Benefits of Web Penetration Testing

Benefits of Web Penetration Testing

Having an elaborate security network to safeguard your company data is not enough. In fact, you need a system, which performs testing of the network on a regular basis. Penetration testing is what you should opt for in this regard. This is a much recommended form of security testing in which the testers check the strengths of your network and ensure that hackers are not able to do their ‘smart’ and malicious work at all. Web penetration testing is a sophisticated way of testing how sturdy your network and website is in the wake of growing number of hacking attacks. There are other forms of testing as well such as the online vulnerability scanning which is also effective to a great extent; but that is another story. Enumerated below are a few key benefits of using testing of web penetration kind.

• This web penetration testing is one of the best forms of testing to avoid hazardous activities in your website or to avoid jeopardizing the data of your company. Loss of data is quite critical to the business and therefore this testing is highly advocated by security specialists. Over a period of time you would notice that the total costs incurred for the upkeep of your network is reduced.
• Getting web penetration testing done from an authentic and well established internet security firm such as Hackers Locked is imperative as they are well versed with the procedures of testing on myriad types of network setting and have years of experience in doing so. The biggest benefit achieved in this scenario of penetration testing is that you are certified to be hacking proof. This gives a lot of weightage to veracity to your claims as being an authentic site.
• There is a lot of paperwork involved in this entire process of penetration testing. In other words, there is a documentation of all the findings and observations of pre-testing as well as post testing days. Hence, you can easily find out difference in the scenario. Moreover, Hackers Locked security company experts will suggest you plethora of precautions that you need to take in order to guarantee a hacker-proof network.

If you want internet security specialists to perform penetration testing then there are two diverse approaches towards it. The testing can be either manual or automated. In either course of action, immense care is taken by the team of specialists to ensure that they take the shortest time possible to do so as the entire task will take the website or the entire network into a ‘non working’ condition. In other words during web penetration testing, the network or your website does not work. Yes, this is a sort of disruption to your business but it has long-term effects as well.  Another fact of this sort of effective and sophisticated form of testing is that as soon as the gaps  are identified, they are quickly closed as well so to avoid hackers to crack through the code and by privy to confidential data of the company.

Website Security Made Easy

Website Security Made Easy

Online presence is an essential part of any business strategy  today. With all small and large entrepreneurs aiming for a website to extend the reach of customers , website security is a dimension you can afford to ignore

any more. This however is such a specialized area of technology that people with limited IT knowledge cannot comprehend with it. Through this article we intend to create awareness around what simple steps can you take to ensure that your website gains trust of its visitors and is protected against virus or hackers.

Six steps that you can take to make your website secure :

1 Use strong input validation : The most common web application security weakness is the failure to properly validate input from the client or environment. This weakness leads to almost all of the major vulnerabilities in applications, such as Interpreter Injection, locale/Unicode attacks, file system attacks and buffer overflows. Data from the client should never be trusted for the client has every possibility to tamper with the data.

In many cases, Encoding has the potential to defuse attacks that rely on lack of input validation. For example, if you use HTML entity encoding on user input before it is sent to a browser, it will prevent most XSS attacks. However, simply preventing attacks is not enough - you must perform Intrusion Detection in your applications. Otherwise, you are allowing attackers to repeatedly attack your application until they find a vulnerability that you haven't protected against. Detecting attempts to find these weaknesses is a critical protection mechanism.

2 Harden server level file permissions : If you are lucky, your web hosting provider has all the file permissions set up in such an effective way that you will never need to care.  However this is not always the case ,so first, you may need or wish to understand how file permissions work. Most web servers run some variant of UNIX/Linux. On these systems, file permissions can be changed via chmod.There are several possible ways to change file permissions on a UNIX/linux webserver:

• with the "change permissions" option of your current FTP client program like FileZilla (see your FTP documentation)
• with the file manager of your web hosting control panel (see your host documentation)
• by issuing chmod shell commands (if you're not familiar with shell access, use one of the above)
• If you have a c panel like software installed , you should look for an option that in File manager which allows you to set file permissions

3 Disable Trace and Track methods on your web server : Cross site scripting vulnerabilities can be prevented by making sure only the required HTML methods are enabled on your web server .It is not uncommon to see a low-level vulnerability show up on a PCI Compliance Assessment Scan:  Web Server HTTP Trace/Track Method Support Cross-Site Tracing Vulnerability.  The wording for this vulnerability can be a little misleading because one can be vulnerable due to TRACE being enabled, because TRACK is enabled, or because both are enabled. Although these methods are useful for legitimate purposes, they may compromise the security of your server by enabling cross-site scripting attacks (XST). By exploiting certain browser vulnerabilities, an attacker may manipulate the TRACE and TRACK methods to intercept your visitors’ sensitive data. The solution, of course, is disable these methods on your web server.

