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The internet environment and the web technologies are facing unique threats from
the information security perspective. While in the past most of the focus was on
securing the network infrastructure, in the last years focus has been shifted
from the network and the infrastructure to the application layer. This is due to
the fact that the infrastructure (i.e. network and OS) security has improved
significantly while web applications has remained vulnerable. Thus, the
application layer has become the main target of attacks.
In the course we will discuss how the traditional application aspects like,
authentication, confidentiality and data integrity apply to web applications
(including the emerging standards for authentication (OpenID)). In addition, we
will learn in depth what web application vulnerabilities are, what causes them,
how to prevent them from design/coding and testing perspectives, and what
countermeasure are required to prevent exploitation of these vulnerabilities.
We will cover both the vulnerabilities that are common in traditional web
applications (or first generation web applications), as well as the
vulnerabilities that are unique to Web 2.0 (or AJAX based) web applications.
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