SafeWeb: A Middleware for Securing Ruby-Based Web Applications

Web applications in many domains such as healthcare and finance must process sensitive data, while complying with legal policies regarding the release of different classes of data to different parties. Currently, software bugs may lead to irreversible disclosure of confidential data in multi-tier web applications. An open challenge is how developers can guarantee these web applications only ever release sensitive data to authorised users without costly, recurring security audits. Our solution is to provide a trusted middleware that acts as a “safety net” to event-based enterprise web applications by preventing harmful data disclosure before it happens. We describe the design and implementation of SafeWeb, a Ruby-based middleware that associates data with security labels and transparently tracks their propagation at different granularities across a multi-tier web architecture with storage and complex event processing. For efficiency, maintainability and ease-of-use, SafeWeb exploits the dynamic features of the Ruby programming language to achieve label propagation and data flow enforcement. We evaluate SafeWeb by reporting our experience of implementing a web-based cancer treatment application and deploying it as part of the UK National Health Service (NHS)

Assessment of the web application security effectiveness against various methods of network attacks

The article discusses the issue of the security of Internet applications. The most popular types of attacks and methods of securing web applications against them are discussed. The study conducted the effectiveness of security of web applications. The research methodology was based on the proprietary application implemented in PHP technology. The result of the research is a proposal of solutions aimed at improving application security

Performing Web security mechanism for websites using Vulnerability & Attack Injection

In this paper we proposed a framework model instrument to assess web application security components. The approach depends on the possibility that infusing reasonable vulnerabilities in a web application and assaulting them naturally can be utilized to bolster the appraisal of existing security components and devices in custom setup situations. To give consistent with life comes about, the proposed defenselessness and assault infusion technique depends on the investigation of countless in genuine web applications. To expel the vulnerabilities by executing a solid Vulnerability and Attack Injector Tool (VAIT) for securing web applications

ESCUDO: A Fine-grained Protection Model for Web Browsers

Web applications are no longer simple hyperlinked documents. They have progressively evolved to become highly complex---web pages combine content from several sources (with varying levels of trustworthiness), and incorporate significant portions of client-side code. However, the prevailing web protection model, the same-origin policy, has not adequately evolved to manage the security consequences of this additional complexity. As a result, web applications have become attractive targets of exploitation. We argue that this disconnection between the protection needs of modern web applications and the protection models used by web browsers that manage those applications amounts to a failure of access control. In this paper, we present Escudo, a new web browser protection model designed based on established principles of mandatory access control. We describe our implementation of a prototype of Escudo in the Lobo web browser, and illustrate how web applications can use Escudo for securing their resources. Our evaluation results indicate that Escudo incurs low overhead. To support backwards compatibility, Escudo defaults to the same-origin policy for legacy applications

Securing Web Applications from malware attacks using hybrid feature extraction

In this technological era, many of the applications are taking the utilization of services of internet in order to cater to the needs of its users. With the rise in number of internet users, there's a substantial inflation within the internet attacks. Because of this hike, Web Services give rise to new security threats. One among the major concerns is the susceptibility of the internet services for cross site scripting (XSS). More than three fourths of the malicious attacks are contributed by XSS. This article primarily focuses on detection and exploiting XSS vulnerabilities. Generally, improper sanitization of input results in these type of susceptibilities. This article primarily focuses on fuzzing, and brute forcing parameters for XSS vulnerability. In addition, we've mentioned the planned framework for contradicting XSS vulnerability

Automated server-side model for recognition of security vulnerabilities in scripting languages

With the increase of global accessibility of web applications, maintaining a reasonable security level for both user data and server resources has become an extremely challenging issue. Therefore, static code analysis systems can help web developers to reduce time and cost. In this paper, a new static analysis model is proposed. This model is designed to discover the security problems in scripting languages. The proposed model is implemented in a prototype SCAT, which is a static code analysis Tool. SCAT applies the phases of the proposed model to catch security vulnerabilities in PHP 5.3. Empirical results attest that the proposed prototype is feasible and is able to contribute to the security of real-world web applications. SCAT managed to detect 94% of security vulnerabilities found in the testing benchmarks; this clearly indicates that the proposed model is able to provide an effective solution to complicated web systems by offering benefits of securing private data for users and maintaining web application stability for web applications providers

Detecting and Preventing SQL Injection and XSS Attack using Web Security Mechanisms

In this paper we proposed a system prototype tool to evaluate web application security mechanisms. The methodology is based on the idea that injecting realistic vulnerabilities in a web application and attacking them automatically can be used to support the assessment of existing security mechanisms and tools in custom setup scenarios. To provide true to life results, the proposed vulnerability and attack injection methodology relies on the study of a large number of vulnerabilities in real web applications. To remove the vulnerabilities by implementing a concrete Vulnerability & Attack Injector Tool (VAIT) for securing web applications. To prevent various attacks like follows: 1. SQL Injection (SQLi) 2. Cross Site Scripting (XSS) 3. Brute Force Attack 4. Shoulder surfing Attack 5. Social Attack. 6. Dictionary Attac

Securing Web Applications from malware attacks using hybrid feature extraction

In this technological era, many of the applications are taking the utilization of services of internet in order to cater to the needs of its users. With the rise in number of internet users, there's a substantial inflation within the internet attacks. Because of this hike, Web Services give rise to new security threats. One among the major concerns is the susceptibility of the internet services for cross site scripting (XSS). More than three fourths of the malicious attacks are contributed by XSS. This article primarily focuses on detection and exploiting XSS vulnerabilities. Generally, improper sanitization of input results in these type of susceptibilities. This article primarily focuses on fuzzing, and brute forcing parameters for XSS vulnerability. In addition, we've mentioned the planned framework for contradicting XSS vulnerability

Policy-agnostic programming on the client-side

Browser security has become a major concern especially due to web pages becoming more complex. These web applications handle a lot of information, including sensitive data that may be vulnerable to attacks like data exfiltration, cross-site scripting (XSS), etc. Most modern browsers have security mechanisms in place to prevent such attacks but they still fall short in preventing more advanced attacks like evolved variants of data exfiltration. Moreover, there is no standard that is followed to implement security into the browser. A lot of research has been done in the field of information flow security that could prove to be helpful in solving the problem of securing the client-side. Policy- agnostic programming is a programming paradigm that aims to make implementation of information flow security in real world systems more flexible. In this paper, we explore the use of policy-agnostic programming on the client-side and how it will help prevent common client-side attacks. We verify our results through a client-side salary management application. We show a possible attack and how our solution would prevent such an attack