Data Breach- A Guide For Mitigating The Risks

To diminish security threats, evaluation of employee exit strategies and off-site data storage practices.

Provide a proper corporate policy for employees to ensure data security and let them know of the consequences of data breach.

Get web security assessment analysis and data protection testing via professional security provider today.

Web Application Security Checklist 2017 – Are You Ready?

2018 is just around the corner. The year went by so fast, bringing along with it new opportunities and possibilities regarding web application security.

From the beginning, enterprises and business operations focused on the security of their web applications and computer systems seeing the danger of cyber-crime was just as high.

Were you left behind in the world’s bid to make the year a little more secure and reliable for consumers as well as clients? There is still time to change your business strategy regarding web application security.

From paper work to threat assessments and web application vulnerability, let us help your business prepare and prosper.

Web Application Security – What to Implement

 The first step towards a secure web application is proactive vulnerability scanning. Assessing your web application’s strengths and weaknesses will also help determine the best course of action regarding security improvement.

Following is a checklist that encompasses every aspect of the concept.

1. Assess and Review App

The web application will undergo a comprehensive review in this step. Remember to test each part of the program or web application for vulnerabilities.

This step is crucial when it comes to determining the security needs of your web application. You’ll find out what the application is lacking. Make sure users of the app cannot bypass steps or gain access to unauthorised areas of the network.

Ask and answer tough questions like, can users enter a new ID and receive password without authorisation? How many times can the password be typed in before account lock-out?

2. Plan for Change

The next step to assess your app’s strengths and weaknesses is with the help of a series of vulnerability testing. Every web application has vulnerabilities embedded within its programming. Some vulnerabilities surface externally, usually by hackers and cyber-criminals.

Write down vulnerabilities that you think can threaten security and test your app using a vulnerability scanner. This will let you know how much the app can withstand.  

Another thing to test is whether sensitive information can be leaked through cookies (or other easily accessed code) or not.

3. Re-asses and Report Findings

It’s time to re-assess the app’s main areas of weaknesses once initial challenges have been reviewed. Come up with questions that encompass working ability of the app in its entirety.

Do you think some more work must be done to secure the web application? Is there another quick fix that you want to try before taking out the big guns?

Make sure to highlight high priority problems for remediation.

There are many other ways you can improve your web application security? Talk to Lean Security or try a free web health check offered by Australian service provider today

How Well Is The Security Testing In Your Organisation?

With the growing number of breaches and online threats, it’s really surprising how many businesses fail to cater to their information security testing.

Importance of this type of testing – including vulnerability scanning, vulnerability assessments and penetration testing service is well known.

Yet actual scope of such working is difficult to figure out and assess correctly.

What should be included in security testing? What are the vulnerabilities that need to be tested and identified? How many times should external and internal vulnerability scanning be performed? These are questions that trouble web developers and businesses.

Struggling With Finding Scope – Security Concerns of Businesses

The level of security implemented by a business when it comes to their network or web application is determined by the size of their operation. For example: Large enterprises often conduct external penetration testing or focus on one or two core web applications specifically.  

What seems to be the problem here?  

The entire security environment isn’t fully assessed. Midmarket enterprises experience a similar situation i.e. primary focus on external security testing and foregoing internal entirely.

Small businesses seem to know what is more important in the grander scheme of things! The question is, how well or poor is security testing in your organisation? Following are some common web application vulnerabilities that hit businesses with poor security.

Beware of:

• SQL injection
• Remote code execution
• Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
• Format string vulnerabilities
• Username enumeration

Notice an increase in cyber-hacking and information theft attempts via web applications used by employees? You have poor security in place.

Improving security requires thorough adherence to the following:

Perform Inventory of Web Applications

You probably don’t have any idea which applications employees use on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter how organised your company is – there are always some rouge applications running at any given time. Little attention is paid to these applications until something goes wrong.

Give Priority to Certain Vulnerabilities

This is the second step that has to be followed prior to testing chosen applications. Make a list of important vulnerabilities that must be eliminated and another of slightly less important.  

The fact of the matter is: All web applications have some vulnerabilities and removing everyone isn’t possible. This is why conduct testing of the most threatening vulnerabilities which will save a lot of your time.

