application as each tier has its own risks that need to be addressed. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 list mentions critical application threats that are most likely to affect applications in production.
My thoughtful read was on the various assaults that can take place when an application is unsafe. Buffer overflow, login screen bypass, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection are some of these attacks. Buffer overflow attacks entail transmitting code that intentionally exceeds the RAM allotted for the program. Depending on the application, these attacks can either cause the server to crash or let any code to be executed. If the developer doesn’t patch URLs past a login screen that permits anyone to access the site, login screen bypasses may happen. In XSS attacks, the attacker starts with a genuine URL as a base, lengthens it so that victims can’t see the end of it in an email attachment, and the end of the URL runs a script that the attacker can use to carry out a variety of operations. Another type of attack is SQL injection, where SQL code is inserted into a string query that should only accept string inputs.
My analysis from the reading is on adding application level authentication, authorization and auditing. The chapter discusses about minimizing the applications, however, I think practically it is very difficult to limit the use of different applications in large organization. Application authentication can be specific to the application program’s needs, The application program can require its own password with strong complexity or the application program might require a smart card or some other form of strong authentication such as public key authentication. Two-factor authentication is even better.
Hi Aayush! It is indeed difficult to limit the use of applications in large organizations. I think this is where virtualization helps by separating applications on different virtual servers. The operating systems can still be easier to harden by creating a baseline profile and using virtual images where as applications can be separately hardened. Most vulnerable applications can also be isolated from other applications that would have been hosted on the same physical server thus reducing the impact, should one application get compromised.
It is indeed difficult to limit the proliferation of applications in a large organization. In a recent scan off the ~200 users in my office, we found 6 different .pdf reader programs, despite the company paying for a full Adobe pdf suite license for every user and preinstalling it on every workstation. That is in addition to dozens of non-work related programs
Custom applications are software programs created internally by a company’s programmers. Those programmers are not always well-trained in secure coding techniques, the custom applications may be exposed to the security risks. It is possible to reduce those risks by following the rule of never trusting user input and sanitize user input for objectionable content can be done. Organizations can lower the risk of security lapses and safeguard their valuable assets and sensitive data by putting these measures in place.
Hi Sunam,
I agree with you that an organized strategy can help to reduce the security concerns connected to custom apps. Security flaws can be greatly reduced by using secure coding methods and providing developers with secure coding training. Businesses need to realize that the security of their applications is just as crucial as the security of their networks and equipment. Organizations may make sure that their custom applications are as safe as feasible by putting procedures like thorough testing and code review in place. The importance of giving application security top priority within firms is rising as technology develops.
The idea of application security was one of the things that I learned from this week’s reading. Hardening the host takes less time and effort than securing the application. Thus there would be numerous users within a business using various programs. Since so many programs run with root capabilities, if an attacker can access those programs, they will have easy access to the host. The application is susceptible to a variety of attacks, including cross-site scripting, stack overflow, and buffer overflow.
Application security is essential in today’s world, and I totally concur with you on that. It is crucial to ensure that all applications utilized within a business are well-secured due to the rising amount of cyber threats. End-users frequently fail to see the significance of application security, leaving them open to a variety of assaults, which is a huge problem for security professionals.
You raised great points Frank. Here are some on the actions firms must take to ensure that their applications are difficult to attack:
-Minimize the permissions of applications
-Add application layer authentication, authorizations, and auditing
-Create secure application program configurations
A key takeaway was that applications security actually requires more work than operating system hardening because clients and servers run multiple applications. Each application can be about as difficult to harden as an operating system. Many applications run with root (super user privileges), so taking them over gives the attacker total control of the host. Breaking in by taking over applications is the dominant hacking vector today.
Buffer overflow is one of the most widespread application vulnerabilities. When an application is executed, the operating system loads the application in the RAM. Each application has a space allocated to it in the RAM, called as the buffer. If an attacker sends a message with more bytes than the programmer had allocated for a buffer, the attacker’s information will spill over into other areas of RAM. This is a buffer overflow. The impact of a buffer overflow can range from nothing to the crashing of the server, or gaining the ability to execute any command on the server.
Hi Nishant,
Your comment answers the question I put in “My question to discuss with my classmates”. Research shows that ten years ago, the application security challenge was to protect desktop applications and static websites, which were fairly harmless and easily scoped and secured. Now, considering the outsourced development, the number of legacy applications, and internal development utilizing third-party, off-the-shelf software components, the software supply chain has become more complex and more difficult to secure.
