Tips To Secure Your Asp.Net Application

ASP.Net is the most popular platform that is used by the developers to create a wide range of software applications. It is true that whenever business owners plan to build a website, the first thing that comes to their mind is to use Asp.net technology as it offers a programming model, various services and a comprehensive software infrastructure to build up robust web applications for the PC as well as the mobile devices.

Building web applications using this platform has become much easier as the development environment; Visual Studio has become more sophisticated. With time, many of the complexities have been taken care of and this has allowed the developers to focus more on the features of the application and on the business value.

But unfortunately, many project managers end up creating a great application that cannot be made live, without compromising on the safety of the data of the end user. In this article we will discuss some issues in ASP.NET and how we can secure the application for better performance.

Some Common Security Flaws in ASP.NET:

• Authentication: It is easy for attackers to get user credentials or the application’s authentication due to lack of password policy, using dynamic SQL on the login page, or even passing user names and passwords in clear texts are some flaws.
• Authorization: Inconsistent checks for user authorization and allowing logged in users to perform certain actions without verification leads to possible attacks.
• Data validation: Lack of strict data validation and trusting the data submitted by the user and using it without proper verification leads to the common attacks.
• Application configuration: Using any default configuration, or granting any app more permission than needed or failing to secure resources lead to unauthorized access of the data.

How can You Secure Your Asp.net Web App?

With the increased usage of the internet by people, many web apps have become open to hackers and cyber attackers due to their low security. Securing your ASP.NET web app can be a complex task and it needs to be done on a continuous basis. Here are some tips that you can follow:

• Use the frame bursting technique: Many attackers can load your site on their own site in an iframe and can place transparent control over the site and fetch important information from it. To prevent this, it is good to use a frame bursting technique that will not allow your website to be iframed.
• Encoding the Data: Any data that is fetched or received from outside your trust boundary should always be encoded. This may actually differ based on the source of your data and encoding it can help to enhance web app security.
• Do not deploy your app with debug=”true”: It is highly recommended not to deploy any apps in the production environment with the debug= “true” in the web.config as this will hamper the performance and security of the app. It may also leak information to the cyber attackers.
• White list the URL: Most attacks usually happen when the query string value passes through the URL and the best option is to sanitize the URL with white listed characters and drop the bad ones.