Web Services Security Research Articles

Python's Role in Accelerating Web Application Development with Django

Efficient, secure, and scalable web services are critical in today's digital environment. This study explores the field of web service development and addresses issues such system efficiency, project duration, and changing requirements. The goal of this study is to ensure reliable and efficient web services by streamlining the development process and utilizing the Django framework. The study highlights the application of Django's Model-Template-View (MTV) design pattern, which is customized for a listing management system. Smooth data interaction and effective system performance are ensured by the study's seamless integration of Django's capabilities with MySQL for database management. To further improve system performance, focus is given to standardizing data sharing protocols and expediting user authentication procedures. The automation of web page construction with Python, HTML, and CSS modules, which increases system efficacy, is a crucial component of the research. Furthermore, the study shows how crucial security measures are, such as encryption for data confidentiality and integrity, which are made possible by the REST API interaction with the front end and the Django REST framework. Along with discussing key attacks and weaknesses that are frequent in web technology, the article also offers strategies to reduce these risks. Through the use of suitable SDLC models and testing procedures, it recognizes the crucial role that software engineering processes play in the development process. Focusing attention to Django's feature set, scalability, and wide library support, the study proves its advantages over competing web frameworks. The goal of the research is to provide developers and students with the skills they need to fully utilize Django's capabilities, making it easier to create dependable, successful and safe online applications. This study advances knowledge in the field of web technology and service development by lighting the development, difficulties, and current solutions in these fields. The study's ultimate goal is to open the door for comprehensive, modern, and efficient web service creation in order to satisfy the growing need for effective web solutions in the current digital era.

A Review of Penetration Testing Process For Sql Injection Attack

In this rapidly developing information technology age, the Internet has emerged as a critical component of modern life. The usage of the web server has become crucial in providing services to users for various transactions like online banking, online purchasing, and web-based email. Due to this atmosphere, protecting a web server from cyber-attacks became essential to prevent data breaches. Secured coding implementation in developing online systems is crucial, as failure to do so will result in an SQL injection attack. Another problem concerning this problem is configuration against security devices, which makes the attack possible to be executed. Furthermore, owing to the emergence of technology, cyber intruders can utilize various techniques and sophisticated tools to steal information easily. Penetration testing is the approach that can be taken to measure a web server's security level and prevent an attack. This study aims to review SQL injection attacks and describe the required steps to execute penetration testing successfully. Next, the practical SQL injection attack was executed according to the penetration methodology. The outcome indicates that cyber intruders can log in as regular users and steal sensitive information if the web server is vulnerable to attack.

Enhancing Web Server Security against Layered Cyber Threats in Healthcare

Information technology plays an important role in improving operational efficiency at Torabelo Hospital. The server system in use today faces security and optimization challenges. This research analyzes the impact and recommends solutions to improve server security and optimization. The findings show that the server system is vulnerable to various types of attacks and performance degradation. This can negatively impact hospital operations and put patients at risk. The recommended solution is to implement Squid as reverse proxy, WAF (Web Application Firewall), and Snort as IDS (Intrusion Detection System). System testing showed that this solution successfully detected and prevented various common attacks. This research provides insights to health IT professionals to improve the security and performance of their server systems and improve healthcare services to patients at Torabelo Hospital.

Apache web server security with security hardening

With the internet network, we can quickly get information very quickly. The information we get is not changed by people not authorized to access the system or platform. Apache is a web server often used to connect users with websites where the information is located. The more users there are, the more crimes there will be when attacking the web server by irresponsible people. Due to limited time for web administrators, to improve the security of the Apache web server, an intrusion detection system is needed that can help monitor network traffic and detect the type of attack that is occurring and then forward the notification to the mobile application in real-time, because attacks can occur at any time. Intrusion Detection is one implementation of the security hardening method for the software hardening category. The results of this research will be that the system will detect intrusion attempts based on the rules created, and users will receive notifications to the Telegram application and can see details of incoming reports such as the attacker's I.P. address, description of the intrusion, name of the security hole, time of intrusion, and payload used.

