Think Like A Hacker! – Semalt Expert Explains How To Protect Your Website
News about website hacking is all over the news every day. Millions of data end up in hackers' hands who compromise data, steal customer information and other precious data that results to identity theft sometimes. It is still unknown to many how the website hackers conduct the unauthorized access to their computers.
Jack Miller, the expert from Semalt, has tailored the most significant information concerning hacking for you to beat the attacks.
It is important to understand that website hackers know the construction of the site more than web developers do. They understand well the two-way transmission of the network that allows users to send and receive data from servers on request.
The building of programs and websites takes into accounts the users' needs which require sending and receiving of data. Web hackers know that the web developers who create websites for online retailers facilitate the payment of products after they are put in a shopping cart. When the web developers build programs, they are obsessed with their clients and fail to think about the threats of code infiltrations by the website hackers.
How Hackers Work?
The website hackers understand that the sites work through programs asking for information and carry out validation before the successful data send-receive process. Invalid input data in the program, called bad input validation, is the primary knowledge behind the hacking. It occurs when the input data does not match expectation according to the developer's designed code. The community of website hackers uses several ways to provide invalid input to the programs including the following methods.
Packet Editing
Also known as silent attack, packet editing involves the attacking of data on transit. The user nor the website administrator does not realize the attack during the data exchange. In the process of a user sending a request for data from the administrator, web hackers can edit the data from the user or the server to gain unauthorized rights. Packet editing is also called Man in the Middle Attack.
Cross-Site Attacks
Sometimes the website hackers gain access to the user PCs by storing malicious codes on trusted servers. The malicious code infects the users when the commands are invited into the user PC by clicking on links or downloaded in files. Some common cross-site attacks include cross site request forgery and cross-site-scripting.
SQL Injections
Website hackers can conduct one of the most devastating hacking by attacking a server to attack sites. The hackers find a vulnerability on the server and use it to hijack the system and perform administrative rights such as file uploads. They can perform such as severe problems identity theft and website defacements.
Protection From Website Hackers
Website developers need to think like hackers. They should think of the ways their codes are vulnerable to website hackers while building the sites. Developers must create codes that extract source codes by escaping special characters and extra codes to avoid receiving harmful commands from website hackers. The GET and POST parameters of the programs should have constant monitoring.
Web application firewalls can also ensure safety from attacks by website hackers. The firewall guard the program code by securing it from manipulation as it denies access. A cloud-based firewall application called Cloudric is a firewall application for ultimate web security.