What about those that are missed by your vulnerability scanners? Enlist the help of Lean Security to make sure your web application security is at the top of its game.  

How-to Improve Cyber Security For Non-Profit Organisations

The number of businesses and organisations that have been hacked by cyber-criminals and malicious hackers just keeps increasing.

Cyber-security experts are scrambling here and there to cover all vulnerable holes within a framework – considering no organisation is safe from hackers.

From healthcare to banks, retail and government agencies… all are constantly at risk.

NGO’s – Why Do They Attract Cyber-Criminals

One point of attraction hackers and cyber-criminals have towards non-profit organisations is the large volume of sensitive data handled every day. This includes client records, donor information, confidential emails, and numerous other transactions passing through the organisation.

Cyber security should be at the top of every organisation’s priority list but how concerned should non-profits be in the face of increasing cyber attacks and security threats? How can non-profit organisations ensure their sensitive data remains secure from malicious threats?

More importantly, how can donor confidence in non-profit organisations and their security framework be re-established?

By Upgrading All Computers

Many non-profits don’t realize the importance of installing the latest computer systems. Are you still using an old version of Windows XP? Fun Fact: Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP.

This means computer systems operating on outdated software are even more vulnerable when it comes to cyber attacks and hacking.

Focus On Strong Passwords

Do you use the same password for every social network and website that you access? This will just make it easier for hackers to steal important information considering cracking one password will lead to a domino effect.

Change your passwords, even a slight difference will ensure that information cannot be accessed by another person. Can’t remember complicated passwords? Copy and keep it in a secure location like your work related diary.

What makes a great password? According to web application security experts Lean Security, there are 6 different ways you can build a strong password. What is the best way to make a strong password?

Mix up different types of characters used normally to make a password like numbers, letters, and symbols. Don’t use words that can be found in the dictionary.

Assess and Identify Security Risks

Improving cyber-security for your non-profit organisation is a team effort and needs to include representatives from IT, legal and compliance, HR, accounting, finance and operations departments. Order of the day should be risk management – assessing risks by making inventory of the organisation’s systems and data.

The web security assessment team’s first task is to rank systems and data according to importance and sensitivity. Risk and damage from the following events should be considered for good risk management:

• Asset failure or loss
• Asset theft
• Exposure to unauthorised entry

You have a responsibility towards not just your donors but also the beneficiaries. Make sure cybercrimes don’t mar your credibility by focusing on improved security from internal and external forces. Get in touch with Lean Security for more information.

Highlighting Open Source Software – How Detrimental It Is For Your Company

Like many businesses looking to increase productivity and efficiency without shelling out the extra bucks, you also must have thought about exploring the world of open source software.

After all, it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot for Photoshop or Microsoft Office with better, more efficient and less costly (sometimes free) software available in the market!

Why should you even fork a ton of money on the newest Windows operating system for your business’s computer system when other cheap alternatives are easily available?

It does make sense to choose the cheaper alternative for some web applications. However, using open source software isn’t all milk and honey.

Try and learn more about this type of software before implementing in your operation.

Open Source Software – What It’s All About

It is a term that refers to something which can be modified and shared as its design is publically accessible. The term open source is normally used in the concept of software development, to design computer programs using a different or specific approach.

Understanding Open Source Software

It is simple software with source code that allows barrier free access to content. Any software with such an open source code can be inspected, modified, and enhanced by people.

Source code is the part of software program that cannot be seen i.e. most computer users don’t ever see it. This is the code that individuals (programmers and hackers) manipulate and use to change entire aspects of a program or application. They can change how it works.

Still planning to give open source software a chance? Following are some advantages that can convince any company to try this type of software:

• Cheaper than commercially marketed software
• Helps an organisation become more flexible
• Created by expert programmers
• Highly reliable and efficient

As mentioned above, it’s not always milk and honey when it comes to using OSS. There are some disadvantages of this type of software, the first and most important one being security vulnerabilities.

While all software has some bugs and internal vulnerabilities – OSS has the added disadvantage of being used by malicious users for their own gain.

Older software usually has more security vulnerabilities that often go undetected or unreported. Make sure the OSS you are using isn’t out-of-date by many months or years.

You can have the web application security services of Lean Security at your beck and call during implementation of OSS or even closed sourced software. Check out our full service catalogue here.