Penerapan OPNsense Sebagai Sistem Keamanan Web Server Menggunakan Metode Host Instrusion Prevention System

This research was conducted to detect and prevent disturbances or intrusions that occur on web servers, because by default the security system on web servers in a network still depends on the administrator, so the security of server really depends on the alertness of an administrator in responding to disturbances that occur on the web server. This research is using experimental method. This research was carried out by implementing OPNsense as a web server security system using Host Intrusion Prevention System method. The experimental results are then documented to carry out analysis so that appropriate recommendations are produced for designing a web server security system using HIPS method. The results of this research show that OPNsense can be used as a Host Intrusion Prevention System for LAN networks to secure web servers. OPNsense can prevent Port Scanning carried out on LAN networks. SQL injection process failed because no ID parameter was found. Apart from that, information is also visible that the web server is protected by WAF/IPS. Metasploit application via eth0 does not have permission to carry out a DOS attack on network devices with the address 192.168.80.200, which is the address of the web server.

Web-Service Security and The Digital Skills of Users: An Exploratory Study of Countries in Europe

This study explores the impact of internet users’ and web owners’ knowledge, measured by the level of digital skills, on the number of insecure websites based on a survey of the internet. The influence of the affordability of internet access to the web space on the vulnerability of a particular European country is also considered. The study introduces a quantifiable index for assessing the insecurity of websites that is incorporated into a newly developed tool that scans websites and identifies the vulnerability in the Web Content Management System (WCMS). The collected vulnerability data and the digital skills are analyzed with statistical methods for finding the interdependences and relationships. Higher levels of digital skills and lower fixed-internet-access costs contribute to a smaller number of insecure websites. The vulnerability of the websites for different economic sectors is explored as well. The paper discusses the differences in the digital development pathways and governmental policies applied in European countries that have been affected by user knowledge and digital skills. The study brings original results and findings, as there are no similar studies addressing the impact of the knowledge of a country’s population on the level of insecurity found in the WCMS, including plug-ins.

Аналіз методів і засобів забезпечення кібербезпеки веб-сервісів з використанням штучного інтелекту

A thorough analysis of literary sources on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in cyber security was carried out. During the examination, the most significant attention was paid to sources describing the use of AI-based applications to analyze and evaluate existing systems for vulnerabilities, as well as to sources that consider the features of using built-in AI mechanisms for searching, detecting, classifying, and combating attacks on the system during her works. The types, impacts, and features of attacks on web services are defined. The features of the application of AI for the classification of web services under test are considered, with the aim of further justifying the selection of the best tools for ensuring their cyber security. The methods of using AI in the cyber security of web services during the introduction of built-in mechanisms and models for searching, detecting, classifying, and countering threats are analyzed. The accuracy of machine learning methods used to detect intrusions was compared. Directions for further research can cover: the development of methods, models, and applications based on the use of AI for analyzing the source code for possible vulnerabilities of a web service with support for various programming languages and the development of mechanisms for search and classification of threats based on the use of AI built into the web service.

Web-Based Reporting Vulnerabilities System for Cyber Security Maintenance

To maintain secure web services and IT infrastructure, this has proposed the prototype of a vulnerability reporting system. Among these reporting systems developed to deal with problems of maintenance and analysis report management system which not yet been implemented in the cyber security scanning tool, Nessus. The system, which was designed to manage and analyze cyber security maintenance by focusing on vulnerability reports, was based on web-based technology. To ensure that the prototyping system could be used quickly, the development process employed the prototyping-rapid application development technique. The administrator of this system may easily manage and keep track of the report following the activity of scanning the cyber security maintenance for vulnerabilities.

