What is website application security?

Web application security is a collection of tactics used to protect online applications and services from unauthorized access and data breaches given security vulnerabilities in the application’s code.

Website application security includes defending against threats like malicious bots, data scraping, and other attacks. Businesses must maintain robust security to safeguard sensitive information and user data.

Cybercriminals target web apps in many ways and use bad bots to steal, validate, and fraudulently use consumers’ identity and account information. Today’s web applications contain more valuable information and sensitive user data than ever, including credit and debit card numbers, login credentials, and other personally identifiable information (PII).

There are various kinds of web application cyberattacks, including the following:

• SQL injection. Occurs when a perpetrator uses malicious SQL code to manipulate a back-end database so it reveals information. Consequences include the unauthorized viewing of lists, deletion of tables and unauthorized administrative access.
• Cross-site scripting. XSS is an injection attack targeting users in order to access accounts, activate Trojans or modify page content. Stored XSS occurs when malicious code is injected directly into an application.
• Remote file inclusion. A malicious attacker remotely injects a file onto a web application server, which can result in the execution of malicious scripts or code with an application, data theft, or data manipulation.

Many website operators use foundational tools such as web application firewalls (WAFs), Content delivery networks (CDNs)  and code scanners to secure web applications. While these solutions provide a baseline level of security, they often fall short in handling advanced client-side threats, such as malicious scripts. 

Modern application security solutions are able to collect script activity and inventory scripts, their actions, domains and cookies, and detect risky or anomalous script behavior without interrupting the business value of legitimate scripts.

The Human Defense Platform is a set of cloud-native infrastructure and services to protect web and mobile applications from fraud and abuse. It is made up of a series of solutions to safeguard applications and data, including the following:

• Account Takeover Defense
• Transaction Abuse Defense
• Scraping Defense
• Client-side Defense