What Causes a Website to Be Vulnerable?
A website vulnerability is a misconfiguration or weakness in the code that allows attackers to acquire control and perhaps cause damage.
With over 30,000 internet hacks occurring every day, you should be cautious about any weaknesses that expose your website to hackers.
Hackers use automated tools such as botnets or scanners to exploit website vulnerabilities. Hackers can create tools that detect and exploit vulnerabilities in platforms such as Joomla and WordPress.
This post will teach you more about what makes your website susceptible and how to secure it.
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Website vulnerability types
While there are countless ways for attackers to exploit your website, the following are the five most frequent vulnerabilities.
Malicious code is directly injected into the database (SQL injections).
In this situation, hackers or tools use your website's code to directly inject harmful code into the database.
SQL injection vulnerability occurs when cyber thieves inject malicious “payloads” into your website and obtain access to it.
Some of the injected payloads may include:
Infecting a website with spam and harmful messages.
stealing consumer information and data
Obtaining full access to a website without user authentication.
SQL injection is most widespread on websites powered by open-source content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress.
Forgery of cross-site requests (CSRF).
CSRF attacks are uncommon, but if they occur, they might jeopardise the security of your website.
CSRF attacks work by duping users or administrators into doing potentially dangerous activities on a website without their knowledge.
An attacker can gather valid user information by exploiting CSRF vulnerabilities and then do the following activities;
Changing the order value and product prices on e-commerce websites.
Transferring money from one account to another
Taking control of accounts by changing passwords
These attacks are frequently launched against banking and e-commerce websites, where attackers can access sensitive financial information.
Embedding of files (RFI/LFI).
In this vulnerability, attackers on the server backend exploit “include functions” of web application languages such as PHP to execute code from a remote file.
An attacker hosts malicious files and then uses compromised user input to change or insert PHP code and include functions on the victim's side.
Once the files have been included, the attacker can;
dangerous shell files on publicly accessible Web sites
acquire access to a host server or a website administration panel
deliver harmful payloads to a visitor's browser that add phishing and attack pages
Scripting of Cross-Site Files (XSS).
This vulnerability makes use of improper/incorrect input or other input fields sanitization to inject malicious scripts and execute code on a website.
Cross-site scripting attacks online users without compromising the website or server. Because browsers cannot detect whether the malicious script is part of the website, the harmful code is only run in the browsers of your website visitors.
This vulnerability results in the following:
hijacking of a session
Theft of session data
Spam content is distributed to unsuspecting online visitors.
WordPress has previously been the target of large-scale cross-site scripting attacks.
Misconfigurations in security.
The incorrect setting makes your website an easy target for hackers. Security flaws are simple to detect and exploit.
When your website's security settings are not correctly defined or implemented, these misconfigurations arise. Attackers can take control of your website if the web server, database, and web application platforms and frameworks are not properly secured.
Manage and prevent website vulnerabilities.
You may take efforts to avoid and manage website vulnerabilities and keep attackers out of your website. Some of the steps you should take to reduce vulnerabilities on your website are listed below.
Maintain your website applications.
The first step in securing your website's security is to ensure that all of the website programmes and plugins you use are up to current.
Vendors release security patches for their apps on a regular basis, and it is critical that you implement these upgrades as soon as possible.
Security patch updates are used as a template by attackers to identify vulnerable websites.
To stay one step ahead of dangerous attackers, you can enable automatic updates for your applications.
Make use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
Web application firewalls are the first line of defence against attackers looking for flaws in your website.
WAFs detect and prevent harmful traffic such as bots, IP addresses associated with spam or cyberattacks, attack-based user input, and automated scanners.
Make use of a malware scanner.
The final step in reducing vulnerabilities on your website is to use malware scanners from reliable firms. Use a malware scanner that identifies and removes malware automatically.
You can also engage a professional programmer to manually review the code of your website and implement fixes for vulnerabilities.
Although these vulnerabilities may appear to most people to be very technical, it is critical that you understand how attackers can exploit your website.
Understanding the many sorts of vulnerabilities will aid in the security and prevention of attacks on your website.
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