Title
Defending Against Web Application Attacks: Approaches, Challenges and Implications
Abstract
Some of the most dangerous web attacks, such as Cross-Site Scripting and <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sql</sc> injection, exploit vulnerabilities in web applications that may accept and process data of uncertain origin without proper validation or filtering, allowing the injection and execution of dynamic or domain-specific language code. These attacks have been constantly topping the lists of various security bulletin providers despite the numerous countermeasures that have been proposed over the past 15 years. In this paper, we provide an analysis on various defense mechanisms against web code injection attacks. We propose a model that highlights the key weaknesses enabling these attacks, and that provides a common perspective for studying the available defenses. We then categorize and analyze a set of 41 previously proposed defenses based on their accuracy, performance, deployment, security, and availability characteristics. Detection accuracy is of particular importance, as our findings show that many defense mechanisms have been tested in a poor manner. In addition, we observe that some mechanisms can be bypassed by attackers with knowledge of how the mechanisms work. Finally, we discuss the results of our analysis, with emphasis on factors that may hinder the widespread adoption of defenses in practice.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1109/TDSC.2017.2665620
IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
Keywords
Field
DocType
Structured Query Language,Security,DSL,HTML,Binary codes,Databases,Organizations
SQL,Language code,Software deployment,Computer security,Computer science,Exploit,Web application security,Web application,SQL injection,Scripting language
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
16
2
1545-5971
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.37
0
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dimitris Mitropoulos19015.14
Panagiotis Louridas234823.77
Michalis Polychronakis3128379.50
Angelos D. Keromytis44678385.02