On Apache you can disable TRACE and TRACK methods via the following process:

• RewriteEngine on — enables Apache’s rewrite module (this directive is not required if already present in your htaccess file)
• RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(TRACE|TRACK) — targets all TRACE and TRACK request methods for the following rule
• RewriteRule .* - [F] — return a 403 Forbidden error response for all matched conditions (i.e., all TRACE and TRACK methods)

4 Scan your website : Its is advisable to scan your website on a daily / weekly basis . New vulnerabilities are discovered every day . Online vulnerability scanners are the best and easiest way to stay ahead of hackers. These scanners are so simple to work with that you just have provide your IP or URL and the scans are automatically setup. You may even sign up for a commercial service , this ensures that the service is delivered to you in an automated and managed way. When a High risk issue is found with your website a message appears on your cell phone or Email . The reports provided by such service providers also give insights to solutions to these issues. Some advanced services would give you access to a secured dashboard area which will summarize the results of all scans in a snapshot. This can help you focus on the most vulnerable webservers or solve the most critical findings first.

5 Website Security Certificate : SSL certificates do a lot of good to your website in terms of providing transport layer security to your customers. Another area where SSL certificates can be very useful is identity assurance . With Phishing threats becoming more and more propellant in the wild your customers can verify your websites identity looking at the SSL certificate endorsed by a root authority like VeriSign . However SSL certificates are not the only certificate that can endorse your website security. Other website security certificates popularly known as trust seals or website seals can also help you endorse trust and confidence to your customers. Recent research has shown that customers tend to buy more from websites who have displayed some kind of security certificate .

6 Use Strong Passwords : This is by far the most easy thing that you can ensure that your website is not hacked by a simple brute force or dictionary attack. Some password policies suggest or impose requirements on what type of password a user can choose, such as:

• the use of both upper- and lower-case letters (case sensitivity)
• inclusion of one or more numerical digits
• inclusion of special characters, e.g. @, #, $ etc.
• prohibition of words found in a dictionary or the user's personal information
• prohibition of passwords that match the format of calendar dates, license plate numbers, telephone numbers, or other common numbers
• prohibition of use of company name or an abbreviation

These are simple steps you can follow to ensure that your website is not a soft target for hackers and virus distributing bots.

Hackers Locked Technologies is a leading provider of trust seals and website seals. To avail such services call us on +401 466 4546 . 

Do ‘Trust Seals’ really guard Trust?

When a visitor first reaches your website, it needs to convey the trust needed for him to even consider the other factors about your product or service. Does your website convey this trust effectively? Online shoppers have different needs as compared to people shopping at brick-and-mortar stores. Both worlds cannot be compared from sales and marketing perspective.

In a typical brick-and-mortar store, buyers can see, touch, and even try the physical products. They can see the legitimacy of a store with the owners or employees standing right in front of them. When they make a payment, they receive the correct change and a receipt immediately. All these factors make shopping in brick-and-mortar stores smooth, easy, and worry-free for shoppers. It is very important that your website is able to convey this trust in the virtual world.

A Trust Seal on your website is a good start. Small and medium businesses face tremendous challenges while establishing a brand to start with. The biggest one being how a visitor believes that you are an established player in the market and are not a fraudulent entity. A visitor also needs to be sure that your website is secure and the customer’s private information and credit card data is handled safely.

McAfee Secure, Hacker Safe, Scan Alert, Trust guard and Hackers locked are few providers who are offering such website security seals or trust seals. However when you compare these services one of the key factor is how many of these services are offered by a specialist security company and at what price. On these questions Hackers Locked definitely scores over others.

When you buy a trust logo from Hackers Locked and display it on your website, you customers can follow the same by clicking on the daily updated trust seal. Immediately your security status is showcased by displaying a website security certificate. This shows that your website has gone a website security check on a daily basis and passed the test.

This is the time when a new visitor can be sure that he is ready to buy and share his or her credit card information with your website. Indeed at this stage you can be assured that a trust seal from Hackers Locked when displayed on your website is the true trust guard you can possibly have.

Website Security Check Simplified

Hackers exploit security vulnerabilities in popular web software such as blogs, forums, CMS, image galleries and wikis to insert hidden illicit content into web pages of innocent third-party web sites. Thousands of website owners are unaware that their sites are hacked and infected with viruses and malicious codes.

Even worse situation would be to find the home page of your website replaced by a hacked web page. This would cause a major dent in customer confidence and visitors would not be able to trust your virtual presence any more.

This is also why a website security scan or a website security check is a must to ensure that your website is trust worthy and has taken sufficient measures to protect its integrity.