E-mail Security:
These days spammers are using image spam which is more annoying to user. Everyone has to be alert about their mails they have to filter the mails accordingly. Companies are facing one of issue which is filtering mails, Traditionally, the filtering was done at client PC’s. Users are often off their anti virus and anti scammers, failed to do automatic update. and not aware of their subscription. These carelessness is leading to no protection for new attacks. Instead of a PKI, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) uses circles of trust
Hardening applications is much more difficult for security professionals than hardening infrastructure or an operating system. I have a lot of first-hand knowledge in this field. Modern operating systems are designed with security in mind and have tens of thousands of man-hours of design, coding testing, and feedback to develop security features that are easy for the user to implement and reliable. Custom code and small applications development is the other end of the scale. It is something that is made for a specific purpose by a small team or single individual. It cannot get the same level of effort that a major enterprise software product can because it doesn’t have the resources, time, or development and test teams of a major enterprise software product. In my work, there are many single use applications or interfaces built for one project. They have a single developer working on them for a week or two at most, This doesn’t leave the time for deep security reviews, testing, iterative development, and all the proper secure software development lifecycle steps. It is up to the developer to use secure practices and the tester to try to catch as much as possible, but at the end of the day, this code relies on the defense of other parts of the application and system and obscurity to be protected. This is one of the reasons why defense in depth matters, it can protect the entire system even if it has a few weak areas.
My key takeaways from this week’s reading are that enterprises carries far much more applications than operating systems. Enterprises must do far much job to secure their applications. Unlike operating systems, applications requires an enterprise to deal with a lot of vendors to obtain patches, upgrades and other necessary tools in order to protect their assets.
Companies must take several actions to protect their applications:
-Understand the Server’s Roles and Threat Environment
-Minimize Applications
-Create Secure Applications Program Configuration
-Install Patches for all Applications
-Minimize the Permissions of Applications
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a communications protocol for time-sensitive applications like playing video games. Researchers claim it is unreliable transport with a minimum amount of communication mechanism. The reading mentions that RTP makes up for two of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) biggest weaknesses. Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for the delivery of audio and video over the internet. The compensation RTP makes for UDP is that the RTP header has a sequence number so that the receiver can place voice octets in order if their packets arrive out of order. In addition to the above, the RTP header contains a time stamp so that the receiver’s codec plays the sounds in the packet at the right time compared to the previous packet’s sounds.
A really good point the reading made was “The mechanics of vulnerabilities, exploits, patches, and work-arounds are not fundamentally different for operating systems and applications. The main difference is the small number of operating systems that most firms support versus the large number of applications they typically use.” This point really highlights the difficultly in hardening applications in comparison to OS’s. The sheer amount of applications a organization has coupled with all the different ways those applications are patched/updated/etc. make it very difficult to keep track of.
Boyle and Panko state many application security issues in this chapter. As technology evolves, there are a large number of vulnerabilities in software/programs that can and are often exploited by hackers/attackers. The takeaway from this chapter that struck me was cross-site scripting attacks (XSS). Malicious scripts are injected into the web applications by email and then run on the end user’s device when a web application does not properly sanitize user input. In this process, there is unauthorized input (data entered by the user) used to change the output. XSS attacks could exploit vulnerabilities in a range of programming environments, including VBScript, ActiveX, and JavaScript. in most cases, XSS targets JavaScript, as the language is tightly integrated with most browsers. This ability to exploit commonly used platforms makes XSS attacks both dangerous and common. Therefore, an organization’s security team should focus on server functionality and its role in the threat environment. Security teams need to keep server software and operating systems up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates or host hardening of servers and applications, such as disabling unnecessary services or ports; minimizing privileges, and adding oversight of authentication, authorization and auditing processes, etc.
Application security is just as crucial as host security, and this chapter focuses on the different types of attacks that can occur when an application is insecure. These attacks include buffer overflow, login screen bypass, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection. One of the things I find interesting in this chapter is email security. Email, which is widely used in daily life and work, is often turned off by the user’s PC anti-virus and anti-spam filters, which undoubtedly increases the risk. Most companies now use filters on their email servers as their main line of defense, but filters can also over-filter normal mail, so this still needs to be considered for now.
In this chapter I have learned that there are many ways to find vulnerabilities through the web application. You can miss a small thing and be able to cause a big damage like we have seen in the our previous case study. It is important to have good coverage whether it be e-commerce or adding basic things to hosting websites. The new concept I have learned in this chapter is using common programming languages to so you what security you need to look out for. While custom made may be a problem because you do not know where the application will fail and keep the loopholes open for the attackers to come. The easiest way for attackers to get in is through browsers where it is harder to get in through servers.