Implementation of JSON Web Token on Authentication with HMAC SHA-256 Algorithm

The rapid growth of information technology is influenced by globalization to accelerate access to information. This creates new problems, as differences must produce relevant information. Of course, system integration will be required. Web Service is a system integration solution that does not consider the platform, architecture, or programming language used in different sources. The security of web service is considered not yet implemented. The JSON Web Token (JWT) technology is an authentication mechanism for web service and will have a significant impact on data security. This implementation optimizes JWT security with the HMAC SHA-256 algorithm. Testing is conducted on two information systems by comparing the performance size when JWT technology is applied to Tim Bebersih Masjid Information System. The results show that the implementation of JWT on Windows Server 2019 (VM) is 462.8 ms with an average data size of 8.59 kb. Testing on the Windows 10 operating system obtained an average speed of 216.25 ms with an average data size of 8.59 kb. The result on Windows Server 2019 (VM) from the JWT performance test itself obtained the highest result, due to the use of virtual machine which is considered to consume a lot of RAM, resulting in performance that is 2 times higher. Keywords: Algorithm, HMAC SHA-256, JSON Web Token, Web Service, Virtual Machine

PIRAP: Security Assessment Framework for Heterogeneous Web Service Composition

In recent times, enterprise environments such as E-banking, E-commerce, etc., are greatly affected by the evolution of web services and their associated attacks. The process of web service composition gives rise to security issues due to the incompatibility standards of the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and representational state transfer (REST) features and the compromising service-level agreement (SLA) between the end parties which has not been considered yet. Also, the security assessment process needs to cooperate with good security standards and web services. In case of heterogeneous web services, assessment done using machine learning technologies makes use of pattern analysis where this does not work with the evolving trend behind the web service environment. Hence, there is a need for a security assessment model which will incorporate finite state machine (FSM) in its assessment process to keep track of the various WS-attacks that arise in the web application via web services in heterogeneous environments. The proposed model does the web service composition by compromising all the security conflicts that arise due to the usage of dissimilar web services. We experimented the concept by testing several web services and observed that the performance of the proposed framework in attack detection is accurate and automatic thereby achieving traceability and computability metrics.

Implementation of Web Service Security Using Oauth2 in the Financial Facility Search System

<p>Implementation Of Web Service Security Using Oauth2 In Financial Facility Search System. The financial facility search system is an application that makes it easier for people to find the nearest financial facility. A similar application is Google maps which have been widely used to search for financial facilities, but for completeness of information and features, it is incomplete. So financial institutions need applications that can manage data on their financial facilities without other vendor intermediaries. This financial facility search system will be built on a mobile platform and website that is integrated with a web service. Financial facility data can be accessed publicly by the public so that the integrity of financial facility data needs to be maintained and secured from several threats that may occur. One such authentication process is the OAuth2 method. With the existence of OAuth2, this financial facility search system can overcome threats that may occur so that data integrity can be maintained.<strong></strong></p>

Analysis Of the Behavior of Cyberattacks on Online Services Using the Cyber Threat Classification

The paper contains a study of the dynamics of attacks on online services using the categorization of cyber threats by type in the corporate network of the Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The study was conducted using online service logs and allows solving pressing issues related to ensuring the built-in security of web services, such as: identifying both current and future cybersecurity risks. A summary of the most important logging and analysis techniques is provided. The authors describe the nature and content of the data sources and the software used. The extensive observation period of the study is one of its outstanding features. The structure of the processing system is provided and software tools for attack analysis and categorization are created. The paper shows that using categorized sampling allows for the detection of periodicity and the identification of patterns in specific types of attacks. A correlation matrix was created based on the type of attack. Except for Command Injection, Directory Browsing, and Java Code Injection attacks, which can be aggregated, the research found that most attack types had poor correlation. Based on the classification of cyber threats, the authors proposed a heuristic technique of risk comparison.

Improving Security of Web Servers in Critical IoT Systems through Self-Monitoring of Vulnerabilities.