Website Security, Website Security Check, Website Security Testing, Web Application Security, website penetration test are all variants of initiatives that walk the same path of ensuring that a website is tested for any major vulnerabilities that exist in its technical design and can therefore be exploited by an hacker.

Here are few simple steps that you can take to ensure that you walk the right path for your websites security:

1. Perform a website security check: Google your way to a trusted website security testing firm or vendor. Look at their website and see if they look like a specialist firm who focus on security related topics or are like another all in one web shop offering website design, development and SEO services. If this is the case skip this vendor and move on. Short list a few website security testing vendors and call / email them. Ask them for their delivery model, track record or sample reports. If possible talk to one of their clients or look for a testimonial section that says something about the quality of their penetration testing skills.

2.  Enroll for a Malware scanning service: Look for a service that scans your website for malware and virus on a daily basis and warns you before you get blacklisted on the web. If you have undergone a website security check then it is very unlikely that your website is infected with a virus as most virus infections take advantage of existing and known vulnerabilities. In case you performed a worthy website security checks and plugged the gaps you can be assured of a safety net. However it’s worth the effort to enroll your website for such a service. Make sure the service provider also has the capability to help you clean the infected website, just in case it happens.

3. Perform daily vulnerability scanning on your website: Vulnerability Scanning can act as a very strong proactive control against possible hacks that can be executed on your website at a given time. Look for a vendor who can scan your website using multiple commercial scanners. Open source scanners like open vas and nikito can also be used , However they cannot be as effective when compared to Nessus , SAINT , Found stone etc as these companies put in a lot of effort and research to keep the plug-in updated. As a result you know it first if your website is impacted by an evolving threat.

4. Buy a Website Security Certificate: If you are putting in effort and money to secure your customers trust, why not tell your customers about it. This is where a website security certificate can help you. In fact most ecommerce websites use multiple trust seals to showcase that their website is safe for shopping. The best part of having a website security certificate on your website is that they mostly come with a daily vulnerability scanning service with it. This way the certificate is updated with the daily security status of your secured website. This helps in customers gaining confidence on the website and also enhances sales and conversion rate.

If you are looking forward to have your website undergo a website security check, Website security testing or website vulnerability scanning then Hackers Locked could provide you with a high quality and low priced service. We even offer you free Website Security Certificate with such services. Call us or talk to an online security expert at Hackers Locked.

Simple approach to website security

A Web Portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the search engine standard, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, infotainment, and other features. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether. Websites have almost taken the role of your business card and more. No matter what business you have, you need a website developed as much as you would need a shop or an office. After all who would want to miss on a world market looking for your products or services via the web?

However having a website also poses a security threat similar to any modern day business would have with physical presence. We guard the physical premises with cameras, security guards and modern equipment. Similarly your web presence also needs to be guarded via daily security scanning, website security testing, website penetration testing, website malware scanning and website firewalls.

Of course the million dollar question then is where do you start?

Well the answer is equally simple. The best way to protect your web presence is undergo website security testing. It is a common practice to have any website or software tested for bugs before it is promoted to a production environment. The concept of security testing although not equally popular is similar in nature. The skills required however are completely different, rare and specialized. Only a few specialized security testing vendors focus on hiring the real ethical hackers to provide you sufficient assurance that your website is secure.

The six basic security concepts that need to be covered by security testing are: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, availability, authorization and non-repudiation. Security testing as a term has a number of different meanings and can be completed in a number of different ways. This will ensure that you have covered all aspects of the website that are key elements in any websites security.

After you have undergone a security test from a reputed security testing vendor, you would know exactly what aspects of website security you would need to focus on first.

The next step would be to make the necessary steps that as stipulated by the security tester in the final report. Most penetration testing vendors lack in this area and ignore its important. This is a key element for any security test and should be of utmost importance while you choose your website security vendor. If you are presented with test results that are not described well enough and do not point to SMART recommendations to solve them, you must simply reject the report. Look for clear guidance on how these security gaps could be solved or higher a professional who could solve them for you.

Once you have tested your website for security and fixed them, you must continue to stay vigilant against emerging threats. This is possible via a website security scanning service that you can sign up from a prime security service provider like Hackers Locked. McAfee secure or hacker safe is another such premium scanning service, the differentiating factor when compared to a service like Hackers Locked is the three hundred percent heavy price tag.

Some of the threats you can check and mitigate by doing the above are:

SQL/PHP/JavaScript Injection Vulnerabilities
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
Broken Authentication and Session Management
Insecure Direct Object References
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Security configuration loopholes
Insecure Cryptographic Storage
Failure to Restrict URL Access
Insufficient Transport Layer Protection
Invalidated Redirects and privilege escalation

Once you have undergone a website security check, do not forget to endorse your security status to your visitors by displaying a website security seal or a trust seal. Trust Guard and Hackers Locked Website Security Trustmark are good examples. A website security certificate can help you on compliance requirements and also increase visitor confidence.

