The modern era has eventually provided the efficient utilization of latest technology, which has significantly transformed our lives.
The advancement in the information technology field, which is entirely based on several programming languages and artificial intelligence, has improved the entire market.
Besides the progression, there exist some loop holes that may directly or indirectly affect any IT infrastructure. One needs to be very precise while developing software that ensures adequate security for both users as well the company.
Here we’ll discuss some crucial information security aspects that must be kept in mind by the web developers while designing a product.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality simply means that the information must be provided to the one who is authorized to get it. There are various aspects that decide the concept of confidentiality. These aspects are typically authorization, authentication, and encryption, which ensure that the right person has the access to the information.
A website or a web application must be designed by keeping all the necessary characteristics of confidentiality in mind. Apart from this, it is the duty of the developer and software testing team to ensure that their product is up to the mark.
Authorization and Authentication
The authorization decides that whether the authentic user is allowed to utilize a particular data or information or not. There are certain things that make a decision while authorizing a user. For example, a net banking user has an access to a particular account and is authorized to use their personal account for any transaction.
One cannot access other’s account, though they can access the website or online portal, which is open for all.
The term authentication, on the other hand, refers to a systematic process of identifying the person having the access to the piece of information. It can be done by numerous approaches. These approaches may include a Personal Identification Number (PIN), a token generating system, and some advanced systems may also have biometric authentication systems.
The only information that is made public must be provided to every user regardless of any authentication, and the private members must provide a valid authentication proof to access the private data.
It should be on the priority that a user can only see a particular data, and ample security must be provided by utilizing proper encryption techniques.
Encryption
Encryption is one of the significant aspects that ensure the confidentiality. It is a technique of changing or altering the format of the data or information, which ensures that the information, reaches securely to the destination. Encryption prevents unauthorized access to the personal information a user such as a bank account details, passwords, and other crucial information.
The information is encrypted by using certain techniques such as a Secure Socket Layer, which changes the format of the information while it is sent from the host to the server. This information is then decrypted by using some special technique to avoid any chances of unauthorized access.
As a web developer, it’s your responsibility to use the latest encryption technology to avoid any security threat, which may eventually result in loss of personal information of your users. It becomes essentially important for companies to ensure proper data encryption if they are dealing with projects offering payment gateways for authentic payments.
Integrity
Confidentiality of a data provides the access of the data to particular users; Integrity ensures that the data is altered by only an authorized personnel. The integrity emphasizes on providing a secure access to the officials of a website or a web application.
There are numerous cases in which several alterations were made by the unauthorized people due to a loop hole in the design and model of the application.
The backend of a website must be designed by writing good code and ensuring adequate security that prevents any unauthorized access to the backend of the system.
Apart from this, some developers prefer to use third-party tools that prevent any alterations to the code by blocking the suspected users to access the admin panel of a website or software.
Availability of Services
Another important aspect is the availability of the services whenever a user demands an access. A developer must always build a web program by precisely analyzing the purpose of that particular product.
It simply means that your website must be available whenever a user wishes to access the information. Furthermore, it has been seen that due to lack of proper recovery system, one can eventually lose the data or information of their website.
One can make the use of recovery tools as well as recovery programs that help in recovering the data in case of any disaster with your website. Furthermore, these tools help in securely saving your data so that no third person can have an access to the crucial data.
One should never neglect the importance of the company’s confidential data, which might not be used by the company anymore. As this data can create certain threats to your existing website and proper data destruction could be the best option if the data is no longer needed.
There are numerous instances when a user tries to avail the services, and due to server error or other issues, the website is unavailable. One should ensure that they use the best servers for their website
SSL Certificates
SSL Certificate provides data integrity, confidentiality & authentication. SSL certificate will insulate the connection and data transfer between a web server and the browser.
To create an SSL connection it requires an SSL Certificate. When you choose to activate SSL on your web server you need to verify all the identity of your website and your company. Your web server then creates two cryptographic keys – a Private Key and a Public Key. Hence SSL Certificate will create trust by displaying lock icon or green address bar in the browser.
Conclusion
The above-mentioned aspects must be kept in mind while designing a website. It becomes essentially important to emphasize on ensuring proper security and privacy to the users. One should also focus on writing good quality code that can handle a good amount of traaffic without any malfunctioning.
It is an obvious thing that the developers may require some third-party tools that provide adequate security to the website offering payment services. A payment gateway provides optimum security and securely transfers the crucial information like bank details to the server.
Article Updates
- Updated Jan 2018 – Added More points.
Janice Cook is a renowned system architecture in the United Kingdom having a good experience in development and designing of a product. She is also a part time blogger and loves to write about the trending technology and programming languages.