Hackers target web application layer

Attacks web applications 25,000 times per hour

The menace of cyber crime is increasing day-by-day. Every day, new and new online threats are getting unearthed, causing innumerable amount of losses to innocent computer users. Although, the security companies are trying their level best to keep these threats at bay with their ever-efficient and easy-to-use products, they are always in doing catch-up to the hackers to deal with their antiques.

A research published by Imperva, a database and app security firm has revealed that web applications are attacked by online threats in a magnitude as high as 25,000 times per hour. It has come to light that hackers are using automated botnet-based technology to carry on attacks. Hackers are specially choosing the web application layer to touch down at the business logic of different organizations.

However, there are some active reasons why hackers are targeting web applications layer.  The main reasons why hackers choose to target this layer can be summarized as:

• Web application layer is the closest to business logic of any business organization. By getting control of this layer, hackers can simply crack down the functioning of the IT infrastructure of the business organization.
• There are still a lot of companies which still concentrate more on enhancing antivirus and networking defense of the organization, rather than improving the security of the web application layer.

The report also highlighted four most common attacks. The names of these attacks are mentioned below:

• Directory traversal (37 %),
• Cross-site scripting (36 %),
• SQL injection (23 %) and
• Remote file inclusion (4 %)

These kinds of threats can be controlled by improving coding practices and running vulnerability scans on web applications. Users should employ financial resources in acquiring sophisticated technologies which can identify and block such automated attacks well before they can attack the codes.