If you are a small or medium business looking for a quick yet in-depth review of your website security posture, Hackers Locked is the service provider you would love to work with. 

Is your website secure from hackers?

How secure is your website?

You may not have thought about it so far but as your web presence is becoming a key element in the interfacing you have with your customers, you need to turn around the question.

How secure is your customer?

A customer who is ready to dig inside his pocket to pull his credit card out and share the information related to his hard earned money, while getting ready to buy something online but stops to confirm how sincerely is this web shop taking website security and thorough website testing to prove it to be a genuinely secured website. What he has to believe on is what the customer can look at; he might look for a website security certificate, a website trust logo, a showcased seal of trust or something on the similar lines.

Do customers care about a website security or a trust seal?

Google analytic time and again has proved that lot of potential customer turnouts are from the first couple of pages he visits, due to the insecurity build up with a thought that this is not a secured website. Above all that there are a lot of options while shopping on the web, which are enough to confuse the potential customer, who most of the times end up buying something, which he was not sure of.

In today’s ever widening vertical of online shopping, Website Security Testing has become an important part of every web shop owner’s and customer’s day-to-day life but there are quite a few online business owners who are still not sure of how on-demand Vulnerability Scanning and Website Trust logo is going to help the business owner to transform the visitors into potential buyers or customers as well.

Is Website security testing really complex?

Web application testing and security testing was much simpler a thing in the past, but today with all the latest web application technologies cropping up in the market, it has become a mandatory challenge faced everyday in securing the websites from any external unwanted and unethical activities. Securing your website has become as important as advertising or marketing the products and services which the business or an individual is trying to sell in the market.

 There are complaints that the web vulnerability scanners are too invasive and that is why online business owners choose not to execute them against their websites, but as the security experts say living with the invasion for the ethical reasons is far better than the thousands of websites being invaded everyday for all the unethical reasons. Reports from an automated website security scan are a good way to know a clear overview of your website security level. Manual penetration testing done by a qualified certified ethical hacker is the next best step if the website vulnerability scan report has a lot of genuine findings, in order to secure the website from unethical hackers trying to break in and breach the financial online data security of your valued customers.

What is the solution?

Solutions are also available to address these challenges. Trust-Guard or McAfee Secure or Hacker Safe can give you what it requires to make your website safe and endorse it with a website security certificate. However the price tag attached to such services makes it difficult if not impossible to justify the ROI. This is where Hackers Locked proves to be the trusted security partner for small and medium businesses. Commercial scanners, state of the art reporting portal, email alerts for critical gaps found in your website, we have it all and the price tag is almost 300 % less of what you have to pay to our customers. This is why it was an easy choice for ‘Making Cosmetics INC’ one of many customers who moved from Hacker Safe to Hackers Locked. If you have a website just ask us for a scan report to know the real benefit of staying secured!

Security Webseal or a Website Security Trustmark?

Small business owners with e-stores believe that Website Security Trustmark, Website Security Testing and online on-demand vulnerability scans are something they either don’t need or can’t afford. If you are one of those small business owners you have a reason to think again. Please read on!

Online Vulnerability scans combined with a security Trustmark on your website is something you need if you run an e-store or a popular website. Every website is a target for hackers or malicious scripts. A security Trustmark and a web seal are essentially a way to establish trust with your customers. It not only gives your website a branding boost but also increase conversion rates.

You may probably think, Will my customers buy from my store even though I don’t have a Trustmark and my competition does?

The answer however is No as evidenced by a recent poll showing that 63% won’t purchase from a site that does not display a Trustmark from a highly regarded security company. This cost retailers $21 billion in online sales. Clearly, if you can make visitors feel safe ordering from you, the ROI for your e-commerce site will improve dramatically.

For this and so many other reasons, we strongly encourage all of our clients to contract with a security company they know to be dependable and whose Trustmark they can proudly display on their e-store. It reduces shopping cart abandonment and converts browsers to buyers.

There are many respectable web seals and Trustmark, McAfee Secure, hacker safe, websafeshield, Comodo, Hacker Proof and Hackers Locked for example, who provide website security Trustmark. But no matter which online security company you choose, it is urgent that you not only have one you trust, but also that it is one whose Trustmark your e-store visitors will see and will help convince them to click on the final “Submit Order”. Pricing however is also very important; ideally you should choose a web seal or a Trustmark with the best ROI and a fully automated website security scanning capability. This ensures that your investment is recovered in no time and you make profits with an expanding customer base.