Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Web security still outstandingly mediocre, experts report

XSS marks the spot

Black Hat EU Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities continue to dominate the list of most common vulnerabilities found in real-world tests.

In more than a third (37 per cent) of cases, a website vulnerable to XSS is also vulnerable to a more critical flaw such as SQL injection or improper access control, according to web security testing firm High-Tech Bridge.

Insecure WordPress blogging platform installs also continued to pose problems. More than 72 per cent of WordPress installs assessed by High-Tech Bridge had default admin panel location and at least one brute-force crackable login/password pair, nullifying any efforts their owners might have made to keep patches up to date.

More than two thirds (77 per cent) of mass website infections with malicious code are possible because of the exploitation of a known vulnerability in an open-source content management system (CMS), its plugin or theme publicly disclosed over the previous three months.

Elsewhere there has been mixed progress on the web server security front. Firms have continued to phase out the obsolete SSLv3 protocol, support for which was exploited in attacks such as POODLE (padding Oracle on downgraded legacy encryption) and others. By the end of September 18 per cent of web servers still support it, compared with 23 per cent recorded by High-Tech Bridge in June 2016.

By contrast there has been no move away from the ageing TLS 1.0 protocol: 96.1 per cent of web servers still support it, compared with 97 per cent in June 2016. Maintaining compliance with the credit card industry’s PCI DSS standard means those who handle credit card data need to drop support for TLS 1.0 from June 2018.

Ilia Kolochenko, High-Tech Bridge’s chief exec, commented: “Both SMEs and multinationals experience serious problems and face financial losses caused by insecure web applications. Traditional web security testing by automated solutions and defence by web application firewalls cannot reliably protect modern web applications any more.

“Companies shall look on DevSecOps and S-SDLC implementation to manage their web application lifecycle. Web application security is a continuous process, not an ad-hoc action or quarterly scan."

High-Tech Bridge’s web security trend findings for the year to date were announced at last week’s Black Hat EU conference. ®

 

Similar topics

Similar topics

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like