A key takeaway for me was that application security is a focal area for organizations. Organizations must ensure that they have a robust patch management system in place especially when they use third party applications. Even when a webserver or E-commerce server produces clean code does not mean it is not susceptible to attack especially through vendors. Organizations must protect their web server and e-commerce by doing website vulnerability assessment, monitoring website logs and making sure that systems are patched as soon as vulnerabilities is noticed.
Buffer flow attacks occur when an attacker sends too much data, a buffer might overflow which will overwrite an adjacent section of RAM. If that section is retrieved, various problems can occur. This includes crashes and read as data and program instructions.
The chapter discusses buffer overflow attacks, which are the most common vulnerability in application programs. A buffer is essentially a type of memory storage that holds data temporarily while it is being transferred from one location to another. A buffer overflow occurs when a buffer contains more data than it can handle, causing data to overflow into adjacent memory space. This flaw has the potential to cause a system crash. Attackers take advantage of buffer overflow issues by overwriting an application’s memory. This alters the application’s execution path, resulting in file corruption. Keeping applications up to date with the latest security patches is one way to prevent buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Hackers exploit security flaws as soon as they are discovered so it’s always a better to deploy security patches as soon as they become available.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection are common web application attacks. XSS occurs when an attacker injects malicious scripts into a web application, which execute in a victim’s browser, potentially stealing sensitive information or performing other harmful actions. SQL injection attacks exploit vulnerabilities in web applications interacting with databases, allowing attackers to execute malicious SQL queries, resulting in unauthorized access, data manipulation, or deletion of database tables. To prevent these attacks, web developers should use secure coding practices, input validation, and output encoding techniques. For XSS prevention, sanitize user input and employ content security policies. For SQL injection prevention, use parameterized queries, sanitize input, and implement stored procedures. Staying up-to-date with the latest security vulnerabilities and patches is crucial in protecting web applications from these threats.
A key takeaway for me was that Application security requires more work that operating system security. This is due to typically a company has many applications and each application has their own vulnerabilities, patching, timing, etc., which makes it challenging to manage. Whereas typically companies only run one or a few operating systems that maintenance is easier to manage.
Hi Jill! I agree that application security requires more work than operating system security. It is very crucial for us to also factor in the three tiers, i.e. the clients (top tier), the back end ( bottom tier), and the application ( middle tier), which form the architecture of a modern application as each tier has its own risks that need to be addressed. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 list mentions critical application threats that are most likely to affect applications in production.
My thoughtful read was on the various assaults that can take place when an application is unsafe. Buffer overflow, login screen bypass, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection are some of these attacks. Buffer overflow attacks entail transmitting code that intentionally exceeds the RAM allotted for the program. Depending on the application, these attacks can either cause the server to crash or let any code to be executed. If the developer doesn’t patch URLs past a login screen that permits anyone to access the site, login screen bypasses may happen. In XSS attacks, the attacker starts with a genuine URL as a base, lengthens it so that victims can’t see the end of it in an email attachment, and the end of the URL runs a script that the attacker can use to carry out a variety of operations. Another type of attack is SQL injection, where SQL code is inserted into a string query that should only accept string inputs.
My analysis from the reading is on adding application level authentication, authorization and auditing. The chapter discusses about minimizing the applications, however, I think practically it is very difficult to limit the use of different applications in large organization. Application authentication can be specific to the application program’s needs, The application program can require its own password with strong complexity or the application program might require a smart card or some other form of strong authentication such as public key authentication. Two-factor authentication is even better.
Hi Aayush! It is indeed difficult to limit the use of applications in large organizations. I think this is where virtualization helps by separating applications on different virtual servers. The operating systems can still be easier to harden by creating a baseline profile and using virtual images where as applications can be separately hardened. Most vulnerable applications can also be isolated from other applications that would have been hosted on the same physical server thus reducing the impact, should one application get compromised.
It is indeed difficult to limit the proliferation of applications in a large organization. In a recent scan off the ~200 users in my office, we found 6 different .pdf reader programs, despite the company paying for a full Adobe pdf suite license for every user and preinstalling it on every workstation. That is in addition to dozens of non-work related programs
Custom applications are software programs created internally by a company’s programmers. Those programmers are not always well-trained in secure coding techniques, the custom applications may be exposed to the security risks. It is possible to reduce those risks by following the rule of never trusting user input and sanitize user input for objectionable content can be done. Organizations can lower the risk of security lapses and safeguard their valuable assets and sensitive data by putting these measures in place.
