Web Server Security

Posted: February 9th, 2023

Web Server Security
Cybersecurity has been a global issue affecting all areas of computer information technology. Web server security is one of the significant regions of most organizations using either physical or virtual web servers (Wu, Gao, and Liu, 2018). Organizations require a defense mechanism to protect the server from attack. The paper is an essay about web server security concerns, implications, and countermeasures.
Malware attacks, Injection attacks, and phishing are types of webserver attacks to look out for. Malware infections are a common threat facing web servers that come in different forms—for instance, worms, ransomware, viruses, and spyware (Morton, et, al., 2018). Malware attacks change or replace the website content, which may discourage clients from accessing organizations, services, and products. Malware also comes in advertisement form, through backdoors as well as place spam content on the search engine.
Injection attacks include the popular SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and code injection. The SQL injection takes full control of the web user by injecting information into the web database. After injection, the information instructs the web user what to do, leading to data leakage and manipulation (Morton, et, al.,2018). Additionally, code injection into the website leads to data leakages. Phishing is another example of a web server attack that comes in the form of an email. The email is sent to the webserver with false information of the source where most of the time, the emails appear legit. The main objective of the email is to acquire sensitive information such as account passwords as well as credit card numbers. It is not easy to distinguish between a suspicious email and a legit email; therefore, a user may decide to respond.
After a web server hacker attack, the user or the host is affected in various ways, for instance, website data loss, website downtime, web server speed slows down as well as high web cleaning and repair cost. Most hackers or web attackers aim at accessing the web data, deleting the web data, or using the web data. Hackers may, however, decide to remove the data or the website. Deletion takes place through an SQL injection, attack, or any brute force attack (Carames, 2019). Additionally, the webserver hacker attack may lead to sensitive data loss or leakage, which may ruin the reputation of the user or the host. Some host organizations carry sensitive data, for instance, bank account information or medical treatment information. The hack can ruin the host’s reputation and trust, which may lead to legal action. After an attack website cleaning, repair and replacement are costly both on time and resources. The repair cost is more expensive compared to the purchasing of cybersecurity services.
The ability to spot and identify malicious spam emails, scanning links before accessing as well as contacting the source of spam emails is a fundamental and effective way of reducing cases of a phishing attack in a web server. In avoiding SQL injection as well as other types of needles, the host or users introduce the input validation methods as well as coding to identify the injected or the malicious data inserted (Drake, 2020). Additionally, the user can scan the code, fix the problem, or create policies to minimize the access of information. Updating all operating information technology systems, installation of firewalls, backing up data as well as measures to avoid and remove the malware infections is vital in combating malware attacks in web servers.
Web servers are vital in every organization, especially in communication and storage or data. Malware attacks, phishing, and SQL injections are some of the attacks that affect the webserver and cause damage and data loss. The attacks can be mitigated by backing up data, scanning codes, and spam emails, as well as minimizing data authorization.
References
Carames, H. V. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,491,566. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Drake, C. N. T. (2020). U.S. Patent No. 10,574,692. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Morton, M., Werner, J., Kintis, P., Snow, K., Antonakakis, M., Polychronakis, M., & Monrose, F. (2018, April). Security risks in asynchronous web servers: When performance optimizations amplify the impact of data-oriented attacks. In 2018 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P) (pp. 167-182). IEEE.
Wu, K., Gao, X., & Liu, Y. (2018, November). Web server security evaluation method based on multi-source data. In 2018 International Conference on Cloud Computing, Big Data and Blockchain (ICCBB) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.