IoT (Internet of Things) systems are complex ones that may comprise large numbers of sensing and actuating devices; and servers that store data and further configure the operation of such devices. Usually, these systems involve real-time operation as they are closely bound to particular physical processes. This real-time operation is often threatened by the security solutions that are put in place to alleviate the ever growing attack surface in IoT. This paper focuses on critical IoT domains where less attention has been paid to the web security aspects. The main reason is that, up to quite recently, web technologies have been considered unreliable and had to be avoided by design in critical systems. In this work, we focus on the server side and on how attacks propagate from server to client as vulnerabilities and from client to unprotected servers; we describe the concerns and vulnerabilities introduced by the intensive usage of web interfaces in IoT from the server templating engines perspective. In this context, we propose an approach to perform self monitoring on the server side, propagating the self monitoring to the IoT system devices; the aim is to provide rapid detection of security vulnerabilities with a low overhead that is transparent to the server normal operation. This approach improves the control over the vulnerability detection. We show a set of experiments that validate the feasibility of our approach.

Mitigation Web Server for Cross-Site Scripting Attack Using Penetration Testing Method

The increasing number of user-oriented applications uploading all their information to the web is causing cyber-attacks and data theft. One of the most prevalent vulnerabilities is Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). Intruders take advantage of these attacks to access sensitive user data. This study aims to mitigate XSS attacks by using the penetration testing method as an official effort to improve web server security. The subject of this research uses the login form from the academic information system web server. This study offers a mitigation system prototype against XSS using the penetration test method and the secure code algorithm. This method plays a role in obtaining vulnerability data and security code as a prevention system. The results of this study indicate three categories of web server weaknesses: five at the high level, 164 at the medium level, and 52 vulnerabilities at the low level. Mitigation measures use secure code by denying repeated failed login attempts. These results provide a strategy for web managers to improve security and consider the risk of cyberattacks.

K-Variant Architecture to Improve Security of Web Services and Applications

The K-variant is a multi-variant architecture to improve security against memory exploitation attacks. Unlike other multi-execution architectures, variants in the K-variant architecture are generated by program transformations at the source code level. Because variant generation processes can be automated, the cost of systems has significantly decreased compared to similar architectures such as N-version. Multi-execution architectures were designated to improve the security of the mission and safety-critical systems. However, to meet the high-security requirements of organizations and companies, multi-execution architectures have been utilized to enhance the security of web services and applications. The increasing number of memory-related vulnerabilities in web servers and services makes systems vulnerable to memory exploitation attacks. The K-variant architecture can provide statistical security for memory exploitation attacks by providing a diversity of critical data in memory. In this paper, the design of a K-variant architecture for web services and applications is proposed. Also, different levels of diversities in K-variant systems are discussed in the implementation of the K-variant architecture.

A decentralized open web cryptographic standard

Security in web services is not well defined and is largely based on measures employed by the organization providing the service, the effectiveness of which vary greatly depending on the expertise, implementation, and business motivation. To address the mentioned issue, this paper proposes an open standard called Decentralized Open Web Cryptographic Standard (DOWCS) and reference implementation for decentralized protection of sensitive data. Services may adhere to the standards, to assure security to the end-user. Taking OAuth and PGP as reference models, the standard incorporates multiple layers of security to ensure secrecy of the said data while also decentralizing the key information required to derive the confidential data from the encrypted format.

