How Secure is Your Website or App?

It seems like we’ve moved past the days where the likes of Norton or some other store-shelf anti-virus software were constantly being rammed down our throats – but does that mean that digital and internet security are less of a concern now than before? If recent research and reports are to be believed, it’s actually quite the opposite.

Website and app security in general seems to have become even more tenuous, according to Positive Technology’s 2017 study on web application vulnerability testing. The research revealed some sobering facts that anyone with a digital presence needs to be aware of – whether they’re the owners or administrators or even the users.

The biggest issue that they highlighted across their testing data is that 100% of web applications that they tested had a critical fault of one sort or another. Yeah – that’s right, one hundred percent of them. Even more alarming for us 24/7 browsers and internet junkies, 85% of the vulnerabilities identified would negatively affect the user of the platform in question.

Unsurprisingly, any website or application concerned with the financial services or banking industries were the most pressing, which isn’t surprising considering half their test sample used financial services apps. That’s a little scary considering the fact that many people have hard-earned money that’s in harm’s way.

Additionally, e-commerce and government apps were the second and third most at risk, with attacks on users utilising these apps being the most prevalent insecurity across the board – which puts the onus app owners and also on users.

The resounding takeaway from this report is that as users we need to be exceptionally careful about how we use financial or government applications, but also that the owners of those platforms have to be constantly vigilant about protecting users from attack and the security of their users’ information.

So, as an owner or administrator that’s trying to keep things secure, what’s your first course of action? Well, according to Positive Technology’s security lead Leigh-Anne Galloway, the most crucial thing to do is monitor source code for any vulnerabilities. This is obviously a very technical task, so it will require experts to give source code the once over to ascertain if there are any obvious holes that need to be plugged immediately.

If you’ve got an app in the financial, governmental, or money space, or even if you just want to ensure your product and your customers’ details are safe, why not get in touch with the team at My Online Presence? Their expertise is relevant not just for designing a company’s digital footprint from the ground up, but also securing it. So before you have any sleepless nights run any web app security queries by them and make sure you’re ahead of the curve!