Improving Web Application Security: Threats and Countermeasures

This chapter outlines a generic process that helps you identify and document threats to your application. The following are recommendations on how to use this chapter:

• Establish a process for threat modeling . Use this chapter as a starting point for introducing a threat modeling process in your organization if you do not already have one. If you already have a process, then you can use this as a reference for comparison.

• Use the other chapters in this guide to familiarize yourself with the most common threats . Read Chapter 2, "Threats and Countermeasures," for an overview of common threats that occur at the network, host, and application levels.

  • For more specific threats to your network, see "Threats and Countermeasures" in Chapter 15, "Securing Your Network."

  • For more specific threats to your Web server, application server, and database server, see "Threats and Countermeasures" in Chapter 16, "Securing Your Web Server," Chapter 17, "Securing Your Application Server," and Chapter 18, "Securing Your Database Server."

  • For more specific threats to your assemblies, ASP.NET, serviced components, remoted components, Web Services, and data access, see "Threats and Countermeasures" in Chapter 7, "Building Secure Assemblies;" Chapter 10, "Building Secure ASP.NET Pages and Controls;" Chapter 11, "Building Secure Serviced Components;" Chapter 12, "Building Secure Web Services;" Chapter 13, "Building Secure Remoted Components ;" and Chapter 14, "Building Secure Data Access."

• Evolve your threat model . Build a threat model early and then evolve it as you go. It is a work in progress. Security threats evolve, and so does your application. Having a document that identifies both what the known threats are and how they have been addressed (or not) puts you in control of the security of your application.