Digital Signature with RSA Public Key Cryptography for Data Integrity in SOSE-Based E-Government Systems

Purpose: SOSE is a novel software paradigm suitable for development of flexible, loose-coupled and end-to-end E-government system. However, the use of this innovation for E-government system is dwindled by security challenge. Apparently, the TLS (transport layer security) solution traditionally applied to protect SOSE-based E-government systems is inadequate since it can only secure point-to-point channels of communicating. Whereas, an end-to-end security protection is necessary to adequately protect SOSE-based applications. Design/Methodology/Approach: Consequently, this paper proposed use of Digital Signature by RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) public key cryptographic algorithm at the message level to achieve data integrity in SOSE-based E-government system. Findings/Result: The SOAP message content shows adequate formulation of digital signature with appropriate indicators of RSA public key to ensure data integrity. The SOAP message shows that SignedInfo, Signature Value and KeyInfo were formulated correctly. The SignedInfo contains Canonicalization Method, Signature Method and Reference subelements. Also, SignatureValue element has encrypted digest and the KeyInfo element has security token reference. Originality/Value: This security solution integrates many technologies including OASIS’s web service security standard and W3C’s (World Wide Web Consortium) XML digital signature into SOAP envelope to ensure data integrity for E-government system at the message level. Paper Type: Applied Research.

Configuration Method of AWS Security Architecture That Is Applicable to the Cloud Lifecycle for Sustainable Social Network

Recently, due to the many features and advantages of cloud computing, “cloud service” is being introduced to countless industries around the world at an unbelievably rapid pace. However, with the rapid increase in the introduction of cloud computing services, security vulnerabilities are increasing and the risk of technology leakage from cloud computing services is also expected to increase in social network service. Therefore, this study will propose an AWS-based (Amazon Web Services) security architecture configuration method that can be applied for the entire life cycle (planning, establishment, and operation) of cloud services for better security in AWS Cloud Services, which is the most used cloud service in the world. The proposed AWS security guide consists of five different areas, Security Solution Selection Guide, Personal Information Safeguard Guide, Security Architecture Design Guide, Security Configuration Guide, and Operational Security Checklist, for a safe social network. The AWS Security Architecture has been designed with three reference models: Standard Security Architecture, Basic Security Architecture, and Essential Security Architecture. The AWS Security Guide and AWS Security Architecture proposed in this paper are expected to help many businesses and institutions that are hoping to establish and operate a safe and reliable AWS cloud system in the social network environment.

The Single Page Application architecture when developing secure Web services

The article is devoted to the development of a prototype of a secure single page-application (SPA) web service for automating user information accounting. The relevance of this study is very high due to the use of web services. The article provides a classification of web applications and shows the features of the architecture of a single page application used in the development of the service. Based on a comparative analysis of the architectural styles of the API, the most appropriate style was selected. Considered and taken into account the key points of the development of a secure application programming interface (API), the requirements that must be met by RESTful API services. The work used popular authentication schemes (methods). A comparative characteristic of web frameworks of the Python programming language is given, on the basis of which a tool for implementing a web service is selected. Shows the main advantages of using Python when developing paged web services and the security tools included in the standard package of the Flask web services development framework. Shows how to securely prototype a Python RESTful SPA Web Service API using Flask. An example of using the Swagger tool to describe the specifications of the developed API is given. The process of setting up the application is considered in detail. The main recommendations for securing a web application, setting up a database and a web server are listed. The key points of ensuring the protection of the developed web application are considered. Conclusions are made regarding the choice of the architectural style of the application API, the most suitable tools and technologies for the software implementation of the service.

Web Service Composition Security

The continuous adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and web services across vertical industries, geographies, and organization sizes generates new major security concerns both for individuals and organizations. Many of the features that make web services attractive, including greater accessibility of data, dynamic application-to-application connections, and relative autonomy are at odds with traditional security models and controls. Current web service composition technologies still present serious risks to individual and enterprise security and privacy. In the presence of multiple providers that coordinate to provide a composite web service, these issues are amplified. Web services security, privacy, and forensics investigations are therefore becoming a serious concern, especially with the tremendous increase in cybernetic crimes. The aim of this work is to draw a comprehensive overview about security aspects related to web services composition by considering different branches related to security, privacy, and forensics investigations. For each security aspect, the problem statement and related works are discussed. Then, a proposed approach to deal with the aspect under consideration is presented.