Hi Sunam,
I agree with you that an organized strategy can help to reduce the security concerns connected to custom apps. Security flaws can be greatly reduced by using secure coding methods and providing developers with secure coding training. Businesses need to realize that the security of their applications is just as crucial as the security of their networks and equipment. Organizations may make sure that their custom applications are as safe as feasible by putting procedures like thorough testing and code review in place. The importance of giving application security top priority within firms is rising as technology develops.
The idea of application security was one of the things that I learned from this week’s reading. Hardening the host takes less time and effort than securing the application. Thus there would be numerous users within a business using various programs. Since so many programs run with root capabilities, if an attacker can access those programs, they will have easy access to the host. The application is susceptible to a variety of attacks, including cross-site scripting, stack overflow, and buffer overflow.
Hi Frank,
Application security is essential in today’s world, and I totally concur with you on that. It is crucial to ensure that all applications utilized within a business are well-secured due to the rising amount of cyber threats. End-users frequently fail to see the significance of application security, leaving them open to a variety of assaults, which is a huge problem for security professionals.
You raised great points Frank. Here are some on the actions firms must take to ensure that their applications are difficult to attack:
-Minimize the permissions of applications
-Add application layer authentication, authorizations, and auditing
-Create secure application program configurations
A key takeaway was that applications security actually requires more work than operating system hardening because clients and servers run multiple applications. Each application can be about as difficult to harden as an operating system. Many applications run with root (super user privileges), so taking them over gives the attacker total control of the host. Breaking in by taking over applications is the dominant hacking vector today.
Buffer overflow is one of the most widespread application vulnerabilities. When an application is executed, the operating system loads the application in the RAM. Each application has a space allocated to it in the RAM, called as the buffer. If an attacker sends a message with more bytes than the programmer had allocated for a buffer, the attacker’s information will spill over into other areas of RAM. This is a buffer overflow. The impact of a buffer overflow can range from nothing to the crashing of the server, or gaining the ability to execute any command on the server.
Hi Nishant,
Your comment answers the question I put in “My question to discuss with my classmates”. Research shows that ten years ago, the application security challenge was to protect desktop applications and static websites, which were fairly harmless and easily scoped and secured. Now, considering the outsourced development, the number of legacy applications, and internal development utilizing third-party, off-the-shelf software components, the software supply chain has become more complex and more difficult to secure.
E-mail Security:
These days spammers are using image spam which is more annoying to user. Everyone has to be alert about their mails they have to filter the mails accordingly. Companies are facing one of issue which is filtering mails, Traditionally, the filtering was done at client PC’s. Users are often off their anti virus and anti scammers, failed to do automatic update. and not aware of their subscription. These carelessness is leading to no protection for new attacks. Instead of a PKI, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) uses circles of trust
Hardening applications is much more difficult for security professionals than hardening infrastructure or an operating system. I have a lot of first-hand knowledge in this field. Modern operating systems are designed with security in mind and have tens of thousands of man-hours of design, coding testing, and feedback to develop security features that are easy for the user to implement and reliable. Custom code and small applications development is the other end of the scale. It is something that is made for a specific purpose by a small team or single individual. It cannot get the same level of effort that a major enterprise software product can because it doesn’t have the resources, time, or development and test teams of a major enterprise software product. In my work, there are many single use applications or interfaces built for one project. They have a single developer working on them for a week or two at most, This doesn’t leave the time for deep security reviews, testing, iterative development, and all the proper secure software development lifecycle steps. It is up to the developer to use secure practices and the tester to try to catch as much as possible, but at the end of the day, this code relies on the defense of other parts of the application and system and obscurity to be protected. This is one of the reasons why defense in depth matters, it can protect the entire system even if it has a few weak areas.
My key takeaways from this week’s reading are that enterprises carries far much more applications than operating systems. Enterprises must do far much job to secure their applications. Unlike operating systems, applications requires an enterprise to deal with a lot of vendors to obtain patches, upgrades and other necessary tools in order to protect their assets.
Companies must take several actions to protect their applications:
-Understand the Server’s Roles and Threat Environment
-Minimize Applications
-Create Secure Applications Program Configuration
-Install Patches for all Applications
-Minimize the Permissions of Applications
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a communications protocol for time-sensitive applications like playing video games. Researchers claim it is unreliable transport with a minimum amount of communication mechanism. The reading mentions that RTP makes up for two of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) biggest weaknesses. Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for the delivery of audio and video over the internet. The compensation RTP makes for UDP is that the RTP header has a sequence number so that the receiver can place voice octets in order if their packets arrive out of order. In addition to the above, the RTP header contains a time stamp so that the receiver’s codec plays the sounds in the packet at the right time compared to the previous packet’s sounds.
