Welcome come to a module and assessing application security the module will highlight and examine typical
security problems from an administrative point of view.
The previous module discussed application layer threats and attacks this time emphasis will be on top
administrative practices and approaches to existing problems.
Hints in how to knowledge will be provided to administrators to help them identify and secure applications.
Once risky programs are detected tips on reducing their threat level will be given the stakes are high.
How should an administrator respond to face with the necessity to allow a program to operate or be run
the program in question could for example be a CEO his beloved application or a program that has been
10 years in use in an accounting department that will not pretend to want to learn to use a different
tool.
The old program stores did it in a completely nontransparent manner and it can't be exported to boot.
It would only seem possible for an administrator to report a security problem to a software company
like only after it produced a crisis and hope for a swift reaction.
But what if the producer quit working on the software or simply doesn't want to reply.
Or what if your company is small and they complaint is likely to be ignored.
The problem is a serious one.
If you take a look at the bird's eye view in the slide above it seems like any implemented solution
that conforms to the set of rules we outlined throughout this course.
Filtering traffic using two firewalls and isolated demilitarized zone where high risk programs are running
monitoring web traffic manually and on a regular basis is still inefficient when it comes to databases.
For example a customer database What's the reason for this.
The problem is in the fact that attacks that rely on attempting to access as servers bypass firewalls
in a way that is undetectable for them since an executable server is listening on some port.
If the port is open to an external firewall potential attackers will try to connect directly to an as
Cuil server.
There would not need a proxy in the form of a web application.
If the port is not open attackers will try to connect through port 80 to a computer that is inside the
demilitarized zone and read tunnel traffic to port 14:30 3 or some other port that will help them cross
the firewall.
This is more complicated and requires an attacker to seize control over an entity that is inside the
zone.
The solution is not infeasible however.
On the contrary it is quite likely to be tried.
If someone tries to read or worse still modify the contents of a database they will probably use as
fuel injection for this purpose.
They will manipulate as Cuil queries the attackers queries will be answered to a browser that connects
to a web application and the application will forward them to an S CULE server.
All security solutions in between will simply be bypassed if the web application also turns out to be
vulnerable the environment that can be used to attack it as a browser and port 80 or 443 any security
solutions that the computer network level are ignored.
An updated and well configured web server does not lend security to applications that are run by the
server.
It's often the opposite this course puts emphasis on such situations in particular even a good configuration
of an entire server and web servers won't do much good if a potential attacker is able to establish
a privileged account in the application.
Data snooping can occur if an attacker has local access to a network.
One of the earlier modules discussed is the fact that local attacks account for 80 percent of all attacks.
This means that the majority of security solutions do not apply to us since we connect to a channel
that is beyond them and that's server can be mis configured as well not due to an administrator's mistake
but due to faults of the database that's running on the PC often a database requires a connection to
a client application is made using the account of an administrator for the entire skewl server.
It's unclear why it should need these privileges.
This is the default setting.
Databases are configured and running in this way.