Security is among the top concerns, which need great attention and most of the beginner developers lack in the skills required to make a website secure. As per a recent study carried out in 2014 and published in “International Journal of Advances in Computer Networks and its Security” about 90% of the websites are vulnerable to the hacking attacks. The insecure coding of a website is targeted by the hackers.
PHP is one of the most secure web development frameworks and this is why, most of the entrepreneurs prefer PHP for the development of their websites. PHP is also one of the most commonly used web frameworks for developing the websites by the providers of web development Afghanistan. However, sensitive information can be stolen even from the PHP websites by manipulating the URL parameter.
Here are some vital PHP techniques which can be implemented by the web development Afghanistan providers and PHP developers to minimize the web security issues.
Restrict Foreign Access
By using the appropriate script in the httpd.conf files in the Apache server, one can restrict the foreign access. Also, for restricting the foreign access, it is important to manage the scripting pages, data files and configuration files separately.
Configuration of the PHP.ini File
By properly configuring the PHP.ini files, the most common PHP hacking attacks can be avoided. The PHP.ini is used for registering the Server, Cookie, POST and GET, and by using the global variables, it can be manipulated. Some of the ways of securing the PHP.ini files include:
- Setting the value of allow_url_fopen to 0 in order to disable it.
- Hiding the configuration files and restricting any access to them.
- Enabling safe_mode in the websites’ configurations
- Opening the base-dir restrictions in the server directory.
Securing Input Programming Data
The input validation security is a technique, which is used to defend against the buffer overflow and injection attacks. It is recommended that use the correct length, syntax, time of programming for scrutinizing the first use and numerically validating the string content.
The Type Casting variables can also be leveraged in the casting technique for PHP for securing the input data programming from the uncontrolled external sources.
Prevent Error Disclosure
Any sort of error in the website coding, such as crashing error or any other relevant error may disclose the confidential and unnecessary information. Moreover, the disclosed information may be translated into sensitive information disclosure by the website hackers. In the event of crashing error, the valuable information such as uninitialized variables, passwords and file path may get revealed to the malicious users. The error functions and logging settings can be fixed using the relevant code. Also, it is recommended that one should use unique names instead of the obvious names for the restricted control panels.
Security should always be the top priority of all the web developers as the hacking attacks not only steal the sensitive information, but can also cause serious damage to the system, which may result in the loss of services. But, with the help of aforementioned tips and techniques, you can secure your PHP based websites and web pages.