A really good point the reading made was “The mechanics of vulnerabilities, exploits, patches, and work-arounds are not fundamentally different for operating systems and applications. The main difference is the small number of operating systems that most firms support versus the large number of applications they typically use.” This point really highlights the difficultly in hardening applications in comparison to OS’s. The sheer amount of applications a organization has coupled with all the different ways those applications are patched/updated/etc. make it very difficult to keep track of.
Boyle and Panko state many application security issues in this chapter. As technology evolves, there are a large number of vulnerabilities in software/programs that can and are often exploited by hackers/attackers. The takeaway from this chapter that struck me was cross-site scripting attacks (XSS). Malicious scripts are injected into the web applications by email and then run on the end user’s device when a web application does not properly sanitize user input. In this process, there is unauthorized input (data entered by the user) used to change the output. XSS attacks could exploit vulnerabilities in a range of programming environments, including VBScript, ActiveX, and JavaScript. in most cases, XSS targets JavaScript, as the language is tightly integrated with most browsers. This ability to exploit commonly used platforms makes XSS attacks both dangerous and common. Therefore, an organization’s security team should focus on server functionality and its role in the threat environment. Security teams need to keep server software and operating systems up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates or host hardening of servers and applications, such as disabling unnecessary services or ports; minimizing privileges, and adding oversight of authentication, authorization and auditing processes, etc.
Application security is just as crucial as host security, and this chapter focuses on the different types of attacks that can occur when an application is insecure. These attacks include buffer overflow, login screen bypass, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection. One of the things I find interesting in this chapter is email security. Email, which is widely used in daily life and work, is often turned off by the user’s PC anti-virus and anti-spam filters, which undoubtedly increases the risk. Most companies now use filters on their email servers as their main line of defense, but filters can also over-filter normal mail, so this still needs to be considered for now.
In this chapter I have learned that there are many ways to find vulnerabilities through the web application. You can miss a small thing and be able to cause a big damage like we have seen in the our previous case study. It is important to have good coverage whether it be e-commerce or adding basic things to hosting websites. The new concept I have learned in this chapter is using common programming languages to so you what security you need to look out for. While custom made may be a problem because you do not know where the application will fail and keep the loopholes open for the attackers to come. The easiest way for attackers to get in is through browsers where it is harder to get in through servers.
A key takeaway for me was that application security is a focal area for organizations. Organizations must ensure that they have a robust patch management system in place especially when they use third party applications. Even when a webserver or E-commerce server produces clean code does not mean it is not susceptible to attack especially through vendors. Organizations must protect their web server and e-commerce by doing website vulnerability assessment, monitoring website logs and making sure that systems are patched as soon as vulnerabilities is noticed.
Buffer flow attacks occur when an attacker sends too much data, a buffer might overflow which will overwrite an adjacent section of RAM. If that section is retrieved, various problems can occur. This includes crashes and read as data and program instructions.
The chapter discusses buffer overflow attacks, which are the most common vulnerability in application programs. A buffer is essentially a type of memory storage that holds data temporarily while it is being transferred from one location to another. A buffer overflow occurs when a buffer contains more data than it can handle, causing data to overflow into adjacent memory space. This flaw has the potential to cause a system crash. Attackers take advantage of buffer overflow issues by overwriting an application’s memory. This alters the application’s execution path, resulting in file corruption. Keeping applications up to date with the latest security patches is one way to prevent buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Hackers exploit security flaws as soon as they are discovered so it’s always a better to deploy security patches as soon as they become available.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection are common web application attacks. XSS occurs when an attacker injects malicious scripts into a web application, which execute in a victim’s browser, potentially stealing sensitive information or performing other harmful actions. SQL injection attacks exploit vulnerabilities in web applications interacting with databases, allowing attackers to execute malicious SQL queries, resulting in unauthorized access, data manipulation, or deletion of database tables. To prevent these attacks, web developers should use secure coding practices, input validation, and output encoding techniques. For XSS prevention, sanitize user input and employ content security policies. For SQL injection prevention, use parameterized queries, sanitize input, and implement stored procedures. Staying up-to-date with the latest security vulnerabilities and patches is crucial in protecting web applications from these threats.