What makes websites vulnerable? Here's how to protect yourself!

Data leaks, website hacking, internet scams... just hearing these words can give you the shivers, right? Especially if you own or are responsible for a company that sells products and services online.

Unfortunately, news about online fraud is becoming more and more common. But do you know what makes websites vulnerable?

In this content, we provide a complete explanation on the subject. And more! We also clarify the main vulnerabilities and teach good security practices to avoid any type of leak.

 What makes websites vulnerable?

The answer to this question is very simple: any security breach. This could be due to poorly designed websites, flaws in integrations with partner institutions, the lack of a security certificate, authentication issues, among others.

It is worth remembering that as the sale of products and services over the internet grows, cybercriminals develop improved and efficient mechanisms to carry out scams, bringing new concerns and risks to entrepreneurs.

In this sense, it is necessary to constantly pay attention to a series of factors and look for any point that compromises the security of the site and makes it easier for external people to access private data or even control the site.

The best way to deal with this situation is to act faster than the potential criminal, creating mechanisms to respond to the invasion and correcting possible problems that could cause security breaches.

What are the main vulnerabilities of a website?

To avoid vulnerabilities, it is important to know the main ones. Therefore, follow the steps below.

Injection attack

One of the most common avenues used by cybercriminals is the SQL injection attack.

It works like this: for web pages to operate, they use information from a database. This information is collected when we fill out a form with our name, address and telephone number during a purchase, for example.

Based on this premise, cybercriminals fill these fields with corrupted and manipulated data, called SQL injection. If the website in question has poor input sanitization, the criminal gains access and control of this data, being able to make changes, steal data and interrupt the operation.

Authentication failure

Authentication mechanisms for websites were created to ensure that a person requesting access to a certain content is in fact who they say they are. The idea is that unauthorized people can only access a certain place, that is, they have restrictions.

The problem usually appears when the authentication system is not secure and presents inconsistencies. Therefore, cybercriminals take advantage of these authentication failures and steal sensitive information, such as passwords .

Security misconfiguration

Most website vulnerabilities are caused by poor programming or by workarounds that interfere with security configuration. They create loopholes and prevent protection mechanisms from working properly.

Although common, this type of failure can cause serious problems, affecting the business's reputation and generating a bad user experience .

Exposure of sensitive data

Whenever we provide data to a platform, we are trusting it to keep it secure. An example is banking information, such as credit cards or passwords. When a website is not well protected, sensitive data is often exposed due to a lack of adequate security mechanisms.

How to identify vulnerabilities on your website

There are a few strategies for discovering a website’s vulnerabilities. Check out the step-by-step guide:

Be aware of all your assets

To fully understand how your website works, it is important to know all the other instances that are related to it, such as the server and external links. By understanding this, it is easier to map risks and protect data.

Scan your pages

Once you've identified your assets, scan all of your pages for potential errors that could harm your site.

Assess risks and vulnerabilities

Once you have identified all the problems, categorize them by the risks they pose, so you know how to deal with each one.

Solve the problems

Send the issues to the technical team for solutions when they have been recognized and given a priority.

Perform penetration testing

It is important to perform penetration tests on your website to understand how the protection barriers are working and, from there, create counter-responses for any problems that arise.

Monitor regularly and adopt stricter policies

Vulnerability monitoring needs to be constant. This monitoring should always be done, looking for new flaws that have not yet been discovered.

As technology is always evolving, it is possible to create ways to hack into the system, but also to develop new ways to protect yourself. Therefore, your organization needs to adopt strict policies for monitoring security quality.

Here, it is also worth highlighting the need to have a professional with expertise in the subject to assist you with this monitoring.

Practices for securing a website

Identifying and tracking website vulnerabilities should be a constant concern. Therefore, good practices are actions that need to be a constant part of the organization's routine. They are:

• create a hierarchy of access, giving “power” according to the level of authorization to access that the professional may have;
• always keep the company's team trained to avoid falling for easy scams , such as clicking on links that may be suspicious;
• prevent access to dubious websites that may have some mechanism that invades the company's system;
• educate the entire team regarding password security;
• have confidential content encrypted, making it difficult for hackers to invade and for third parties to access it;
• always make backups in a secure cloud;
• use quality firewall and antivirus.

Vulnerable websites are a regular concern for companies, but by taking the necessary measures, this problem can be avoided, preventing various losses from affecting the organization.