Web Applications

Web Applications

Web applications created by AppMaker faces threats from different threat agents that include cybercriminals and security researchers. A system that is exposed to public internet traffic is prone to continuous attacks. Cybercriminals and hackers are always mapping through systems intending to locate vulnerable points making their attacks untargeted or undirected. Cybercriminals always conduct a trial and error on the organization or personal systems by testing their cyber skills and techniques. Cyber attackers focus on organizations that handle sensitive information, especially financial instruction in a bank or a shopping mall. The goal of many cybercriminals is to hold the data and use it in blackmail the owners and the organization in exchange for money (Holt, 2014). The information might be crucial for other organization that is willing to buy from the criminals. The hackers also might blackmail a company with the customers’ transaction information claiming that they will disclose to make them lose confidence in the organization. Customers are also an easy target for cybercriminals to blackmail and extort money from them. Cyber attackers are dependent on vulnerable systems contributed by direct network connection.

Security researchers, at times, become threats to web applications due to their exposure, experience, and curiosity when handling organization systems. Security researchers are considered threat agents in a scenario where company clients or customers shares confidential information seeking for help from the wrong people. At some point, the take advantage of their role of checking and correcting systems to access unauthorized sites or public sites that contain sensitive information and even lure customers into sharing their sensitive data claiming to be the company’s employees (Lai, 2016). Security researchers are experts using their hacking skills in helping an organization in the identification of vulnerable or critical points that are prone to attacks and also provide a solution to the problem. They earn through finding vulnerabilities in systems, and this triggers them to maliciously provide weak security protection or even cause more weaknesses for an organization system to be hired again and earn more income (Ebrary.net, 2014). The role of the researchers is to identify flaws, but at times they tend to underestimate some of the vulnerabilities that lead to cyber-attacks. Sensitive information might leak or accessed by the security researchers that may decide to use it to blackmail an organization for monetary benefits due to job dissatisfaction or poor compensation plan.

Accidental data leakage due to mistakes made by the developer and also organization poor policy compliance is also a threat agent. Web applications are likely to experience data leakage that is caused by poor policy implementation resulting in unauthorized access to organization sensitive data. AppMaker might also make unintended mistakes on web applications during the development or creation process. The developer’s mistake might cause the web application to fail in protecting its data from unauthorized access. Unintentional data leakage is not caused by other security threats like hacking and viruses that are known to create vulnerabilities to the system. Organization employees also might make mistakes when using the web application that includes using personal gadgets in accessing the application data and results in exposing sensitive information to insecure sites. An organization with a web application accessed by all users makes it a threat when confidential data is placed there (Ebrary.net, 2014). Accidental data leakage affects organization privacy, and the clients or customers may lose their confidence in the company. It is the responsibility of the developer to ensure that the web application meets the standards because data leakage is a foreseen threat and can be handled.

References

Ebrary.net (2014).List All the Possible Threat Agents for This Type of System. Computer Science. Retrieved from https://ebrary.net/84347/computer_science/list_threat_agents_this_type_system

Holt, T. (2014). Theorizing the Motives of Cybercriminals. Psyccritiques, 59(22). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036522

Lai, S. (2016). Combining Reusable Test Cases and Continuous Security Testing for Reducing Web Apps Security Risks. International Journal Of Software Engineering & Applications, 7(6), 75-87. https://doi.org/10.5121/ijsea.2016.7606