Threats to PHP-based Web Applications that You Should Look Out For

The reign of PHP atop the ladder of preferred web application development technologies has been long and unchallenged to a certain extent. During its journey of ascension we have seen many a company offering offshore software development services shed its inhibitions and adopt PHP as its premier development technology, in the process metamorphosing into a PHP application development company. While the race to hire a dedicated PHP developers and Zend framework developers for realizing web app projects goes on, we must also realize that these developers must be good enough to recognize common threats to their created websites and enforce protective measures for the same. Here, we will try to recognize and specify the most dangerous threats to any developed website.

• The simplest and most common, yet dangerous threat is injection. It happens in a variety of ways with the primary goal of running code or scripts on your server end. SQL injection is one such example, where your database queries are sometimes automatically manipulated. This can also happen with non-SQL databases. The other example is code injection.
• XSS attacks are triggered when a user visits a website. XSS stands for Cross Site Scripting. What it does is to inject a JavaScript, HTML or Flash code that is executed whenever a user enters a website. This is commonly achieved through script planting by adding it into the signup forms popular these days on many websites.
• CSRF is more dangerous because it tries to prolong your web session in your name and accomplish tasks on the web. It stands for Cross Site Request Forgery. A query is executed in the background when the user reaches a compromised website. These attacks are more focused on relieving people of their money, but can get them implicated in other serious stuff too.

Just specifying threats isn’t enough. How do we deal with them? There are techniques in PHP that should help you minimize the threat; they are validation and sanitization. Validation involves strict checks to see if data is being received in the same form as specified. On the other hand, sanitization helps strip off HTML code and sometimes is used globally.

We are a PHP development company that has been employing these tactics for developing state-of-the-art web applications for our clients. Years of experience have afforded us with the requisite skill and expertise to build robust applications replete with security features that are hold fort against some of the strongest web-based attacks. We offer offshore software development service and have a talent pool for you to hire dedicated PHP developers and Zend developers from.