Web Security Confidential

Search engine ranking is one thing that many website owners are trying to work on for a long time now. Once you are on top of search engine results, you will be able to have a lot of web traffic that can translate to more revenue and a wider audience for your website. However, one thing that website owners forget is to do a website security check so that they can make sure that their website is not marked by search engines as unsafe. An unsafe website will not be very appealing to any web visitors, thus decreasing traffic.

You need to be aware of the negative aspects in the web that will greatly affect your search engine ranking. A real search engine killer is a great amount of malware. If you have lots of this in your website, you can expect your website to be gone in a matter of days. Be wary of link stealers, content stealers and redirection of traffic. You will lose the traffic on the web that is rightfully yours, thus losing your place in search engine result rankings.

When you have identified the existence of these negative signals that your website might have, it is time to move and eliminate them by doing website security testing so that you can again go back on top of the search results.

First, find a website security check tool that does vulnerability testing so that you can identify malware in your website. You have to do this as soon as you can so that you can find them before search engines can. If the search engines find the malware before the web masters can, the website can suffer in a matter of days or even hours! Next step is to analyze the vulnerability test results and see the pages that it is rendering and then determine the URL based session ID authentication so that you can prevent any redirection of traffic, link stealing and content stealing.

Do not compromise your website’s reputation and the hard work that you have put into the creation of your website. Do a website security check as often as you can so that you can ensure that your website maintains its search engine result ranking. Prevention is better than cure so be vigilant and be wary of any possible black hat operations that may happen to your website.

Any website check expert knows that the best way for you to do a website security check is for you to use several tools as much as you can so that you can extensively test it for any possible vulnerability. Different scanners will give different results and so you need a lot of tools to make these results overlap and give you better protection for your websites. Here are some tools that you can use when you conduct website security testing.

WebScarab is a good website security check tool that was created by Open Web Application Security Project. It functions as a proxy that can evaluate browser requests and replies from the server. It can also conduct packet analysis, and can also be utilized to fuzz websites and look for possible problems on your website. Before you can use WebScarab, you need to create the settings on your web browser properly. Remember to change the proxy settings to 8008 so that this website security testing tool can work.

Paros Proxy is another website security testing tool that works very much like WebScarab. It acquires information from the exchange between the browser and the server and analyzes them for any possible problems. Paros Proxy can also be utilized for any scanning procedure to identify vulnerabilities on the website that you are trying to test. Again, before you use Paros Proxy, always change the port number to 8080.

Do not forget to always test for false positives. When your website security test tools have identified areas in your website that have problems, you should go back to each one of them and test them out individually. This way, you can really double check if there is an existing problem. Insert an SQL code or a script into the website so that you can monitor the response. Once you see any reaction, go to the website and then plug any exploits. This is otherwise known as vulnerability validation. It is another way for any web security expert to really validate if there is an existing problem that needs to be fixed.

Always keep in mind that you should do website security check periodically. You have to be aware that the internet is evolving every minute and there are vulnerabilities that are created every minute. Arm yourself properly by having tools ready and the skills so that you can catch any problems in its early stages and solve them as soon as you can.

Just like any project that anyone thinks of doing, website security testing can also be done efficiently if there is careful planning prior to execution. The more time that you spend in trying to outline the needs and requirements of a website security check, then the less stress and pressure you will feel when you conduct the test itself. Here are some things that you need to think about prior to executing your web security tests.

Ask yourself what your goal really is when you do a website security check. Your ultimate goal may be just seeing that you have the necessary walls to protect you. However, some people who are deep into the workings of the internet may want to have more protection to ensure security of the data that they have. Consider identifying your biggest goal.

Determine the websites and applications that need to be tested. Website security testing may be done simultaneously or one by one. In order to identify the time period you need to allot for this and the tools that you need to use, it is important for you to note how many unique intranet and internet based checks you need to do.

Identify the platforms that all those websites and applications are based on. Some of the tools for website security check only work on certain platforms. Some of them work on just one while others are compatible to all types of platforms. This is an important aspect to think about because it will help you pick out the best website security testing tools and methods that are perfect for your system.

Decide if you are just going to run a quick scan, either unauthenticated or authenticated, or if you are going to go deeper and conduct a much deeper analysis of your system. Some web experts do a quick scan every so often but may also conduct manual comprehensive analysis on a periodic basis to make sure that everything is in good shape. Identify the tools that you will need for your short scan or full security test. Always remember to test all of your web services at each time so that nothing will be left unchecked at any point in time. It is better to be safe than find out that you have a big problem that will take a lot of time and effort to solve.